Zenit (, ; meaning Zenith) is a family of space launch vehicles designed by the Yuzhnoye Design Bureau of Soviet Union, and since the early 1990s by the same design bureau but now a part of Ukraine. Zenit was built in the 1980s for two purposes: as a liquid rocket booster for the Energia rocket and, equipped with a second stage, as a stand-alone up-middle launcher greater than 7-ton payload Soyuz and smaller than 20-ton payload Proton. The last rocket family developed by the USSR, the Zenit was intended as an eventual replacement for the dated R-7 and Proton families, moreover it would employ cryogenic propellants which were safer and less toxic than the Proton's nitrogen tetroxide/UDMH mix. Moreover Zenit was planned to take over manned spaceship launches from Soyuz, but these plans were abandoned after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.