Soyuz Kontakt(Soyuz Contact) was the docking hardware of the Soviet crewed lunar spacecraft program. The Soviet lunar human program was canceled in 1974 after many failures. Four failures of the N-1 Rocket super heavy-lift launch vehicle and the success of the U.S. Apollo program ended the Soviet crewed moon program. [1]
The first docking of two spacecraft was achieved on March 16, 1966, when Gemini 8 rendezvoused and docked with an uncrewed Agena Target Vehicle. [2] Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 performed the first docking of two crewed spacecraft on January 16, 1969, coupled with a spacewalk. [3] Then, the Apollo 9 spacecraft/command and service module (CSM) completed a rendezvous and docked with the Lunar Module (LM) on March 3, 1969, using a transfer tunnel. [4]
Soyuz Kontakt was designed for the Soviet lunar orbit rendezvous of the Soyuz 7K-LOK crewed lunar orbiter spacecraft and Soviet LK lunar lander for the Soviet space program. The Soyuz Kontakt docking system used a three-pronged grappler on the active moving spacecraft. The active spacecraft would then attempt a soft docking between the two spacecraft. The passive non-moving craft would be fitted with a hexagonal grid for the active craft to dock to. To dock, the cosmonaut would have used a manual optical alignment system. Once docked, the crew would then perform an EVA (or extravehicular activity) to transfer to the LK lander (the passive craft).
Before the lunar launch, there were to be several earth-orbit training dockings. For the tests, two Soyuz 11A511 rockets would have put a modified Soyuz 7K-OK crewed spacecraft on earth orbit along with another modified 7K-OK (with the grid adaptation) to be the passive craft. The crew would have docked and then transferred for the test.
The Soyuz 7K-OK crewed spacecraft has space for a crew of three, with a habitable space of 9m 3. The vehicle was 7.95 m (26.08 ft) tall with a span of 9.80 m (32.10 ft), and a gross mass of 6,560 kg (14,460 lb). The crew trained for this test mission, but it never launched. [5] [6] [7]
Four Soyuz Kontakt cosmonaut crews were trained in the docking system. Three tests using six spacecraft were planned. The failure of the N-1 and the death of the Soyuz 11 crew in June 1971 lead to the redesign of the Soyuz spacecraft. All planned Soyuz Kontakt missions were canceled for the near future at that time. [8]
Soyuz Kontakt 1 would have flown with Soyuz s/n 21. Soyuz Kontakt 1 would have installed the passive Kontakt docking system. The same type of docking system that was on the LK lunar lander. For the test Soyuz s/n 20 would have had the active docking target unit. The extravehicular activity crew would have transferred wearing the Krechet spacesuit. Soyuz s/n 21 was planned to launch in early 1972 with a cosmonaut crew of two, Anatoly Filipchenko and Georgy Grechko.
Soyuz Kontakt 2 was planned for an early 1972 launch. Soyuz Kontakt 2 prime cosmonaut crew was to be Vasily Lazarev and Oleg Grigoryevich Makarov. An LK lunar lander was planned to be used, not a passive Soyuz. (The first LK was a single cosmonaut transport; a later variant would have had a two-man crew.)
Soyuz Kontakt 3 was planned for 1972. Soyuz Kontakt 3's prime cosmonaut crew would have been Lev Vasiliyevich Vorobyov and Vladimir Yazdovsky. [9]
Soyuz Kontakt 4 was also planned for 1972. Soyuz Kontakt 4's prime cosmonaut crew would have been Oleg Vasilyevich Dobrovolsky and Vitaly Sevastyanov. Soyuz Kontakt 4 planned to use a LK lunar lander. [10]
The Soyuz programme is a human spaceflight programme initiated by the Soviet Union in the early 1960s. The Soyuz spacecraft was originally part of a Moon landing project intended to put a Soviet cosmonaut on the Moon. It was the third Soviet human spaceflight programme after the Vostok (1961–1963) and Voskhod (1964–1965) programmes.
Soyuz is a series of spacecraft which has been in service since the 1960s, having made more than 140 flights. It was designed for the Soviet space program by the Korolev Design Bureau. The Soyuz succeeded the Voskhod spacecraft and was originally built as part of the Soviet crewed lunar programs. It is launched on a Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Between the 2011 retirement of the Space Shuttle and the 2020 demo flight of SpaceX Crew Dragon, the Soyuz served as the only means to ferry crew to or from the International Space Station, for which it remains heavily used. Although China did launch crewed Shenzhou flights during this time, none of them docked with the ISS.
Soyuz 3 was a spaceflight mission launched by the Soviet Union on 26 October 1968. Flown by Georgy Beregovoy, the Soyuz 7K-OK spacecraft completed 81 orbits over four days. The 47-year-old Beregovoy was a decorated World War II flying ace and the oldest person to go into orbit up to that time. The mission achieved the first Russian space rendezvous with the uncrewed Soyuz 2, but failed to achieve a planned docking of the two craft.
Soyuz 4 was launched on 14 January 1969, carrying cosmonaut Vladimir Shatalov on his first flight. The aim of the mission was to dock with Soyuz 5, transfer two crew members from that spacecraft, and return to Earth. The previous Soyuz flight was also a docking attempt but failed for various reasons.
The N1/L3 was a super heavy-lift launch vehicle intended to deliver payloads beyond low Earth orbit. The N1 was the Soviet counterpart to the US Saturn V and was intended to enable crewed travel to the Moon and beyond, with studies beginning as early as 1959. Its first stage, Block A, was the most powerful rocket stage ever flown for over 50 years, generating 45.4 MN of thrust. However, each of the four attempts to launch an N1 failed in flight, with the second attempt resulting in the vehicle crashing back onto its launch pad shortly after liftoff. Adverse characteristics of the large cluster of thirty engines and its complex fuel and oxidizer feeder systems were not revealed earlier in development because static test firings had not been conducted.
A space rendezvous is a set of orbital maneuvers during which two spacecraft, one of which is often a space station, arrive at the same orbit and approach to a very close distance. Rendezvous requires a precise match of the orbital velocities and position vectors of the two spacecraft, allowing them to remain at a constant distance through orbital station-keeping. Rendezvous may or may not be followed by docking or berthing, procedures which bring the spacecraft into physical contact and create a link between them.
Direct ascent is a method of landing a spacecraft on the Moon or another planetary surface directly, without first assembling the vehicle in Earth orbit, or carrying a separate landing vehicle into orbit around the target body. It was proposed as the first method to achieve a crewed lunar landing in the United States Apollo program, but was rejected because it would have required developing a prohibitively large launch vehicle.
The Soviet crewed lunar programs were a series of programs pursued by the Soviet Union to land humans on the Moon, in competition with the United States Apollo program. The Soviet government publicly denied participating in such a competition, but secretly pursued two programs in the 1960s: crewed lunar flyby missions using Soyuz 7K-L1 (Zond) spacecraft launched with the Proton-K rocket, and a crewed lunar landing using Soyuz 7K-LOK and LK spacecraft launched with the N1 rocket. Following the dual American successes of the first crewed lunar orbit on 24–25 December 1968 and the first Moon landing on July 20, 1969, and a series of catastrophic N1 failures, both Soviet programs were eventually brought to an end. The Proton-based Zond program was canceled in 1970, and the N1-L3 program was de facto terminated in 1974 and officially canceled in 1976. Soviet cosmonauts never orbited nor landed on the Moon. Details of both Soviet programs were kept secret until 1990 when the government allowed them to be published under the policy of glasnost.
The LK was a lunar module developed in the 1960s as a part of several Soviet crewed lunar programs. Its role was analogous to the American Apollo Lunar Module (LM). Three LK modules, of the T2K variant, were flown without crew in Earth orbit, but no LK ever reached the Moon. The development of the N1 launch vehicle required for the lunar flight suffered setbacks, and the first Moon landings were achieved by US astronauts on Apollo 11. As a result, having lost the Space Race, both the N1 and the LK programs were cancelled without any further development.
Soyuz 2A is the unofficial designation for a cancelled space flight of a Soyuz spacecraft which would have used the 7K-OK No. 5 capsule, planned to rendezvous with the Soyuz 1 mission. The launch of the craft in April 1967 was cancelled due to thunderstorms, likely saving the three-person crew from the same design problems that also killed the one-person crew of Soyuz 1.
Soyuz 7K-OK was the first generation of Soyuz spacecraft and was flown between 1967 and 1971. The 7K-OK was used for the first ferry flights to the Salyut space station program, beginning a long history of space station service that continues today with the International Space Station (ISS).
The Soyuz 7K-LOK, or simply LOK was a Soviet crewed spacecraft designed to take humans from Earth to orbit the Moon, developed in parallel to the 7K-L1. The LOK would carry two cosmonauts, acting as a mother ship for the LK Lander which would land one crew member to the surface. It was part of the N1-L3 programme which also included the LK lander and the N1 rocket.
The Soyuz 7K-L1 "Zond" spacecraft was designed to launch cosmonauts from the Earth to circle the Moon without going into lunar orbit in the context of the Soviet crewed Moon-flyby program in the Moon race. It was based on the Soyuz 7K-OK. Several modifications reduced vehicle mass and increased circumlunar capability. The most notable modifications were the replacement of the orbital module with a support cone and a high-gain parabolic antenna, the removal of a reserve parachute, and the addition of the gyro platform and star navigation sensors for the far space navigation. The spacecraft was capable of carrying two cosmonauts. At the start of flight testing, there were serious reliability problems with the new Proton rocket, the 7K-L1, and the Soyuz 7K-OK that the L1 was based on.
The Soviet Union planned several military Soyuz spacecraft models. These versions were named Soyuz P, Soyuz PPK, Soyuz R, Soyuz 7K-VI, and Soyuz OIS . However, none ever flew in space.
Docking and berthing of spacecraft is the joining of two space vehicles. This connection can be temporary, or partially permanent such as for space station modules.
The Apollo spacecraft feasibility study was conducted by NASA from July 1960 through May 1961 to investigate preliminary designs for a post-Project Mercury multi-crewed spacecraft to be used for possible space station, circum-lunar, lunar orbital, or crewed lunar landing missions. Six-month, $250,000 study contracts were awarded to General Dynamics/Convair, General Electric, and the Glenn L. Martin Company. Meanwhile, NASA conducted its own inhouse design study led by Maxime Faget, intended as a gauge of the competitors' entries. The three companies spent varying amounts of their own money in excess of the $250,000 to produce designs which included a re-entry module separate from the mission module cabin, and a propulsion and equipment module.
Zond program was a Soviet robotic spacecraft program launched between 1964 and 1970, using two spacecraft series, one for interplanetary exploration, and the other for lunar exploration.
Soyuz 7K-L1E was a Soviet uncrewed modified Soyuz 7K-L1 spacecraft. Also called a dummy Soyuz 7K-LOK. Two were built, one Soyuz 7K-L1E was successfully launched into Low Earth Orbit on Proton rocket and is known as Kosmos 382. The other Soyuz 7K-L1E was placed on a N1 rocket, which failed at launch. The Soyuz spacecraft was first used in 1967 as the main crewed spacecraft and is still in use. Many Soyuz variations have been built and the Soyuz 7K-L1E was an uncrewed variation.
 | Adapters |  | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mechanisms |
| ||
| Navigation systems | |||
| Launch vehicles and ascent/upper stages |  | |
|---|---|---|
| Spacecraft | ||
| Other hardware | ||
| Soyuz docking tests | ||
| Zond (7K-L1/L1S) lunar flyby missions | ||
| LOK (7K-LOK/L1E) test missions | ||
| LK Lander (T2K) test missions | ||
The † sign designates failed missions. Italics designates cancelled missions. | ||
