Image Courtesy Mark Wade

July 13, 1969. Appearing with little fanfare from of the shroud of Soviet secrecy, hurtling silently through space toward its destiny, Luna 15 crept into the consciousness of the world watching the unfolding drama of Apollo 11. It was a nagging little sour note under the soaring, triumphant march of the daring first manned mission to the Moon, quietly and insistently upstaging the American endeavor.

American suspicions mounted, as did speculation. In the mocking view outside America, some of the speculation around the mystery craft bordered on the ridiculous.

Per Brian Harvey’s Race Into Space, the Soviet Space Programme (1988 Ellis Horwood LTD)

… one absurd idea rivalled another. Luna 15 would jam Apollo 11’s frequencies. It was there to “spy” on Apollo 11 – like the Russian trawlers during NATO naval exercises, presumably. It was there to report back on how the Americans did it. It was a rescue craft to bring back Armstrong and Aldrin if they got stranded. (Page 134)

Yet, how could one not have doubts, doubts maddeningly aggravated by the Sphinx-like silence of the Soviets on their Moon program?

The craft entered lunar orbit and skirted the dead world silently, as if waiting for Apollo 11’s arrival.

On July 18, a day after lunar orbit insertion, Luna 15 made the first of several maneuvers, changing from the original orbit of 133 by 286 km, 45 degrees, to one 94 by 220 km, 126 degrees. On July 19, 25th orbit, it maneuvered again, descending to 85 km.

July 20, orbit 29, 16 km by 109, 127 degrees, period 114 minutes. The periselene (the lowest point in a lunar orbit) is directly over the anticipated Apollo landing site in the Sea of Tranquility.

The radio observatory at Jodrell bank late the same day reports that Luna 15 is so low in its orbit that it would crash into a lunar peak if the orbit were not altered soon.

Then, July 20 by some sources, and July 21 by others, Luna 15 descended to the Sea of Crisis, into silence.

The apparent crash was spin-doctored by the Kremlin, downplaying it with typical Soviet arrogance. The official word was the probe was launched to return a sample of the lunar surface to the Earth, far more safely and inexpensively than the brash American venture.

In terms of celestial mechanics – the mathematical science of orbits and trajectories – the touchdown point in the Sea of Crisis was ideal for relaunching a craft from the Moon to return to a landing spot on Earth within the Soviet Union. So why maneuver Luna 15 to virtually graze the Sea of Tranquility? What purpose could be served, save tweaking the nose of the United States?

From these facts one could imagine an utterly stunning propaganda victory – dropping a lone cosmonaut to the Moon at the exact place his American competitors would be landing a few hours later.

It would stagger the imagination of the world.

The premise of Red Moon — that Luna 15 was a last-ditch manned attempt at beating the United States in the Moon — is not unique to the novel. To our surprise, in our research we discovered the idea figured predominantly in a dark introspective European novel published in the early 1970’s and in a number of amateur efforts. Much to our surprise, after the first promotional release of the novel in 2001, the Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens 2005 novel Freefall made use of the same premise. Clearly, the idea has seized the imagination of many. The question arises: could there really be something to this? Could Luna 15 have been such an attempt?

Though it is unlikely the Soviets took such a drastic step, the possibility, though vanishingly small, remains. Approaching it from another direction,we had to ask, given the hardware available at the time, was this really possible?

Enter Mark Wade, webmaster and editor of the online reference Encyclopedia Astronautica. Mark Wade gave us our answer, a resounding yes!

Embracing the mission scenario we had pictured for the novel, Mark applied his vast knowledge of Soviet space hardware and his understanding of celestial mechanics and produced not only a flight profile, but engine burn times, masses of propellant used for maneuvers, and even drawings of our fictional lunar lander Firebird with and without its UR-500 Proton launch vehicle. We were delighted, and flattered our story inspired Mark to give it so much effort.

We again thank Mark Wade for his contributions to Red Moon.

Image Gallery

Click on the thumbnails for full size images.
(All images courtesy Mark Wade.)

Here is Mark’s drawing of the lander. The craft, pictured here on top of its “block D” stage (the fourth stage of the booster assembly) is a hybrid between Korolev’s LK Lander and the Lavotchkin descent stage used for several of the Luna and Lunakhod series. The name in Cyrillic here is “Feniks” [Phoenix], though we went with “Firebird” in the story.

Here is his “blueprint” version of the lander.

A cross-section of “Feniks” in its protective shroud atop a UR-500 Proton.

The flight profile. Click on the thumbnail for full sized image and detail of the mission events.