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Episodes Tagged with "Afanasyev"

Posted on November 19, 2015

Chief Designer Mishin proposed a two-launch “stopover” scenario for the piloted flight to the moon. This was similar to one of NASA’s earth orbit rendezvous modes to reach the moon. The gist of the plan was, the UR-500K would insert the 7K-L1 into or...

Vladimir_Chelomei

Proton 7K-L1 launch vehicle configuration

K140 orbit 5

Posted on December 3, 2015

With the success of Kosmos 146 and in spite of the failures of the first three 7K-Ok’s it was now time to plan for a Soyuz manned mission. The planned involved the launch and docking of two piloted Soyuzes. Soyuz 7K-OK production model number 4 was a...

VladimirKomarov_sketch

7k-0k and l1

Kosmos-146

Posted on December 10, 2015

“I was the last one to see him alive and I told him ‘See you soon!’” Yuri Gagarin, recalls bidding farewell to his friend Kamarov in Soyuz 1.

3-soyuz1_01

2- Soyuz 1

1-GagarinKamarov

Posted on December 17, 2015

“It’s a terrible scene. Komarov burned up. All the instruments burned. We must quickly find out what prevented the main parachute from unlatching.” Chief Designer Mishin after he arrived at the Soyuz 1 crash site.

3-VladimirKomarov_Soyuz1

2-soyuz-1-crash

1-Soyuz 1 crash site

Posted on January 7, 2016

After 1957, the Soviets became accustomed to achieving “world firsts” in space accomplishments. Nevertheless, 10 years later they were not confident that they could pull off the world’s first fully automatic rendezvous and docking of two un-piloted S...

3-Igla_docking_system_antennas-fr

2-Armen Sergeyevich Mnatsakanyan Main designer of Igla and Kurs

1-Mishin at Baykonur in 1967

Posted on March 3, 2016

When we left the Soviet Union they had somewhat successfully landed a probe on Venus and they had completed the automatic docking of two Soyuz 7K-OK spacecrafts.  However they did not reach their goal of a circumlunar flight in time for the 50th anni...

3-ProtonZond

2-Mishin-AganzanovChertok

1-L1-Zond

Posted on September 7, 2016

Finally, on the morning of February 21, all the population of the N1 assembly area and a residential area, situated just south of the launch pad, was ordered to evacuate. The giant service structure then rolled away leaving the dark-gray rocket with ...

3-df69d446b1eeca51d9049da103bc562c

2-n1-imaged-by-us-kh-8-gambit-reconnaissance-satellite-19-september-1968

1-apollo-vs-n1-l3-apollo-csm-lm-vs-l3-lunar-complex-credit-mark-wade

Posted on March 1, 2017

On July 3, 1969, the same month as the the Apollo 11 Moon landing, The Soviet Union made another secret attempt to fly their giant Moon rocket.

3-Escape rockets fire at the top of the doomed N1 No. 5L vehicle, as it begins a devastating collapse back to its launch pad

2-Raising N1

1-Rollout to the pad

Posted on March 8, 2017

In February of 1969, the first launch of the Soviet Moon Rocket, the N-1, exploded.  By April, the Soviets still did not have a clear program of subsequent piloted Soyuz fights. In May, the Soviets watched the successful US lunar orbital flight and p...

3-The E-8-5 return trajectory allowed the return capsule to reach the Earth without the need for a course correction or a complex navigation system

2-lunarvka

1Luna-15

Posted on January 8, 2015

“In those days, the Party organizations in industry were not only involved with policy, ideology, and the “struggle against nonconformist thought,” but tried to get involved in technology and production engineering. Wielding real authority over peopl...

soyompan

7kokDocking Simulators

7kok Assembly