Soviet and Russian Lunar Exploration

Tracking ship Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin
The big step forward was in May 1967, when a new class of large tracking
ship was introduced, starting when the Vladimir Komarov was spotted making its
way down the English Channel for its shake-down cruise. The Cosmonaut Vladimir
Komarov displaced over 17,000 tonnes and had a crew of several hundred with large
radar domes and antennae. Large though it was compared with its predecessors, it was
small compared with the much larger tracking ships that followed: the Cosmonaut
Yuri Gagarin (45,000 tonnes), which became the flagship and the Academician Sergei
Korolev (21,250 tonnes). For Western observers, knowledge of the whereabouts of the
tracking fleet was important in predicting Soviet lunar or manned missions. If the
tracking ships were at sea, then missions could be expected (this became equally true of
the Chinese manned space programme 30 years later).
THE COSMONAUT SQUAD
So much for the hardware. What about the people who would fly to the moon?
The selection of cosmonauts for the moon programme went through a number of
phases:
• The selection of cosmonauts for the general moon programme.
• The division of this group into candidates to train for the around-the-moon flight
(L-1) and the moon landing itself (the LOK and the LK). Some cosmonauts
belonged to both.
• Selection of cosmonauts for the first around-the-moon and landing missions.
• Decline and disbandment of the group. All then returned to mainstream missions.