The Explorers' Club, № DCCCXXVI

Operation AXIOM: The Space Race—The 50th Anniversary of the N1-6L Debacle
26 June 1971: Almost two years after N1-5L had fallen back onto its launch pad & exploded, N1-6L lifted off from from the Kazakh S.S.R.'s Baikonur Cosmodrome, carrying a Soyuz 7K-L1E spacecraft & dummy LK lander; the rocket entered an unrecoverable roll & was torn apart by excessive structural loads; debris landed from four to nine miles downrange, blasting at least one fifty-foot-deep crater.

Commentary: The Soyuz 11 crew aboard the Salyut 1 space station were tasked to obseve the N1-6L launch, but due to a postponement of the countdown they were not in the right part of their orbit when the massive rocket lifted off & shortly thereafter disintegrated.

Bonus! Destination Moon Song o' the Day: N1-6L
Hans Zimmer, "Hummel Gets the Rockets" from The Rock (Space Cadet Mike Papa Whiskey)

Semper exploro.