The Explorers' Club, № CMXVII

Operation AXIOM: Destination Moon—The 50th Anniversary of the N1-7L Debacle
23 November 1972: N1-7L lifted off from from the Kazakh S.S.R.'s Baikonur Cosmodrome, carrying a Soyuz 7K-LOK spacecraft & dummy LK lander; the hydraulic shock from throttling down the six central engines prior to staging ruptured fuel lines, resulting in a fire, an engine explosion, & the disintegration & crash of the rocket; the launch escape system carried the Soyuz safely away.

Commentary: This was the fourth launch attempt of an N1 rocket & the fourth failure of an N1 rocket. These doomed test flights of the N1 coincided closely with the operational Moonshots of the Saturn V launch vehicle: the N1-3L test flight failed ten days before the successful launch of Apollo 9, the third operational flight of the Apollo Command & Service Module (in that case, the Gumdrop); N1-5L failed thirteen days before the successful launch of Apollo 11, the first Moon landing; N1-6L failed one month before the successful launch of Apollo 15, the fourth Moon landing; & today's N1-7L failed fourteen days before the successful launch of Apollo 17, the sixth & final Moon landing.

A fifth test flight was scheduled for August 1974, but was cancelled when the whole Soviet Moon program was shuttered in May 1974.

Bonus! Destination Moon Song o' the Day: N1-7L
Blues Traveler, "Crash & Burn" from Four (Space Cadet Mike Papa Whiskey)

Semper exploro.