Columbia42
Member
I am currently (and have been since July 2010) working on an addon of the N1-L3 Soviet manned lunar landing program.
Some background info:
This program was originally initiated in the early 60s by Sergei Korolev as a counterpart to NASA's Apollo program. One among several other manned lunar plans competing for limited funding, Korolev's N1-L3 faced obstacles at every turn. In its final rendition N1-L3 was only a fraction of Chief Designer Korolev’s original dreams of exploring the Moon. Korolev died before any flight testing could be done of the N1-L3 spacecraft and rockets and his successor, Vassily Mishin was left to carry on the program. Four flight tests of the N1 rocket were launched from 1969 to 1972. All of them failed due to inadequate ground testing of the first stage of the rocket, a result of the program’s lack of funding. Two unmanned, Earth-orbit test flights of the LK lander were flown and both were extremely successful. One unmanned flight of the L1S lunar orbiter (a hybrid vehicle combining elements of both the L1 circumlunar spacecraft and the LOK orbiter) was also very successful. After the failures of the N1 rockets Vassily Mishin was fired and replaced with Valentin Glushko, one of Korolev’s rivals who was working on his own lunar mission plans. Eager to pursue his own plans, Glushko suspended the N1-L3 program in 1974 and cancelled it officially in 1976. All of the hardware including operational spacecraft and rockets was scrapped so that there would be no evidence that the Soviet Union ever had a manned lunar program.
Although far from completion my addon intends to simulate the N1-L3 mission profile as accurately as possible. Almost all of the models are by Jean-Marie Le Cosperec (http://celestiasws.free.fr/) from his Celestia addon of N1-L3. I will post some screenshots later.
Some background info:
This program was originally initiated in the early 60s by Sergei Korolev as a counterpart to NASA's Apollo program. One among several other manned lunar plans competing for limited funding, Korolev's N1-L3 faced obstacles at every turn. In its final rendition N1-L3 was only a fraction of Chief Designer Korolev’s original dreams of exploring the Moon. Korolev died before any flight testing could be done of the N1-L3 spacecraft and rockets and his successor, Vassily Mishin was left to carry on the program. Four flight tests of the N1 rocket were launched from 1969 to 1972. All of them failed due to inadequate ground testing of the first stage of the rocket, a result of the program’s lack of funding. Two unmanned, Earth-orbit test flights of the LK lander were flown and both were extremely successful. One unmanned flight of the L1S lunar orbiter (a hybrid vehicle combining elements of both the L1 circumlunar spacecraft and the LOK orbiter) was also very successful. After the failures of the N1 rockets Vassily Mishin was fired and replaced with Valentin Glushko, one of Korolev’s rivals who was working on his own lunar mission plans. Eager to pursue his own plans, Glushko suspended the N1-L3 program in 1974 and cancelled it officially in 1976. All of the hardware including operational spacecraft and rockets was scrapped so that there would be no evidence that the Soviet Union ever had a manned lunar program.
Although far from completion my addon intends to simulate the N1-L3 mission profile as accurately as possible. Almost all of the models are by Jean-Marie Le Cosperec (http://celestiasws.free.fr/) from his Celestia addon of N1-L3. I will post some screenshots later.
