Soviet crewed lunar programs

Programs by the Soviet Union to land humans on the Moon

The Soviet crewed lunar programs were a series of programs pursued by the Soviet Union to land humans on the Moon, in competition with the United States Apollo program. The Soviet government publicly denied participating in such a competition, but secretly pursued two programs in the 1960s: crewed lunar flyby missions using Soyuz 7K-L1 (Zond) spacecraft launched with the Proton-K rocket, and a crewed lunar landing using Soyuz 7K-LOK and LK spacecraft launched with the N1 rocket. Following the dual American successes of the first crewed lunar orbit on 24–25 December 1968 and the first Moon landing on July 20, 1969, and a series of catastrophic N1 failures, both Soviet programs were eventually brought to an end. The Proton-based Zond program was canceled in 1970, and the N1-L3 program was de facto terminated in 1974 and officially canceled in 1976. Details of both Soviet programs were kept secret until 1990 when the government allowed them to be published under the policy of glasnost.

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