Soviet and Russian Lunar Exploration

Korolev devoted considerable energies during 1965 trying to push Chelomei out of
the moon programme altogether and instead for OKB-1 to run an integrated programme
for around-the-moon voyages and landing, which he argued made more
economic and organizational sense. Eventually, on 25th October 1965, Korolev
managed to wrest the LK moonship back from the Chelomei design bureau. Korolev
was able to offer a stripped-down Soyuz spacecraft as his alternative, which he called
the 7K-L-1. The government must have been persuaded that a design that was already
at an advanced stage was preferable to one that had barely got beyond the drawing
board. Korolev was not able to remove Chelomei altogether, for the government
decided that the UR-500 would continue to be used. Korolev also persuaded the
government to use, as upper stage for the Proton, the block D upper stage then being
fitted out for the N-1 rocket. On 31st December, Korolev and Chelomei formally
signed off on the deal.
It would be wrong to overstate the rivalry between Chelomei and Korolev, for
they seemed able to work together when it mattered, albeit sullenly on Chelomei's
part. This was not the case between Korolev and Glushko, whose relationship seems
to have become truly venomous. With the man-around-the-moon project using the
same block D upper stage and a related cabin, the 7K-L-1, the Soviet moon programme
was at last achieving some economies of scale. The December 1965 agreement
specified the construction of no fewer than fourteen L-1 spacecraft, of which seven
would be for unmanned tests and four for manned circumlunar missions.
Both the Russian moonships, the L-1 Zond and the LOK, were derivatives or
relatives of the Soyuz spacecraft, which in turn was rooted in the designs of the Soyuz
complex, 1962-4. The missions of the L-1 Zond and LOK were closely, even intimately,
linked to the development of Soyuz.
ZOND'S ANCESTOR: SOYUZ
The basic Soyuz was 7.13m long, 2.72m wide, with a habitable volume of 10.5m 3 , a
launch weight of up to 6,800 kg, and a descent capsule weight of 2,800 kg. Soyuz
consisted of three modules: equipment, descent and orbital. The equipment module
contained retrorockets and manoeuvring engines, fuel, solar wings and supplies. The
acorn-shaped descent module was the home of cosmonauts during ascent and descent,
which one entered through the top. There were portholes, a parachute section and
three contour seats. The orbital module, attached on the front, was almost circular,
with a spacewalk hatch, lockers for food, equipment and experiments. Being more
spacious, the cosmonauts lived there rather than the cramped descent module. From
Soyuz there protruded a periscope for dockings, two seagull-like solar panels, aerials,
docking probe on the front and flashing lights and beacons. On top of the Soyuz was
an escape tower. Normally jettisoned at 2min 40 sec into the flight, the purpose of the
escape tower was to fire the Soyuz free of a rogue rocket. A solid rocket motor, with
twelve angled nozzles of 80,000 kg thrust, would fire for 5 sec.