LK Lander

The LK ("Lunniy Korabl" - "lunar craft") was a Soviet lunar lander and counterpart of the American Lunar Module (LM). The LK was to have landed a single Soviet citizen on the Moon before the Americans, winning the moon race. It completed development and was test flown successfully in earth orbit, but never reached the moon because the N1 rocket required to take it to the Moon was never successful.

Lunniy Korabl compared to Lunar Module

Because the translunar payload capacity of the N1 rocket was only 70% that of the American Saturn V, the LK differed in many ways from the Apollo Lunar Module.

*It had a different landing profile
*It was only 1/3 the weight of the LM (Apollo Lunar Module)
*LK was limited to a crew of one
*It had no docking tunnel (the cosmonaut had to space walk from the LK to the LOK (Soyuz 7K-L3) Command Ship.
*For the deceleration from the lunar orbital velocity LK used the same braking stage, the Block D, which put the stack of LK and Soyuz to lunar orbit.
*The final deceleration, from velocity of 100 m/s at an altitude of 4 km above the lunar surface, was done with Block E stage, which was later used as the ascent stage to return the LK to lunar orbit. LM used landing stage as the platform for liftoff; LK was ascending from a mechanical construction, which didn't have its own means of propulsion.

Design

The LK consisted of four primary modules:

*The "LPU landing gear", which allowed landing on the lunar surface. The LPU remained behind on the lunar surface, acting as a launch pad for the rest of the LK;

*The "Block E" rocket stage, which soft landed the LK on the moon and returned it to lunar orbit;

*The "Lunar Cabin", the pressurised semi-spherical cabin where the cosmonaut was located;

*The "Integrated Orientation System", a pod of small thrusters to orient the spacecraft. Atop the pod was the large hexagonal grid of the Kontakt docking system.

Korolev's N1-L3 plan

Korolev's final plan for a manned landing adopted the same method of Lunar Orbit Rendezvous as Project Apollo.

LOK Command Ship - Lunniy Orbitalny Korabl

A variant of the Soyuz, the LOK (Soyuz 7K-L3) Command Ship (Lunniy Orbitalny Korabl), would carry a two-man crew atop a single three-stage N-1 booster.

A fourth stage pushed the 'LOK', the 'Block D' fifth stage and the 'LK' Lander (not to be confused with Chelomei's LK circumlunar capsule) toward the moon. The 'Block D' fifth stage engine slowed the 'LOK' and 'LK' into lunar orbit.

LK Lander - Lunniy Korabl

Following the coast to the moon, one cosmonaut would spacewalk from the 'LOK' to the 'LK' Lander Lunniy Korabl and enter it.

He separated 'Block D' and LK' from 'LOK' and dropped toward the moon using 'Block D"s engine.

Lunar landing

After 'Block D' exhausted its fuel, the 'LK' lander separated and completed landing using its own engine. As originally planned, an earlier unmanned probe of the Luna programme would act as a beacon for the LK. The lone cosmonaut would collect moonrocks and hoist the Soviet flag.

Earth return

After a day on the lunar surface the LK's engine would fire again using its landing leg structure as a launch pad. To save weight, the engine used for landing would also blast the 'LK' back to lunar orbit for an automated docking with 'LOK'. The cosmonaut would then spacewalk back to 'LOK' carrying the moonrock samples, with the 'LK' being cast off. After this, the 'LOK' would fire its rocket for the return to Earth.

Testing

LK was tested unmanned in Earth orbit three times, as Cosmos 379,Cosmos 398 and Cosmos 434. First test was done on November 24, 1970, second - on February 26, 1971 and the third - on August 12, 1971. All three LKs were brought to orbit with Soyuz rocket. First flight imitated the planned working cycle of the Block E rocket block. Second and third flight were intended to test LK behavior under several flight anomalies. All three flights went well, the LK was considered to be ready to use.

Cancellation

The success of Project Apollo in putting American astronauts on the Moon in 1969 meant that the United States won the Moon race, and that was the deathblow to the Soviet moon program, although plans were drawn up until the early 1970s. Four N-1 launches were attempted but all were failures, despite engineering improvements after each failure. The second launch attempt on 3 July 1969, just 13 days prior to the launch of Apollo 11, was a catastrophic failure which destroyed both the rocket and the launch complex. Subsequently, the Soviets decided to concentrate on the development of space stations, achieving several firsts in the process, and also a long term Mars program, which continues to the present day. [citeweb|title=Russia plans first men on Mars|url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1678539,00.html|publisher=timesonline.co.uk|accessdate=2008-02-05] A replica of LK now stands in Disneyland Paris.

ee also

*Moon
*N1 rocket
*Project Apollo
*Sergei Korolev
*Soviet Moonshot
*Soviet space program
*Soviet space program conspiracy accusations
*Zond program

References