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The USSR inadvertently gifts its secret spacecraft to hostile China On Nov. 28, 1969, the Soviet Union launched perhaps the most obscure mission of the Moon Race, but after a rocket malfunction, the highly classified capsule onboard went wayward and ended up intact in the hands of the USSR's Chinese adversaries.
The L1E No. 1 mission at a glance:
Origin of the project In the Spring 1967, Soviet engineers flight-tested one of the most critical elements of the L3 lunar expeditionary complex — the Block D upper stage. Unlike most rocket boosters designed to operate in a quick succession immediately after liftoff, Block D was intended for maneuvering in the lunar vicinity and during the most critical descent of the LK cosmonaut lander to the Moon, days after departing Earth and in the conditions of prolonged weightlessness. As a part of the L1 circumlunar vehicle, Block D was launched into Earth orbit for the first time in March 1967. The results of that flight are still clouded in mystery, but it is known that the second such mission, a month later, failed to perform the maneuver simulating the escape from the Earth's orbit onto a trans-lunar trajectory. At the time, the TsKBEM design bureau, which led the Soviet lunar effort, apparently had some doubts about the performance of large rocket stages in long-duration expeditions. It is evidenced in the contemporaneous notes by the head of the TsKBEM bureau Vasily Mishin. In what appeared to be a to-do list dated April 9, 1967, Mishin wrote down to find out whether it would be possible to fire an engine on Block D as late as four or seven days into the flight, depending on the availability of electric power. That is close to the time period which would be required for Block D to function during a typical lunar expedition as proposed for the N1/L3 project. (774) To address various questions with the operation of Block D, TsKBEM started planning an experimental program, which would study the behavior of liquid propellant in the tanks of the Block D during flight in weightlessness. This experience was apparently considered critical for certifying the space tug for a piloted mission. The effort included the construction of a ground test unit, which would be fitted with special windows and lighting equipment that would make it possible to photograph and film the fluid processes inside the vehicle's tanks during crucial maneuvers and in particular, see the process of propellant intake from the tank into the engine. Most importantly, ground experiments were expected pave the way to actual launches of Block D outfitted with cameras for documenting the liquid behavior with the transmission of resulting footage back to Earth. As was the practice at the time, a pair of modified Block D stages, with production numbers 25 and 26, were allocated for test flights. Both space tugs were to be launched on UR-500K (Proton) rockets, carrying experimental spacecraft derived from the L1 project and thus designated L1E. The hardware from the experimental Block D, built for ground tests under designation 6S1, could also be cannibalized to assemble flight-worthy stages No. 25 and 26. (1075) Design of the L1E vehicle Half a century after the Moon Race, the exact design of the L1E spacecraft remained largely a mystery. Clearly, it closely resembled the baseline L1 spacecraft, but apparently, it was also equipped with an additional attitude control and maneuver section, known as DOK from the Russian Dvigateli Oreintatsii i Korektsii, which was mounted on top of the L1's battery section. The DOK propulsion section was also used on the L1A test vehicle, intended for the first launch of the N1 Moon rocket, and it was ultimately intended for the LOK lunar orbiting spacecraft from the L3 expeditionary complex, so its use on the L1E could help validate another component of the lunar hardware. The addition of the DOK section meant that the standard payload fairing and the launch escape tower of the L1 spacecraft were not compatible with the L1E interfaces and, therefore, a different payload fairing would be required. But, because L1E never intended to carry a crew, it did not need an escape rocket. The Descent Module of the L1E spacecraft was probably borrowed unchanged from the L1 vehicle, which in turn derived from the Soyuz spacecraft. Aboard the L1E, the pressurized capsule probably contained some avionics and, possibly, other equipment not designed to operate in the vacuum of space. As future developments would show, the Descent Module on L1E was outfitted with workable ablative thermal protection enabling the normal reentry and landing, even though there is no documental evidence that the return had ever been planned. Equally little is known about the L1E flight program. In more than three decades of the post-Soviet period, not a single original source shed light on the flight profile of the mission. Based on the tracking data of one successful L1E mission, it is logical to assume that the first mission aimed to simulate the maneuvers of the lunar lander of the L3 complex, but in the Earth's orbit. Development On April 20, 1968, an interim head of TsKBEM Yuri Semenov, signed the technical assignment for the construction of an experimental ground unit for the future L1E spacecraft. The construction of the two flight vehicles was proceeding as well. As a result, at the height of the Moon Race with the US in 1968, TsKBEM found itself developing at least five Soyuz-derived crew vehicles, including the 7K-OK ships for missions in the Earth orbit, L1 ships for circumlunar flights, the L1A variant for the N1 rocket, the LOK orbiter for the L3 lunar expeditionary complex and the L1E. The LK lunar lander and a multitude of other elements of the lunar program were also in the development pipeline. Not surprisingly, more pressing issues, in particular two failed launches of the N1 rocket in 1969, pushed the first L1E mission until the end of that year. L1E mission lifts off
The UR-500K rocket carrying the 7K-L1E spacecraft lifted off on Nov. 28, 1969, at 12:00 Moscow Time, from the "Left" pad at Site 81 in Tyuratam. (400) The first two stages of the vehicle completed their work as planned, but at L+556.6 seconds into the flight, the telemetry showed a violent jolt near the lower bulkhead of the fuel tank of the third stage, indicating an explosion of its 8D48 engine. Under normal circumstances, the third stage was supposed to separate in a suborbital trajectory, just short of orbital velocity, and after reentry, to splash down in the Pacific Ocean, east of Japan. However, depending on the exact time of the premature engine shutdown, the impact site for the third stage and its payload would shift westward along the ground track of the ascent trajectory to Sea of Japan, the Russian Pacific Coast, Eastern China and the Russian Far East. Generally, chances for depositing the stage on the Chinese territory were relatively small, but that is exactly what happened in the Nov. 28, 1969, launch. Obviously, the situation was further complicated by the fact that the L1E spacecraft included the Descent Module designed to survive the reentry. And by that time, the USSR stopped equipping its returnable vehicles with explosive devices to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands. As a result, after the rest of the L1E vehicle disintegrated under the searing heat of reentry, the freed Descent Module landed seemingly intact some 200 kilometers from the city of Harbin in China. Coincidently, the Soviet-Sino relations were at their lowest at the time of the L1E launch, coming on the heels of a short but bloody border war earlier in 1969. Because even a nuclear exchange between the two powers was not out of the realm of possibilities in such a heated political atmosphere, dropping a Soviet rocket payload into the Chinese territory was not a trivial matter. And of course, even after the unexpected landing was deemed to be an accident, the Soviets had no opportunity for getting their capsule back. According to the post-Cold War reports, the Descent Module was, in fact, recovered intact by the Chinese authorities, and after, no doubt, careful examination, it ended up in a museum of the People's Liberation Army. (1076) Clearly, the Soviet spacecraft was a literal "gift from the skies" for the nascent Chinese space program, which at the time, was just five months away from launching a satellite of its own, but at least a decade behind the Soviet space program. Despite a late start, China quickly developed aspirations in piloted space missions and by 1975, the first Chinese recoverable space capsule went into orbit. When the first Chinese crew vehicle finally made its public debut at the end of the 1990s and the early 2000s, observers were stunned by its uncanny resemblance to the Soyuz spacecraft...
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