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Manned Circumlunar
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Boosting a manned spacecraft on a loop around the moon, without entering lunar orbit, allows a trip to be made near the moon with a total low earth orbit mass of as little as 20 tonnes. This was attractive during the space race as a manned mission that could be accomplished early with limited booster power. Gemini, Apollo, and Soyuz were all supposed to have made circumlunar flights. Only Soyuz reached the circumlunar flight-test stage under the L1 program. Any L1 manned missions were cancelled after the Americans reached lunar orbit with Apollo 8. The idea was resurrected in 2005 when a $100 million commercial flight around the moon was proposed, again using Soyuz.
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L1-1960
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Circumlunar manned spacecraft proposed by Korolev in January 1960. The L1 would a man on a loop around the moon and back to earth by 1964. The L1 would evolve into the Soyuz A design of 1963, and fly as the Soyuz 7K-L1 in 1967-1970.
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Apollo A
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Apollo A was a lighter-weight July 1961 version of the Apollo spacecraft. It was specifically designed for long-duration operations in space; to conduct re-entry tests at near-parabolic speeds; and then for manned circumlunar missions.
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Gemini-Centaur
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In the first Gemini project plans, it was planned that after a series of test dockings between Gemini and Agena rocket stages, Geminis would dock with Centaur stages for circumlunar flights. This was a threat to Project Apollo and was suppressed.
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L1-1962
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Early design that would lead to Soyuz. A Vostok-Zh manned tug would assemble rocket stages in orbit. It would then return, and a Soyuz L1 would dock with the rocket stack and be propelled toward the moon.
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LK-1
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The LK-1 was the spacecraft designed by Chelomei for the original Soviet manned lunar flyby project. In October 1965 Korolev managed to get the project cancelled and started development of his Soyuz 7K-L1/Block D spacecraft in place of the LK-1.
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Soyuz A
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The 7K Soyuz spacecraft was initially designed for rendezvous and docking operations in near earth orbit, leading to piloted circumlunar flight. A circumlunar mission would begin with launch of the Soyuz B 9K rocket block into a 225 km orbit. This would be followed by one to three Soyuz V 11K tankers (depending on the mission), which would automatically rendezvous and dock with the 9K. They would transfer up to 22 metric tons of propellant. Finally the Soyuz A 7K spacecraft with the cosmonauts aboard would be launched, dock with the 9K, and be propelled on a lunar flyby trajectory.
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Gemini - Saturn I
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In the spring of 1964, with manned Apollo flights using the Saturn I having been cancelled, use of a Saturn I to launch a Gemini around the moon was studied.
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Gemini - Saturn IB
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In late 1964 McDonnell proposed use of the Gemini as a circumlunar spacecraft to scout the Sea of Tranquility prime Apollo landing site and prove navigation and communication systems prior to the first Apollo missions.
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Gemini - Double Transtage
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In June 1965 astronaut Pete Conrad conspired with the Martin and McDonnell corporations to advocate an early circumlunar flight using Gemini. Discretely called 'Gemini - Large Earth Orbit', the plan would use a Titan 3C-launched Transtage to boost the Gemini to translunar speed.
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Soyuz 7K-L1
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The Soyuz 7K-L1, a modification of the Soyuz 7K-OK, was designed for manned circumlunar missions. With a complex genesis, the spacecraft was flown as a replacement for Chelomei's LK-1. The 7K-L1 never actually demonstrated that it could safely take a cosmonaut around the moon and return him to earth until August 1969, a month after the successful American Apollo 11 landing on the moon. By then any thoughts of a manned flight had been abandoned as too little and too late. The Soviet disinformation organs began disseminating the myth that the USSR had never been in the moon race at all. The project was cancelled in 1970.
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DSE-Alpha
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Potential commercial circumlunar manned flights were offered in 2005, using a modified Soyuz spacecraft docked to a Block DM upper stage. The customer would be shot around the moon as early as 2008 at a price of $100 million. Soyuz had already been proven for this role under the L1 program in the 1960's.
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Shenzhou Circumlunar
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In January and February 2003 Chinese sources began discussing plans for a Chinese manned circumlunar mission by 2008. On January 4, Xu Yansong, a senior official of the China National Space Administration, declared that 'China will put men in space in the next six months and send a flyby mission to the moon in four years'. This was followed by a statement in February by Huang Chunping, General Director for Launch Vehicles for China's space program, that 'China has the full capability to send astronauts to the moon'. Then in March 2003, Ouyang Ziyuan announced a three-phase, 15 year plan for unmanned exploration of the moon. He also said a piloted mission to the moon was not a goal for China within the next decade. This authoritatively refuted the earlier reports. Therefore any Shenzhou manned circumlunar mission would probably not occur until 2015 at the earliest.
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Conditions for use of drawings, pictures, or other materials from this site..
To contact astronauts or cosmonauts.
© Mark Wade, 1997 - 2007 except where otherwise noted.
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