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Russians On Moon, Russians on Moon
ronatu
post Jul 4 2005, 01:58 AM
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Do you know that Russains could be on Moon first?
This is how:

http://site.voila.fr/space-models/model/n1/n1_miss.htm



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RNeuhaus
post Jul 4 2005, 02:10 PM
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Nice drawings and no real news!
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Phil Stooke
post Jul 4 2005, 02:28 PM
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Not news, perhaps, as the story has become well known to space enthusiasts in recent years. But these are very nice drawings. The surface photo one shows a deployed instrument in the middle distance... not referred to in the caption. A seismometer?

The Soviets began considering landing sites before the landing was cancelled, and that leads to another mystery. What I know so far is this: they had to be close to the equator for dynamical reasons, the same as early Apollo sites. Three areas were considered: the Luna 9 region (I don't mean right beside it, but the general region... actually Luna 9 was not close enough to the equator to be a good site), Sinus Medii, and Mare Fecunditatis near the later Luna 16 site. They got as far as measuring crater density, surface roughness etc., exactly as Apollo did, before the job was abandoned. In the process they rejected the Sinus Medii site as too rough. This is from Sacha Basilevsky, who did the work.

BUT - the question is, what images did they use for this site study? There were no Russian images suitable for this study. It had to be Lunar Orbiter. So that restricts the sites examined to those imaged by Lunar Orbiter. But did they have prints of Orbiter images? Or copies of the US Army and Air Force Orbiter Site Maps? Legitimately obtained or not? Nobody would tell me what they used. However, if they really were restricted to Lunar Orbiter images in those regions the sites were very constrained, and actually the western area would have been much better imaged. I venture to suggest that Flamsteed (near Surveyor 1) or the unused Apollo Site 5 would have been the likely targets.

Phil


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Bob Shaw
post Jul 4 2005, 04:45 PM
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Phil:

I think it depends *when* the work was undertaken - the Soviets had two waves of Lunar orbiters, the first being their traditional 'clockwork' film-based (like their planetary probes) with the last couple being similar instead to Lunokhod in both structure and systems and with, I recall, more adaptable video output. If the work was undertaken early then they made have had some of their own images, but certainly the US pictures were superior (if they could get them). If later, then we might still have seen them make use of US images to fine-tune their own campaigns.

I wonder whether the unflown manned Zond flights might have been employed as recon missions - Soyuz had a long military history and it may be that off-the-shelf large format camera kit was available for inboard mounting (and in fact there were some rather fine images returned even by the unmanned flights). There's long been speculation about the anonymous boxes on the top of Zond - perhaps these were associated with camera packages (batteries, etc) and stored outwith the descent vehicle for volume/CG/etc reasons?

Possibly the key would be in the orbital mechanics - if the almost-flown late 1968 manned Zond had it's launch date chosen not just to get *to* the Moon and back but also to see particular places under specified lighting conditions (a la Apollo 10) then I'd say that's a big hint! The earlier unmanned Lunar Zonds might also have tested the trajectories for later landing site observations, too...

(Hmmm... ...maybe the turtles were specially trained for ReconOps - at least, if somebody asked them what species they were then they'd be certain to reply in the affirmative!)

Bob Shaw


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Phil Stooke
post Jul 4 2005, 05:44 PM
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Good points, Bob, but in fact these options don't work.

The landing site analysis work was done while there was still a hope of landing first, and at that time only Luna 12 had flown (Lunas 10 and 11 probably had cameras too but attitude control or other problems prevented their use). Luna 12's images were actually good enough to plan human landings with - the two frames Ted posted under 'Soviet Lunar Images' cover areas 5 km across at a resolution of about 5 m/pixel, adequate for landing site planning, but they are near Aristarchus, too far north for the human landing attempt... and there are probably only those two or at most a handful of other frames with decent lighting.

The later orbital Lunas (19 and 22) were too late and very limited in resolution and coverage (see that thread for coverage maps). The Zonds which did take photos were limited by their return-to-Earth trajectories (which were the focus of each mission: navigation, control and re-entry testing) to photography of the western limb and far side. Also, even the best images, from Zond 8, are not detailed enough for landing site certification. In principle you are right to mention the unflown Zonds, but I'd be surprised if they were intended for anything other than re-entry testing like the rest.

I don't know about the anonymous boxes, but Zond used film cameras and the film had to be returned so they weren't outside the capsule. In fact Zond 6 crashed, and its film cannister was flattened and cracked by the impact. They managed to salvage enough fragments of negatives to piece together a reasonable image of the far side.

As far as I can see the Soviets had no choice but to use U.S. images. They still seem to deflect questions about it if asked, unlike many other things they are now very open about.

Phil


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RNeuhaus
post Jul 4 2005, 06:27 PM
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When I visited the Smithsonian Museum of Aviation and Space, I found many information about the space race between Russia and America. So far I have recalled is that the Russia has failed many previous attempts before sending a man to the moon. However, there are still lots of information are still buried so I don't really know what exactly have happened on that time. I suspect that Russians were so deseperate and didn't make enough planning and coordination for each step of project. Hence, Russian has aborted the race to Moon after many failures. I am afraid that some were jailed by the Soviet Goverment. That is my speculation due to lack of transparency information. No Public Relations at all!

Rodolfo
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Bob Shaw
post Jul 4 2005, 07:01 PM
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Phil:

Yes, the flown Zonds certainly appeared to be not-quite-100%-OK re-entry/systems tests - I still wonder whether there were any obvious lighting constraints on the almost-flown chappie.

As for the boxes on the forebody, they do seem to differ from the package flown on the N1's Soyuz-related capsule. I was really thinking about batteries etc rather than film - obviously the film would have to get back, but I can think of a host of good reasons for power being external to the pressurised vehicle (assuming that the Soviets could 'do' vaccuum rated batteries - they used to put their electronics in pressurised boxes on most of their early vehicles!).

Bob Shaw


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edstrick
post Jul 4 2005, 07:47 PM
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Since the Zonds (besides the unrelated Zond 3 and Venus and Mars Zonds 1 and 2) were on Apollo 13 type loop-around-the-moon-and-return figure-8 trajectories, they never flew over the nearside. Zond was incapable of lunar orbit so the failed missions could not have attempted anything significant in terms of landing site mapping.

What I still don't understand is the failure of the "heavy" lunar orbiters to return hardly any information of interest. With the payload capability of the Luna sample return and Lunokhod missions placed in orbit instead of landing, they clearly carried a lot of payload, but it's been minimally described and a bare minimum of science results published.
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RNeuhaus
post Jul 4 2005, 07:56 PM
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I found additional information about Russia's manned Lunar program (1940-1980)

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/spacecraft_manned_lunar.html

Interesting article. Previously I was so ignorant abut it sad.gif

Rodolfo
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tedstryk
post Jul 4 2005, 09:24 PM
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My understanding is that the Russians had just about everything ready to go but no ride for this moon landing mission. In other words, the N-1 just never worked right. So in other words, they were so close and yet so far away. It would be like Apollo had the Saturn V not worked. They probably, from what I understand, gotten it to work by the mid 70s, but since their landing was still smaller scale than Apollo, they considered it embarassing, and moved on to building space stations, an area where they could claim "firsts." I wish they had continued the effort....it might have provided the push needed to keep Apollo going a while longer.


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GregM
post Jul 5 2005, 04:18 AM
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QUOTE (tedstryk @ Jul 4 2005, 09:24 PM)
My understanding is that the Russians had just about everything ready to go but no ride for this moon landing mission.  In other words, the N-1 just never worked right.  So in other words, they were so close and yet so far away.  It would be like Apollo had the Saturn V not worked.  They probably, from what I understand, gotten it to work by the mid 70s, but since their landing was still smaller scale than Apollo, they considered it embarassing, and moved on to building space stations, an area where they could claim "firsts."  I wish they had continued the effort....it might have provided the push needed to keep Apollo going a while longer.
*



Well, yes it true that the main sticking point in the Soviet lunar program’s inability to get the job done was the launch vehicle, when speaking in the strictest of terms. However, the whole Soviet scheme was VERY weak when compared to Apollo, and there were many other places besides the booster in the Soviet Lunar mission plan that might (or likley would) have caused a mission failure. The booster was just the largest of many weak points. With a few exceptions, everything in the Soviet program was much more primitive than Apollo in terms of technology development and robustness, yet was excessively complicated in areas that would not gladly tolerate such things (such as two separate descent propulsion stages for the lander). To look into the interior of the Soviet lander or mothership (a beefed up Soyuz) is to look into something more akin to a 1930’s submarine rather than a late 1960’s spacecraft. I half expect to see Captain Nemo flying the LK instead of Alexi Leonov – who might have been the first person on the Moon in a different timeline had everything gone perfectly for them. In terms of sophistocation, robustness, redundency, and technical development, Apollo looked like the starship Enterprise compared to these spacecraft. Mr. Leonov would have been a very brave man indeed if he had got the chance to succeed instead of Neil Armstrong.

I strongly suggest learning more on the subject for anyone interested – it is a fascinating subject on what was the riskiest and most longshot manned space mission design ever conceived. But boy, it would have been really cool to have seen them actually pull it off.

Good links for any who are interested:

http://www.astronautix.com/articles/sovpart2.htm

http://www.astronautix.com/craft/soy7klok.htm

http://www.astronautix.com/craft/lk.htm

http://www.myspacemuseum.com/eurolk.htm

http://www.deepcold.com/deepcold/lk_main.html
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Phil Stooke
post Jul 5 2005, 12:53 PM
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I posted some things on the orbital imaging missions in another thread, but following up on edstrick's comment about how little was released from the orbiters...

Well, different times, of course, but my impression is that these orbiters were thought of as mainly experimental, systems-testing missions. But here's another example of a Luna 22 result... from my forthcoming book (that's why I'm giving out such a heavily reduced version!). Luna 22 carried a radar altimeter. It appears to have made only four observations, which were published in an extremely obscure Soviet journal. I saw these ground tracks plotted without explanation on a Russian map at MIIGAiK, but they were plotted wrong! (lat and long, east and west, confused in the plotting), rendering them useless. Here they are correct, and if you compare this with the Luna 22 images you will see they cover the same area.

The Soviets at this time really didn't have the receiving capability to download vast amounts of data from long-term lunar missions - or at least it would have been a real stretch. I think that may have doomed the orbiters to small amounts of data return, as well.

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Bob Shaw
post Jul 5 2005, 11:08 PM
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Phil:

I think you're right on the button re the 'systems test' aspect of Luna 22 - it was reported around that time that it had even had a Lunokhod motor and wheel aboard to test the technology!

In respect to 'missions that never were', some of the ever-so-slightly-speculative Soviet plans actually involved a Lunokhod-based LRV. I wonder whether MER would make a good dune buggy? Oops, I forgot, it's *terrible* on dunes!

Bob Shaw


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ronatu
post Jul 6 2005, 02:17 AM
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QUOTE (GregM @ Jul 5 2005, 12:18 AM)
Well, yes it true that the main sticking point in the Soviet lunar program’s inability to get the job done was the launch vehicle, when speaking in the strictest of terms. However, the whole Soviet scheme was VERY weak when compared to Apollo, and there were many other places besides the booster in the Soviet Lunar mission plan that might (or likley would) have caused a mission failure. The booster was just the largest of many weak points. With a few exceptions, everything in the Soviet program was much more primitive than Apollo in terms of technology development and robustness, yet was excessively complicated in areas that would not gladly tolerate such things (such as two separate descent propulsion stages for the lander). To look into the interior of the Soviet lander or mothership (a beefed up Soyuz) is to look into something more akin to a 1930’s submarine rather than a late 1960’s spacecraft. I half expect to see Captain Nemo flying the LK instead of Alexi Leonov – who might have been the first person on the Moon in a different timeline had everything gone perfectly for them. In terms of sophistocation, robustness, redundency, and technical development, Apollo looked like the starship Enterprise compared to these spacecraft.  Mr. Leonov would have been a very brave man indeed if he had got the chance to succeed instead of Neil Armstrong. 



The LOK spacecraft was roughly equivalent to the Apollo Command/Service Module (CSM) "mother ship". Basically a souped-up Soyuz, it served as transport vehicle & living quarters for the 2 man lunar crew to and from the moon. The middle section, just like Soyuz, was used during launch and reentry, and for most of the vehicle control functions. Also note the rear instrument section, which has been elongated from the basic Soyuz design to allow for extra propellants, and the fact that no solar panels were used (for those readers who like to track Soyuz variants). Electrical power was supplied by fuel cells.
The odd looking apparatus on the nose of the vehicle was used for reaction control and docking. 4 small metal fingers were used to guide the docking probe, which could snap into any one of 108 small hexagonal holes in the "Kontact" docking plate on the top of the LK ascent stage. This enabled a docking to take place no matter where on the LK docking plate the LOK managed to make contact.


The LK was the Soviet functional equivalent of the American Lunar Module, but with certain notable differences: the LK would have carried only a single Cosmonaut to the lunar surface and he would have had to "space walk" from the LOK to the LK; the LK would have used the same engine for both final descent to the lunar surface and ascent back to orbit.
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dvandorn
post Jul 6 2005, 07:10 AM
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A slight etymological aside, here -- just as LM stood for Lunar Module, LK was an acronym. It stood for (if I'm remembering the spelling right) Luniy Korabl. The O in LOK stood for the Russian word for "orbiting," I forget the word right now...

In the Soviet spacecraft designation game, "Korabl" (which best translated into "cabin") was used most frequently to refer to unmanned tests of manned spacecraft. Several test flights of the Vostok were given the name "Korabl-Sputnik." And while it was flown under the more generic "Cosmos" name, the LK was indeed test-flown twice in Earth orbit.

The LK would have ridden a crasher stage down for the majority of its descent, and had about 100 seconds between separation from the crasher and ignition of its terminal braking rockets to when it had to touch down. It had very, very limited ability to redesignate its landing point, and the braking engines were throttled using a manual throttle-arm which reduced or increased fuel flow into the combustion chamber. Because the odds were fair that an LK would land on a slope (craters being omnipresent), it had "settling rockets" attached to the leg struts which ignited upon lunar contact to push the LK *down* into the dust, ensuring that it would sit upright, even on slopes of more than 30 degrees.

And yes, the Soviets were very concerned about a person being able to walk properly on the Moon, and what might happen if he fell over. With only one landing crewman, if someone fell over and turned turtle, he might die without ever being able to get back up (at least that was the Soviets' fear). They had a contraption that looked like an elderly person's walker, that the moonwalking cosmonaut would carry with him to lean on. There was also a plan for a Lunokhod to scout out a landing area and provide television coverage of the landing of the LK. The cosmonaut would then attach a seat to the Lunokhod and drive it around the landing site, taking pictures and collecting rocks from the comfort of his "travel chair."

I believe the Lunokhod was to be more than just transportation, it would have contained an emergency oxygen supply in case of a backpack failure -- generally, it was a way of making up for there only being one guy out there, with no one within a quarter of a million miles to help him.

There is also a speculation (discussed at Mark Wade's excellent Encyclopedia Astronautica) that, when they were certain that the N-1 wouldn't be ready in time to fly an LOK/LK flight prior to Apollo's first landing attempts, the Soviets may have gotten close to giving the green light to an alternate mission, assembling the entire N-1 TEI package in LEO from separate Proton and Soyuz booster launches. It was during this period, in early 1969, that the LK was first test-flown. But the LOK variant of the Soyuz hadn't yet flown, the Kontakt docking system had not been flight-tested, and the LOK heat shield and return trajectory hadn't been tested successfully (the Zond tests having failed in some crucial manner each time). The best "guess" is that the Soviets were assembling the pieces and might have attempted such a multi-launch LOK/LK flight had Apollo failed to land by the end of 1969 -- but they knew there was a great amount of risk, with so many of the components and flight operations untested.

My best guess is that, if the Soviets had indeed tried to fly a multi-launch LOK/LK mission, it had no better than a 50/50 chance of getting its crew back alive, and probably less than a 20% chance of actually achieving a manned landing and return.

-the other Doug


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“The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.” -Mark Twain
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