User:Tony Mach/LK-1
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The Vozvraschaemyi Apparat (Russian: Возвращаемый Аппарат ВА, Return Vehicle, GRAU index 11F74), or VA spacecraft, was a Soviet crew capsule, intended to serve as a manned launch and reentry vehicle. Initially designed for the LK-1 manned lunar flyby spacecraft for one of the Soviet manned lunar programs, it was later repurposed for the Almaz military space station program.[6][1] The VA capsule on display at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum was labeled as Merkur, following a mistranslation of the original documentation – while incorrect, the name is being used in the West for the VA spacecraft and capsule.[4][5][7]
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The VA spacecraft was capable of independent flight – up to 31 hours in its last incarnation – it needed however to be combined with additional hardware (containing propulsion and storage) to achieve a longer flight duration.[1] Three different such usage scenarios for the VA spacecraft were planed: Initially the LK-1 spacecraft, and after LK-1's cancelation the plans for Almaz APOS and the TKS spacecraft utilized the VA spacecraft.
- For the lunar flyby spacecraft LK-1, the plans by Vladimir Chelomey's design bureau OKB-52 were to mate an VA spacecraft together with an Equipment-Rocket System Block (PAB) and the Translunar Injection Stage (RB).[6]
For the Almaz program, the plans envisaged two configurations for the crewed VA spacecraft:
- An VA spacecraft would have launched the initial crew of a Almaz-OPS space station, the VA spacecraft launched together with the station itself; This combination was known as "Almaz APOS".[8]
- An VA spacecraft would have been launched mated together with an Functional Cargo Block (FGB) to resupply a Almaz station, in both crewed and uncrewed flights; This combination was known as the TKS spacecraft.[1]
While the VA spacecraft has seen some successful uncrewed test flights, both with and without an Functional Cargo Block, it never served in its intended role as a lunar or Almaz crew vehicle when the programs was canceled, and neither was it ever launched together with an Almaz space station.