Soviet and Russian Lunar Exploration

The N-1 engine system
In an effort to compensate for possible first-stage problems, a special control
system was introduced by Vasili Mishin. There was a real danger that the failure of an
individual engine could jeopardize the whole mission. Accordingly, Mishin designed
an engine operation control system, called KORD (Kontrol Roboti Dvigvateli) in
Russian, which would shut down any badly performing engine automatically and a
good engine immediately opposite, so as to preserve the symmetry of the vehicle's
thrust. KORD would also re-programme the burn so as to make up for the lost thrust.
The system could tolerate the loss of four first-stage and two second-stage engines and
still achieve orbit.
Compared with the Gas Dynamics Laboratory, Kuznetsov's OKB-276 was
poorly resourced and lacked any rocket engine testing facilities when it was awarded
the contract for the moon rocket. Korolev was adamant about all-up testing and
would never launch dummy upper stages, which he regarded as wasteful (the