L1 Complex 1961 - The earliest Sever project tackled such problems as manoeuvring in orbit, rendezvous and docking, use of manipulators to move station modules, and testing of lifting re-entry vehicles. Sever was 50% larger than Soyuz, which replaced it by late 1961 in OKB-1 studies. 7,438 bytes. 433 x 130 pixels.

Sever was the original OKB-1 design for a manned spacecraft to replace the Vostok. It was designed to tackle such problems as manoeuvring in orbit, rendezvous and docking, and testing of lifting re-entry vehicles. The Sever had the same �headlight� shape as the later Soyuz re-entry vehicle, but was 50% larger. But application of the principal of moving all possible systems to a jettisonable living module resulted in the smaller Soyuz capsule design for the same number of crew.

The first design sketched out was known as Sever (North). The reentry capsule had the same configuration as the ultimate Soyuz design but was 50% larger. By summer 1959 Feoktistov had reduced the size to that of the later Soyuz, while retaining the three-man crew size.

The Soyuz or Sever designs would utilize body lift to reduce G forces and allo the crew to make re-entries at hyperbolic speeds - when returning from the moon, or Mars. An associated design was a manned orbital tug version of the Vostok capsule to assemble spacecraft in low earth orbit.

• 21 - Semenov, Yuri P Editor, Raketno-kosmicheskaya korporatsiya 'Energia' imeni S P Koroleva, Moscow, Russia, 1996.
• 102 - Voevodin, Sergey A, VSA072 - Space Apparatus, "Sergey A. Voevodin's Reports", . HTML when accessed: http://www.mcs.net/~rusaerog/sergeyv/VSA.html