21 February 1969. N-1 vehicle no. 3L seen here erected to the pad at Site 110, Tyuratam. First launch attempt; Payload: Zond L1S-1 (Soyuz 7K-L1S Zond-M), intended for a circumlunar flight. Estimates from the TsNIIMash team stated a mere 1% success rate. At 12:18 Moscow time, with its massive and powerful Block-A first stage, the colossal N-1 lifts off, all thirty NK-15 engines running, providing over 11.3 million pounds of thrust. Immediately after lift off, the vehicle run into trouble; Engines No. 12 and 24 were shut down. With 28 engines on full thrust, the vehicle is still seemingly stable. Later into the flight, as a result of rising high frequency oscillation in Engine No. 2 turbo-generator, some engine components tore off their mounts, resulting in a forced leak of propellants. 68.7 seconds into the flight, this triggered a huge fire in the tail compartment. Chertoks oversensitive KORD engine control system responded with shutting down the remaining 28 engines. SAS escape tower is activated, pulling out the L1 payload. At T+70 seconds and 12 km altitude, the vehicle blew up. Remains crashed 52 km downrange from pad. Five years of costly efforts and enormous hard work drained down in less than two minutes.
Posted on: Sun, 30 Nov 2014 13:33:17 +0000
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