page_title: Lunar orbit rendezvous
section_title: Other plans using LOR
hierarchical_section_title: Lunar orbit rendezvous / Other plans using LOR
caption_attribution_description: English: Artemis 3 — Landing on the Moon in 2024.
context_page_description: Lunar orbit rendezvous is a key concept for efficiently landing humans on the Moon and returning them to Earth. It was utilized for the Apollo program missions in the 1960s and 1970s. In a LOR mission, a main spacecraft and a smaller lunar lander travel to lunar orbit. The lunar lander then independently descends to the surface of the Moon, while the main spacecraft remains in lunar orbit. After completion of the mission there, the lander returns to lunar orbit to rendezvous and re-dock with the main spacecraft, then is discarded after transfer of crew and payload. Only the main spacecraft returns to Earth.
  Lunar orbit rendezvous was first known to be proposed in 1919 by Ukrainian Soviet engineer Yuri Kondratyuk, as the most economical way of sending a human on a round-trip journey to the Moon.
  The most famous example involved the Apollo command and service module and Apollo Lunar Module, where they were both sent to a Translunar flight in a single rocket stack.
context_section_description: The proposed Soviet lunar landing plan, using the N1 rocket, LK Lander and Soyuz 7K-LOK, would have used a similar LOR mission profile.
  The Constellation program would have used a combination of EOR and LOR for Moon landing.
  The Artemis program will use LOR to land humans on the lunar south pole region.
caption: The planned trajectory of Artemis 3 illustrates the use of LOR
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