Soyuz 1 spaceflight when his parachute malfunctioned causing his capsule to smash into the earth at high speed. The second group was led by Alexei Leonov and concentrated on the landing mission (Commanders: Leonov, Popovich, Belyayev, Volynov, Klimuk; Engineer-cosmonauts: Makarov, Voronov, Rukavishnikov, Artyukhin). As a result, Leonov has the strongest claim to have been the Soviets' first choice for the first man on the Moon. After Komarov's death in Soyuz 1 in 1967, Gagarin was taken out of training and the groups were restructured. Despite the Soyuz 1 setback, the Soviets successfully rehearsed the automated docking of two uncrewed Soyuz craft in Earth orbit in 1968 and with the crewed Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 joint mission in early 1969 tested the other key mission elements. A total of 18 missions were related to the N1-L3 project. Later developments After the US Moon landing in 1969, the justification for the Soviet lunar landing program largely evaporated, although development and testing continued into the early 1970s. In 1970–1971 the LK was ready after three uncrewed test flights in LEO (Kosmos 379, Kosmos 398, Kosmos 434). The LOK launched once (Kosmos 382 7K-L1E, a dummy of 7K-LOK). The Krechet lunar spacesuit and support systems were tested. Four N1 test launches in 1969 (twice), 1971, and 1972 were failures, despite improvements after each crash. The second launch, on 3 July 1969 (an attempt to upstage Apollo 11 by 13 days), resulted in the destruction of the rocket and the entire launch complex, which delayed the N1-L3 program for two years. In an automatic Moon flyby, these first two launches of the N1 carried the 7K-L1S spacecraft (modified 7K-L1). The dummy 7K-LOK (7K-L1E) and regular 7K-LOK with dummy LKs were used in the third and fourth launches. The complete L3 lunar expedition complex with the 7K-LOK and LK for the Moon flyby and landing was prepared for a fifth launch, using a modified N1 rocket in August 1974. If this mission and the next had been successful, it would have led to the decision to launch up to five Soviet crewed N1-L3 expeditions in 1976–1980. To gain technical and scientific interest in the program, the modified multi-launched N1F-L3M missions were planned to have significantly more time on the Moon's surface than Apollo. However, N1-L3 (as well as N1F-L3M) program was canceled in May 1974, and Soviet crewed space efforts subsequently concentrated on the development