Soviet and Russian Lunar Exploration

match the three days of two Apollo astronauts on the moon with a Soviet plan to put
three cosmonauts there for a month. The new Mishin plan, called the L-3M ('M' for
modified) envisaged a manned lunar mission with two N-1 rockets. The N-1 would be
upgraded with a more powerful hydrogen-powered upper stage. The exact date on
which the L-3M plan was adopted is uncertain. The programme was first mooted in
September 1969, clearly a first response to the American moon landing two months
earlier, and the title 'L-3M' first appeared in print in documents in January 1970. The
project was scrutinized by an expert commission under Mstislav Keldysh in spring
1971, and a resolution of the chief designers Technical proposals for the creation of the
N1-L3M complex was signed off on 15th May 1972.
The first N-1 would place a large 24-tonne lunar lander descent stage, the GB-1,
based on block D, in lunar orbit. Independently, a second N-1 would deliver a threeman
lunar lander and return spacecraft, GB-2, to link up with the descent stage.
Together they would descend to the lunar surface. Initially, three cosmonauts would
work on the moon for a full lunar day (14 Earth days) but this would be later extended
to be a month or longer. Eventually, four cosmonauts would live on the moon for a
year at a time. The ascent stage would have a mass of 19.5 tonnes on launch from the
moon and 8.4 tonnes during trans-Earth coast. Launch would be direct back to Earth,
like Luna 16, without any manoeuvres in lunar orbit. The lander would incorporate
Soyuz within what was called a cocooned habitation block, or OB, a sort of hangar.
The crew could climb out of Soyuz into the hangar, put on their spacesuits there and
use the hangar as a pressurization chamber before their descent to the lunar surface.
The Americans might be first to the moon, but the Soviet Union would build the first
moon base. Mishin envisaged the dual N-1 mission taking place in the late 1970s.
Mishin's new plan even won the approval of long-time N-1 opponent, Valentin
Glushko. At one stage, the Soviet military considered turning the moon base into
their first military headquarters off the planet [16].
An important feature of the N1-L3M was the redesign of the N-1 launcher, given
the tentative name of the N1-F (industry code 11A52F). The airframe was much
improved and there was a hydrogen-powered upper stage. The top part of the rocket,
needle-shaped for the early N-1, was now bulkier and broader. The fact that Russia
successfully developed a hydrogen-powered upper stage during the 1960s was one of
the last, well-kept secrets of the moon race. The West had not believed the Russians
capable of such a development, and it did not come to light until India bought a
hydrogen-powered upper stage from the Russians in the 1990s. In fact, we now
know that Russia had worked on hydrogen propulsion from 1960 onward and that
hydrogen-powered stages had been part of the 1964 revision of the Soyuz complex in
OKB-1. This research had continued to progress and by the late 1960s was reaching
maturity. Linking this research to the new, improved N-1 made a lot of sense.
The hydrogen motor was the KVD-1, built by the Isayev design bureau (KVD
stands for Kislorodno Vodorodni Dvigatel, or oxygen hydrogen engine). The role of the
KVD-1 was to brake the assembly into lunar orbit and make the descent to the lunar
surface. The KVD-1 engine had a burn time of 800 sec and a combustion chamber
pressure of 54.6 atmospheres. The KVD-1 had a turbopump-operated engine with
a single fixed-thrust chamber, two gimballed thrust engines, an operating period of up