N1

11A52 H1 (Cyrillic: Н1) Nauka-1 Raketno-Kosmicheskaya Sistema

Mission Profile

The N1 (11A52, H1, Nauka-1) was a three-to-five-stage Soviet super-heavy launch vehicle in the N1 family, developed under the Soviet Lunar Program as the USSR's answer to the Saturn V for crewed lunar missions. Standing 105.3 m tall with a 17 m base diameter and a liftoff mass of 2,735 tonnes, it generated 45,400 kN of liftoff thrust from thirty NK-15 engines and was designed to deliver 95,000 kg to low Earth orbit. First flying in February 1969, all four N1 launch attempts ended in failure, making it one of the most spectacular engineering defeats of the Space Race before the programme was cancelled in 1974.