Soviet and Russian Lunar Exploration

moon programme. Although this was nowhere written down, there was probably the
lingering hope that America's rapid progress might hit some delays. But, in their
hearts they must have known that basing their progress on the difficulties of others was
not a sound basis for planning. This was not how the Soviet space programme worked
in its golden years.
Now came a new generation of unmanned Russian moon probes, following the
first generation (1958-60, Ye-1 to Ye-5) and the second (1963-8, Ye-6 and Ye-7).
These were substantially larger and designed to be launched on the Proton rocket and
called the Ye-8 series, of which the programme chief designer was Oleg Ivanovski.
There were three variants:
Ye-8 Lunar rover (Lunokhod) (originally the L-2 programme)
Ye-8-5 Lunar sample return
Ye-8LS Lunar orbiter
Although finally approved in January 1969, these missions had actually been in
preparation for some time in the Lavochkin design bureau. Available first was the
moon rover, or Lunokhod, the Russian word for 'moonwalker', and it was nearly
ready to go. Although the Soviet Union portrayed the Lunokhod series as a cheap,
safe, alternative to Apollo and although Lunokhods followed the American landings,
the original purpose of the series was to precede and pave the way for Russian manned
landings. Ideas of lunar rovers were by no means new and dated, as noticed earlier, to
the 1950s. Design work had proceeded throughout the 1960s. The moon rover was
intended to test the surface of the intended site for the first manned landing; later
versions would carry cosmonauts across the moon. Indeed, they were endorsed in
science fiction. The story of Alexander Kazanstev's Lunnaya doroga (Lunar road) was
how a Soviet rover rescued an American in peril on the moon [1].
At the other extreme, the lunar sample return mission had been put together at
astonishingly short notice. By early 1967, the design of the Ye-8 lunar rover had been
more of less finished. The Lavochkin design bureau figured out that it might be
possible to convert the upper age, instead of carrying a lunar rover, to carry a sample
return spacecraft. The lower stage, the KT, required almost no modification and could
be left as it was. Now on top sat the cylindrical instrumentation unit, the spherical
return capsule atop it in turn and underneath an ascent stage. A long robot arm, not
unlike a dentist's drill, swung out from the descent stage and swivelled round into a
small hatch in the return cabin. The moonscooper's height was 3.96 m, the weight
1,880 kg. The plan was for a four-day coast to the moon, the upper stage lifting off
from the moon for the return flight to Earth. The mission was proposed as insurance
against the danger of America getting a man on the moon first. At least with the
sample return mission, Russia could at least get moon samples back first. The sample
return proposal, called the Ye-8-5, was rapidly approved and construction of the first
spacecraft began in 1968.
Sample return missions were designed to have the simplest possible return
trajectories. Originally, it was expected that a returning spacecraft would have to
adjust its course as it returned to Earth. In the Institute of Applied Mathematics,