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Chelomei Proton rocket flew for the first time in 1965 after a very rushed development. The result was a very abysmal failure rate over the first five years: 25 launches, 12 failures. One out of two !

FTO = Failed To Orbit

07/16/65 Proton 20701 Proton 1 (N-4 1) 12.20 TB 81/23 LEO

11/02/65 Proton 20901 Proton 2 (N-4 2) 12.20 TB 81/23 LEO

03/24/66 Proton 21101 Proton (N-4 3) 12.20 TB 81/23 [FTO]

07/06/66 Proton 21201 Proton 3 (N-4 4) 12.20 TB 81/23 LEO

03/10/67 Proton-K/D 22701 Kosmos 146 (L-1 2P) 5.40 TB 81/23 EEO

04/08/67 Proton-K/D 22801 Kosmos-154 (L-1 3P) 5.40 TB 81/23 [LEO]

09/27/67 Proton-K/D 22901 Zond (L-1 4L) 5.39 TB 81/23 [FTO]

11/22/67 Proton-K/D 23001 Zond (L-1 5L) 5.39 TB 81/24 [FTO]

03/02/68 Proton-K/D 23101 Zond-4 (L-1 6L) 5.14 TB 81/23 EEO

04/22/68 Proton-K/D 23201 Zond (L-1 7L) 5.375 TB 81/24 [FTO]

07/15/68 Proton-K/D 23301 Zond (L-1 8L) 5.375 TB 81/? [PAD][1]

09/14/68 Proton-K/D 23401 Zond-5 (L-1 9L) 5.375 TB 81/23 TLI [2]

11/10/68 Proton-K/D 23501 Zond-6 (L-1 12L) 5.375 TB 81/23 TLI

11/16/68 Proton-K 23601 Proton-4 (N-6 1) 17.00 TB 81/24 LEO

01/20/69 Proton-K/D 23701 Zond (L-1 13L) 5.979 TB 81/23 [FTO]

02/19/69 Proton-K/D 23901 Luna (E-8 201) 5.60 TB 81/24 [FTO]

03/27/69 Proton-K/D 24001 Mars (2M 521) 4.85 TB 81/23 [FTO]

04/02/69 Proton-K/D 23301 Mars (2M 522) 4.85 TB 81/24 [FTO]

06/14/69 Proton-K/D 23801 Luna (E-8-5 402) 5.60 TB 81/24 [FTO]

07/13/69 Proton-K/D 24201 Luna-15 (E-8-5 401) 5.60 TB 81/24 TLI [3]

08/07/69 Proton-K/D 24301 Zond-7 (L-1 11) 5.979 TB 81/23 TLI

09/23/69 Proton-K/D 24401 Kosmos-300 (E-8-5 403) 5.60 TB 81/24 [LEO]

10/22/69 Proton-K/D 24101 Kosmos-305 (E-8-5 404) 5.60 TB 81/24 [LEO]

11/28/69 Proton-K/D 24501 Kosmos (L-1e 1) 10.38 TB 81/23 [FTO]

02/06/70 Proton-K/D 24701 Luna (E-8-5 405) 5.60 TB 81/23 [FTO]
Among the failures are a lot of Zond circumlunar manned ships and a good number of Lunar sample return ships.

As of spring 1970 after loosing three sample return Lunas in a row (!) the Proton was grounded, reviewed, tested in a suborbital flight. And things went better. Except that Moon race was already lost.

One of the glaring reasons for so many failures in Luna, Zond, Venera and Mars
missions in the late 60s and early 70s was poor performance of the Proton vehicle.
Succeeding in its initial launch and in two of its next three launches in 1965-66, its
initial performance appeared promising. But its record in the 3 years from March
1967 to February 1970 was abysmal. Ten of nineteen spacecraft were lost when the
Proton failed to deliver the Block D to Earth orbit. Another three achieved orbit but
were stranded when the second burn of the Block D failed. Only six of the nineteen
launches were fully successful. Sixteen were interplanetary, and the Proton failed in
eleven cases- four failures out of eight Zond launches to the Moon, five failures out
of six Luna launches, and the failure of both Mars launches in 1969. Unfortunately,
the failures were distributed throughout the vehicle including all stages, so it was
very difficult to make the vehicle reliable.
NPO-Lavochkin was so concerned at the Proton failures that General Designer
Georgi Babakin met with the Minister of General Machine Building in March 1970
to demand action. After the rocket underwent a full engineering review a number of
improvements were made, and the vehicle was re-qualified in a successful test flight
in August 1970. After this, the success record improved dramatically and eventually
the Proton became one of the most reliable workhorses in the Soviet launcher fleet.
Indeed, it today enjoys an excellent reputation and a large share of the commercial
launch market.
Had the Proton been more reliable, Zond could have gone slightly faster, and the Lunar sample return ships, too. In summary: a slightly more interesting lunar race, perhaps with all kind of interesting butterflies.
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