A half century ago, NASA’s Mariner 4 spacecraft had completed the first successful flyby of Mars on July 15, 1965 (Universal Time) and had already finished the first playback of its historic close up images of the Red Planet (see “Mariner 4 to Mars”). At the same time, the Soviet’s mysterious Zond 2 spacecraft was approaching Mars on a much slower trajectory that would reach Mars on August 6. Unfortunately, a frustrating series of system malfunctions had already silenced the probe three months earlier prematurely ending yet another Soviet planetary mission (see “Zond 2: Old Mysteries Solved & New Questions Raised”).
In the wake of these missions, the Soviet Union launched their latest interplanetary spacecraft called Zond 3 on July 18, 1965. But instead of heading towards any planet, Zond 3 flew by the Moon on July 20 on its way into solar orbit securing spectacular new pictures of the previously unseen parts of the lunar far side as part of an engineering test flight. Transmission of these images started on July 29 and they were publically released a couple of weeks later providing the Soviet space program with an impressive success after a long string of lunar and planetary mission failures (see “50 Years Ago Today: The Launch of Luna 5”).
The Soviet Zond 3 which took images of the previously unseen parts of the lunar far side on its way into solar orbit as part of an engineering test flight of the 3MV interplanetary spacecraft. (NASA)
In my latest article published in The Space Review, entitled “The Mission of Zond 3”, the story behind the unique flight of Zond 3 is presented. While it appeared at the time to have been one-off mission to test the Soviet Union’s trouble-plagued 3MV family of planetary explorers, it was actually just the latest in a series of engineering test flights launched over the course of the previous 20 months which also included the failed Zond 2 mission towards Mars. The successful flight of Zond 3 finally gave Soviet engineers not only a chance to put a 3MV spacecraft through its paces with an actual “planetary” encounter, but also an opportunity to flight test their advanced photo-television imaging system which was capable of returning an order of magnitude more data than the digital imaging system employed by NASA’s Mariner 4. This largely successful mission provided a vital test of the 3MV design before the planned November 1965 launch of up to four Venera probes that would attempt to study Venus at close range and land on its surface for the first time.
“The Mission of Zond 3″, The Space Review, Article #2794, July 27, 2015 [Article]
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Related Reading
“Zond 2: Old Mysteries Solved & New Questions Raised”, Drew Ex Machina, July 17, 2014 [Post]
“Mariner 4 to Mars”, Drew Ex Machina, July 14, 2015 [Post]
“50 Years Ago Today: The Launch of Luna 5”, Drew Ex Machina, May 9, 2015 [Post]
“The Mission of Zond 2″, The Space Review, Article #2745, May 4, 2015 [Article]
“…Try, Try Again”, The Space Review, Article #2501, April 28, 2014 [Article]