Soyuz Kontakt
Soyuz Kontakt was the docking hardware of the Soviet crewed lunar spacecraft program. The Soviet lunar human program was canceled in 1974 after many failures. Four failures of the N-1 Rocket super heavy-lift launch vehicle and the success of the U.S. Apollo program ended the Soviet crewed moon program.
Background
The first docking of two spacecraft was achieved on March 16, 1966, when Gemini 8 rendezvoused and docked with an uncrewed Agena Target Vehicle.Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 performed the first docking of two crewed spacecraft on January 16, 1969, coupled with a spacewalk. Then, the Apollo 9 spacecraft/command and service module completed a rendezvous and docked with the Lunar Module on March 3, 1969, using a transfer tunnel.
Design
Soyuz Kontakt was designed for the Soviet lunar orbit rendezvous of the Soyuz 7K-LOK crewed lunar orbiter spacecraft and Soviet LK lunar lander for the Soviet space program. The Soyuz Kontakt docking system used a three-pronged grappler on the active moving spacecraft. The active spacecraft would then attempt a soft docking between the two spacecraft. The passive non-moving craft would be fitted with a hexagonal grid for the active craft to dock to. To dock, the cosmonaut would have used a manual optical alignment system. Once docked, the crew would then perform an EVA to transfer to the LK lander.Before the lunar launch, there were to be several earth-orbit training dockings. For the tests, two Soyuz 11A511 rockets would have put a modified Soyuz 7K-OK crewed spacecraft on earth orbit along with another modified 7K-OK to be the passive craft. The crew would have docked and then transferred for the test.
The Soyuz 7K-OK crewed spacecraft has space for a crew of three, with a habitable space of 9m3. The vehicle was 7.95 m tall with a span of 9.80 m, and a gross mass of 6,560 kg. The crew trained for this test mission, but it never launched.