50 years ago (December 2, 1970), an apparatus was launched, which received the name "Cosmos-382". Although this spacecraft was launched into Earth orbit, it was part of our lunar program. Moreover, the successful part. It was intended to test the exit of the H1-L3 combo into the Moon orbit, and the roof from the LK orbit for landing on the Moon.
That is, its goal was similar to the one that the new Chinese device worked out in May of this (2020) year, and the American Orion ship in December 2014. This is a really important moment of the mission, and Kosmos-382 showed that this element of the mission was designed for N1-L3, right.
So what's the problem? Yes, the problem is that all the information above was not obtained from any sources. It was obtained exclusively from the analysis of the ballistics of its flight (I did something similar for a Chinese ship).
- First, it moved from an orbit of 190x300 km to an orbit of 303x 5038 km orbit. DeltaV = 982m / s; Similar to the transition from the transfer orbit to the orbit of the moon satellite.
- Further from 318x5040 km to 1616 km x5071 km. DeltaV = 285 m / s; Correction margin
- Well, from 1616x 5071 km to 2577 x 5082 km. DeltaV = 1311 m / s. Descent from orbit until the spacecraft separates.
Moreover, it is also interesting that the last corrections were made in the radiation belts and the equipment should receive a noticeable dose, but the onboard computer worked out its program.
There were no serious publications on this station. All that was later published was the L1E index. Sometimes ALE is indicated, but this index is guaranteed to be erroneous and it is even known where it came from. For the first time, the correct L1E index was published in the Cosmonautics Novosti magazine in 1998 in the list of Proton-K launches, most likely, it was simply taken from the launch log of this rocket. From there it was taken by foreign researchers, but translated into L1e. Well, and then some of our researchers have already taken from them, without bothering to raise the original article, and transforming it into LIE. Unfortunately, such a damaged phone is not rare in our astronautics. And this is another relatively harmless example.
Also recently it became known that block "D" was made for it. But this was understandable earlier, since it was this block that was originally intended for such operations.
It is also known that an element of LSS was worked out on it , which then went to "Salutes". That is, there was also a hermetic volume.
There are several more rumors of varying degrees of probability, but in general, this is all information. At my request, they looked for information at RSC Energia and passed my question on to Filin . But alas, the materials have not yet been found, and the living participants of the Soviet lunar program do not remember anything.
Until now, it is not known exactly how the device looked or what it was based on. In fact, this situation is unusual. Usually, materials can be found about almost any Soviet launch.
The irony of fate is that he is still flying somewhere in space. Its orbit has remained virtually unchanged for 50 years. And he will fly on it for thousands of years.
So I propose to recall the time when our man was closest to the moon ... and switch to news from China, which is now confidently leading in the study of the lunar surface and is clearly aiming at launching people to it.