Kosmos 434 (; meaning ''Cosmos 434''), also known as T2K No.3, was the final uncrewed test flight of the

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

LK Lander. It performed the longest burn of the four uncrewed LK Lander tests, validating the backup rocket engine of the LK's '' Blok E'' propulsion system. It finished in a 186 km by 11,804 km orbit. This test qualified the lander as flightworthy. The LK was the only element of the

Soviet human lunar programs The Soviet crewed lunar programs were a series of programs pursued by the Soviet Union to land humans on the Moon, in competition with the United States Apollo program. The Soviet government publicly denied participating in such a competitio ...

that reached this status. In 1980-81 there were fears that it might carry

nuclear fuel Nuclear fuel refers to any substance, typically fissile material, which is used by nuclear power stations or other atomic nucleus, nuclear devices to generate energy. Oxide fuel For fission reactors, the fuel (typically based on uranium) is ...

. When it reentered over

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

on August 22, 1981 the Soviet Foreign Ministry in Australia admitted that Kosmos 434 was an "experiment unit of a lunar cabin," or lunar lander.

References

External links

* Mir Hardware Heritage *
Mir Hardware Heritage - NASA report (PDF format)
** Mir Hardware Heritage (wikisource) Kosmos 0434 Soviet lunar program 1971 in the Soviet Union Australia–Soviet Union relations Spacecraft launched in 1971 {{USSR-spacecraft-stub

See also

References

External links