Zond L1S-1 was a Zond capsule to be placed into orbit around the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

by the first launch of the N1, a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

made

super heavy-lift launch vehicle A super heavy-lift launch vehicle can lift to low Earth orbit more than by United States (NASA) classification or by Russian classification. It is the most capable launch vehicle classification by mass to orbit, exceeding that of the heavy-lif ...

designed to land manned Soviet

spacecraft A spacecraft is a vehicle or machine designed to fly in outer space. A type of artificial satellite, spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, Earth observation, meteorology, navigation, space colonization, p ...

on the Moon. The Zond capsule was equipped with a dummy lander and cameras to photograph the lunar surface for possible sites of a manned landing. The failure of the N1 launch vehicle caused the

launch escape system A launch escape system (LES) or launch abort system (LAS) is a crew-safety system connected to a space capsule that can be used to quickly separate the capsule from its launch vehicle in case of an emergency requiring the abort of the launch, suc ...

to ignite, saving the Zond capsule from destruction. Engines 12 and 24 shut down about 3 to 7 seconds after liftoff. The fault was found to be an error in the control system. The control system compensated by giving more power to the working engines. But at 25 seconds after lift off the control system throttled back the working engines, as there was too much vibration. At an altitude of about 30 km, just 66 seconds after liftoff, the engines again were set to full power. This caused an oxidizer pipe to break open. A fire started, and the engine's turbopumps exploded. Zond L1S-2 launched on 3 July 1969 also failed. Soyuz 7K-L1E No.1 launched on 26 June 1971 failed. The last N-1 launch of

Soyuz 7K-LOK The Soyuz 7K-LOK, or simply LOK (russian: Лунный Орбитальный Корабль, translit=Lunniy Orbitalny Korabl meaning "Lunar Orbital Craft") was a Soviet crewed spacecraft designed to launch men from Earth to orbit the Moon, deve ...

No.1 failed on 23 November 1972.Raketno-kosmicheskii kompleks N1-L3, book: Гудилин В.Е., Слабкий Л.И. (:ru:Слабкий Леонид Ильич, Слабкий Л.И.
)(Gudilin V., Slabkiy L.)"Ракетно-космические системы (История. Развитие. Перспективы)",М.,1996] NASA used the Saturn V rocket for lunar missions, a super lift rocket like the N-1.

References

Zond program Spacecraft launched in 1969 {{USSR-spacecraft-stub

See also

References