Zvezda (moonbase)

Zvezda (Russian for "star"), also designated the DLB Lunar Base, was a Soviet project to build a crewed outpost on the Moon, running from 1962 until 1974. It was intended to follow the N1-L3 program, which aimed to land cosmonauts on the lunar surface. The project was commissioned by Soviet space chief Korolyov and assigned to Vladimir Barmin's Spetsmash bureau. It was ultimately cancelled along with all other Soviet human lunar efforts.

The plan called for the base's main living module to be delivered first. Subsequent automatic spacecraft, including Lunokhod rovers, would arrive, followed by a human crew and additional modules. For crew protection, the habitation units might have been buried under lunar soil. To allow the base to move or be relocated, the modules could have been mounted on wheeled chassis and linked together to form a mobile train.

Power would have come from atomic batteries and a nuclear reactor. In technical documents the project was called DLB Lunar Base, while government papers used Zvezda; its designers informally nicknamed it Barmingrad, after Barmin. Studies covered the base's objectives, construction concepts, implementation stages, scientific and construction equipment, and possible military uses.

Parameters

The core unit was the habitation module, with nine planned, each delivered separately. Modules were designated for control, laboratory, living, medical, dining, storage, and other functions. Each measured 8.6 meters long and 3.3 meters in diameter, weighing 18 tons.

After delivery, modules would start at 4.5 meters in length and expand to full size via a mechanism and air compression. The train, weighing 8 tons, would be operated by four cosmonauts and consist of tug, life support, power, and drilling sections. Each module's chassis had eight independently driven wheels, similar to those on Lunokhods. Modules and train sections had three protective layers against micrometeorites, heat, and ultraviolet radiation, with a special styrofoam layer between inner and outer metal shells.

The train included a manipulator arm for collecting soil samples without requiring space suits. Water would be extracted from lunar soil through a chemical reaction; the Lavochkin bureau developed a small-scale version of this unit but never tested it. The base's crew would number between 9 and 12.