Soviet and Russian Lunar Exploration

have a thrust of 5,760 tonnes, able to put in orbit 151 tonnes, a much better performance
than the Saturn V. It would have been a huge rocket at take-off: 74 m tall,
17.6m in diameter and a liftoff weight of 4,823 tonnes [9].
The UR-700 combined a mixture of strap-on rockets and fuel tanks (like the
Proton) clustered around the core stage, with the three strap-ons jettisoned at 155 sec
and the three core engines burning out at 300 sec. It was a typically ingenious
Chelomei design, one building on the proven engineering achievement of the Proton.
As for power, the engine in development for the R-56, the RD-270, was transferred
from the R-56 to the UR-700. Chelomei's UR-700 had a single third stage, an RD-254
engine based on the Proton RD-253.
The UR-700 was a direct ascent rocket, which Chelomei believed was safer than a
profile involving rendezvous in lunar orbit. Outlines of the UR-700 moonship are
available. These were for a 50-tonne cylindrical moonship with conical top entering
lunar orbit, 21 m long, 2.8 m in diameter, with a crew of two. The moonship would
descend to the lunar surface backwards, touching down on a series of six flat skids.
The top part, 9.3 tonnes, would blast off directly to Earth, the only recovered payload
being an Apollo-style cabin that Chelomei later developed for his Almaz space
stations. In his design, Chelomei emphasized the importance of using multiply
redundant systems, the use of N2O4/UDMH fuels, exhaustive ground testing and
the construction of all equipment in the bureau before shipping to the launch site. One
reason for its slow pace of development was Chelomei's concentration on intensive
ground testing [10].
Like the R-56, the UR-700 was proposed as a moon project before the decision
of August 1964. The N-1 was made the approved man-on-the-moon project in
August 1964 and so, in October 1964, the UR-700 was cancelled and, as we saw,
work on the R-56 was also terminated. Never one to give up, Vladimir Chelomei
continued to advocate his UR-700 design, even getting approval for preliminary
design from the Space Ministry in October 1965, much to Korolev's fury. The
following year, Chelomei got as far as presenting designs showing how the N-1
pads at Baikonour could be converted to handle his UR-700. Chelomei formally
presented the UR-700 to a government commission in November 1966 as an alternative,
better moon plan than the N-1. The government politely agreed to further
research on the UR-700 'at the preliminary level' (basic research only) and this was
reconfirmed in February 1967. Unfazed by this, Chelomei's blueprints for the UR-700
were signed on 21st July 1967, approved by party and government resolution # 1070-
363 on 17th November 1967, three years after the N-1 had been agreed as the final
moon design!
Designs for the UR-700 moonship were finalized on 30th September 1968. First
launch was set for May 1972 and after a successful second unmanned flight, the third
would have a crew (similar to the American Saturn V) with lunar landings in the mid-
1970s. Although a certain amount of work was done on the project in 1968, it is
unclear if much was done thereafter and it does not seem as if any metal was cut.
The programme was not finally cancelled until 31st December 1970. In fairness to
Chelomei, he never claimed, at least at this stage, that his UR-700 could beat the
Americans to the moon. It is possible he saw the UR-700 as a successor project to the