My latest article, “…Try, try again”, has been published on line in The Space Review. It is a continuation of a series of articles that I have written on the history of the Soviet planetary exploration program in the early years of the Space Age.
In the wake of the failures of the 2MV probes to Venus and Mars in the fall of 1962, Chief Designer Sergei Korolev and his team at OKB-1 designed an improved 3MV series of flyby probes and landers to be launched to Venus in March-April 1964 and to Mars in November-December 1964. These missions would be preceded by engineering test flights into interplanetary space of stripped-down versions of the 3MV that were to be called “Zond” Launch failures doomed most of the early flights and in the end only a single 3MV-1 Venus lander survived launch on April 2, 1964. But because of a series of fatal problems with 3MV-1 No. 4, Soviet authorities called the new Venera probe “Zond 1” making no mention of its mission to Venus. Zond 1 eventually succumbed to its malfunctions and fell silent 52 days into its 108-day trip to Venus.
Because of the secrecy surrounding this and the other failures, it would be three decades before details about the spacecraft and their missions began to be released – a process that continues to this day. This article covers the history of the development of the 3MV spacecraft in 1963 and the launches to Venus in February to April of 1964 incorporating the latest research on the subject. Future articles in this series will continue to cover subsequent missions in the 3MV series.
“…Try, Try Again”, The Space Review, Article #2501, April 28, 2014 [Article]
Related Reading
“Trajectory Analysis of the Soviet 1964 Venus Missions”, Drew Ex Machina, April 2, 2014 [Post]
“The Beginnings of Planetary Exploration”, The Space Review, Article #1709, October 11, 2010 [Article]
“The Beginnings of Planetary Exploration: The First Probes to Venus”, The Space Review, Article #1779, February 14, 2011 [Article]
“If At First You Don’t Succeed… Part I”, The Space Review, Article #2477, March 24, 2014 [Article]
“If At First You Don’t Succeed… Part II”, The Space Review, Article #2480, March 31, 2014 [Article]
Amaƶing! This blog looks exactly like my old one!
It’s on a totally different topic but it has pretty much the same paǥe layout and design.
Superb cҺoice of colors!
You can thank my web designer at Mellarium for the layout and color choices of my web site. I’ll pass along your complements 🙂