History
In May, 1974 the N1 rocket program is stopped. Mishine is fired by the direction of the study office of OKB-1. A new organization, Energia NPO, is created, directed by the former colleague of Korolev (Glushko), it groups together the 2 research departments of Glushko and Korolev. Although the Soviet citizens spent more than 2.4 billion roubles in the Lunar project they were still far from having a heavy functioning launcher. All the work on the N1 launcher was destroyed and Glushko and Yangel OKB began the development of the Vulkan launcher from scratch. This enormous launcher had to put into orbit elements elaborated for the lunar program LEK (Lunar Expedition Complex).
This new launcher was modified on February 17th, 1976 when Glushko had to take into account the new specifications for the Buran shuttle. These changes led to move the payload from the nose cone to the side of the launcher, and to modify the structure of the boosters around of the central block, as well as other numerous modifications. The Energia launcher was born.
Purpose of the Energia LV
The Energia launcher was not only intended for lifting the Buran space shuttle but to carry different kind of payloads. That's why the main engines are not located on the shuttle. For its first maiden flight it carried the space combat station Polyus on its side. The configuration for the payload for on its side, so it could carry up to 100 tons in LEO, and 32 tons for the Moon and Mars.
On the Soviet side, the advent of Energiya-Buran system is directly related to demise of the N1 Moon rocket the early 1970s. From 1969 to four consecutive launch attempts of the failed. The Soviet government then cancelled program in favor of the modular lift vehicle called Energiya. The government this new project to the Energiya Production Organization (NPO Energiya).43 Interestingly enough, significant figure who worked on both N1 and the Energiya was Boris who worked on the former in infancy and then served as Chief of the Energiya rocket twenty years
In May 1974, a large shake-up of Soviet space program took place which to the Buran half of the Vasiliy Mishin, who was the chief at the influential TsKBEM design bureau, unceremoniously fired while he was in hospital. TsKBEM merged with Valentin Glushko's EnergoMash bureau to form the powerful Energiya Scientific Production Organization (NPO Energiya). then took over this huge new supervising virtually all Soviet human spacecraft, vehicles, and reconnaissance satellites. Famed Soviet pioneer Sergei Korolev had founded the of NPO Energiya, but now Glushko even more power. As one of first official acts, the vindictive Glushko an order suspending all work on N1 and associated lunar projects. In single stroke, Glushko had cancelled Mishin's plans for space exploration.