In June 1960 Sergei Korolyev applied to the Soviet Government with a proposition to create a su-per-heavy launch vehicle, weighing some 2000 t, for sending a crew of cosmonauts to the Moon, Mars and Venus. The Government gave its approval. The new launch vehicle, christened the N1 (Russian abbreviation of the Carrier-1), was to have a ring-like arrangement of liquid-fuel rocket engines. Nikolai Kuznetsov and the team of the Motor Plant of Kuibyshev were ordered to develop a new engine operating on oxygen/kerosene mixture, with after-burning of the generated gases. The new engine would be used in the four blocks of the N1 launch vehicle. The      N1 would be con-trolled in yaw and pitch channels by a difference in thrust of the opposite engines. Control over movements in the banking channel would be provided by special control jets, using gases from a turbo-pump unit. The NK-15, NK-15V, NK-19 and NK-21 liquid-fuel engines for the four-stage launch vehicle were developed and put into manufacture. On 20 February 1969 S. Afanasiev, the Minister of the General Machinery-building Ministry of the Soviet Union, gave his permission to launch the N1.