N1

Also known as N-1, L3

Soviet super heavy-lift launch vehicle

Key facts

Function: Super heavy-lift launch vehicle for crewed lunar mission
Manufacturer: OKB-1
Country of origin: USSR
Cost per launch: US$604 million in 1985 dollars ( $ 1.81 billion in Consumer Price Index deflator</span>"}]]}'>2025 )
Height: 105.3 m (345 ft)
Diameter: 17 m (56 ft)
Mass: 2,750,000 kg (6,060,000 lb)
Comparable: Saturn V
Status: Cancelled during development
Launch sites: Baikonur , Site 110
First flight: 21 February 1969
Last flight: 23 November 1972

Article

The N1 (from Ракета-носитель Raketa-nositel', "Carrier Rocket"; Cyrillic: Н1) was a super heavy-lift launch vehicle of the Soviet space program intended for crewed travel to the Moon and beyond. All four launch attempts between 1969 and 1972 failed. Studied and designed by OKB-1 since 1959, it was the counterpart to the US Saturn V.

A five-stage kerolox-fuelled rocket, its Block A was the most powerful rocket stage flown for over 50 years, at 45 meganewtons of thrust, until the SpaceX Super Heavy. Block A's large cluster of thirty NK-15 engines, prone to individual failures, was managed by an analog computer, which shut down engines opposite the failure, to maintain attitude control. Block B and V used eight and four hot staged engines respectively, planned to bring the rocket to low Earth orbit. Dangers of the complex engine cluster and fuel feeder systems were not discovered earlier as static fires were not conducted. Its second test flight resulted in a massive explosion that disabled its Site 110 launch pad at Baikonur Cosmodrome for 18 months.