UR-700

UR-700 Heavy Chelomei Moon Rocket

Mission Profile

UR-700 was a colossal Soviet super-heavy-lift launch vehicle concept designed by Vladimir Chelomei as an alternative to the N1 rocket for the Soviet Moon landing program. Standing 75 meters tall with a staggering liftoff mass of 4,823,000 kg and generating 57,850 kN of thrust from its first stage, it would have been capable of sending 150,000 kg to low Earth orbit. Conceived around 1969, the UR-700 proposed a radically different approach to the Moon race using storable propellants rather than cryogenics, in direct competition with Korolev's N1. The design was never approved for development, as Soviet planners committed to the N1, and the UR-700 remains one of the most ambitious rocket concepts ever seriously studied — its proposed payload capacity would not be approached again until SpaceX's Starship.