Zond 5
OKB-1 | ||
COSPAR ID | 1968-076A[1] | |
---|---|---|
SATCAT no. | 3394[1] | |
Mission duration | 6 days, 18 hours, 24 minutes | |
Spacecraft properties | ||
OKB-1 | ||
Launch mass | 5,375 kilograms (11,850 lb)[2] | |
Start of mission | ||
Launch date | 14 September 1968, 21:42:11 D | UTC|
Launch site | Baikonur 81 | |
End of mission | ||
Recovered by | Soviet vessels Borovichy and Vasiliy Golovin | |
Landing date | 21 September 1968[3] | 16:08 UT|
Landing site | ||
Orbital parameters | ||
Reference system | Semi-major axis 6,613 kilometres (4,109 mi) | |
Eccentricity | 0.00604 | |
Perigee altitude | 202 kilometres (126 mi) | |
Apogee altitude | 282 kilometres (175 mi) | |
Inclination | 51.83° | |
Period | 89.29 minutes | |
Epoch | 13 September 1968 | |
Flyby of Moon | ||
Closest approach | 18 September 1968 | |
Distance | 1,950 km (1,210 mi) | |
Zond 1968B → |
Zond 5 (
The Zond spacecraft was a version of the
Background
Out of the first four
The Zond 5 mission was originally planned to fly cosmonauts around the Moon, but the failures of Zond 1968A and Zond 1968B led the Soviets to send an uncrewed mission instead, from fear of the negative propaganda of an unsuccessful crewed flight.[10]
Payload
Two
Kazan Optical and Mechanical Plant had developed the AFA-BA/40
Mission
Launch and trajectory
Zond 5 launched on 14 September 1968 at 21:42.10 UTC, from
On 18 September, the spacecraft flew around the Moon, although it did not orbit it.[14] The closest distance was 1,950 kilometres (1,210 mi).[1] On the way back from the Moon, another star tracker failed. The spacecraft also erroneously switched off the guided reentry system.[22] Eight ships were deployed to the Indian Ocean prior to launch, as a precaution in case the spacecraft could not reach Soviet territory; only three of them had rescue helicopters on board.[10]
Reentry and recovery
On 21 September, the reentry capsule entered the Earth's atmosphere.[23] The primary landing zone was in Kazakhstan, but instead Zond 5 splashed down in the Indian Ocean and was recovered by the Soviet vessels Borovichy (Боровичи) and Vasiliy Golovnin (Василий Головнин).[24][25] It landed at −32°38' latitude and 65°33' longitude,[26] 105 kilometres (65 mi) from the nearest Soviet naval ship. The landing occurred at night, which impaired recovery efforts.[27]
Zond 5 became the first spacecraft to circle the Moon and return to Earth. The entire journey took 6 days, 18 hours and 24 minutes.[28] Although the ballistic reentry would probably have been lethal for human occupants, it did not appear to affect the biological specimens, which were alive when the descent module was opened four days after landing.[1] USS McMorris shadowed the Soviet recovery ships, collecting intelligence,[29] but left shortly after the spacecraft was brought on board the Soviet ship.[27]
Results and future plans
High-quality photographs of the Earth, the first photos of their kind,[30] were taken at a distance of 90,000 kilometres (56,000 mi).[1] British astronomer Bernard Lovell, considered to be Britain's top space expert, said that the Zond 5 mission showed that the Soviets were ahead in the Space Race. The British Interplanetary Society believed that the USSR would be able to send cosmonauts around the Moon within a matter of months.[31]
In October 1968, sources in the U.S. claimed the mission was not as successful as the Soviets advertised. The mission had been intended to fly closer to the Moon, and its actual distance did not allow for useful lunar photography. They also said that the angle at which the spacecraft reentered the atmosphere was too steep for a cosmonaut to survive. The sources indicated that the spacecraft landed in the Indian Ocean when the planned location was in Soviet territory, which was a factor in the recovery taking ten hours.[32]
The official Soviet news agency, TASS, announced in November 1968 that the flight carried living animals. The tortoises were dissected on 11 October after fasting for 39 days. The flying tortoises, identified as No. 22 and No. 37, had lost 10% of their body weight during the trip, but showed no loss of appetite.[33] The control tortoises lost 5% of their weight. Comparison of analyses of blood from the space-travelling tortoises and the control specimens revealed no differences. Another analysis showed the flying tortoises had elevated iron and glycogen levels in their liver and that the flight also affected the internal structures of their spleens.[15] The authors concluded that the changes in the flight tortoises were primarily due to starvation, with the space travel having little effect.[34] In November 1968, it was announced that the spacecraft was planned as a precursor to a crewed lunar spacecraft. The Soviets made this announcement a month before the planned Apollo 8 flight, in an attempt to show they were close to being able to carry out a crewed trip to the Moon.[35][36]
Cosmonaut crew communications test and hoax
The Zond 5 caused a scare in the United States when on 19 September 1968, the voices of cosmonauts
Popovich would later recall: "When we realized we would never make it to the moon, we decided to engage in a little bit of hooliganism. We asked our engineers to link the on-the-probe receiver to the transmitter with a jumper wire. Moon flight missions were then controlled from a command centre in
Location
The Zond 5 capsule is on display at the RKK Energiya museum, located in Moscow Oblast, Russia.[41]
See also
- Animals in space
- Zond 6, turtles on a circumlunar mission in November 1968
- Zond 7, four turtles flew the August 1969 circumlunar flight
- Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum, and Phooey, five mice who orbited the Moon a record 75 times in December 1972, while traveling on NASA's Apollo 17 mission
- Korabl-Sputnik 5, another Soviet mission some mistakenly thought was crewed.
Notes
- ^ a b c d e f "Zond 5". NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive. Retrieved 28 February 2019.
- ^ a b Siddiqi 2018, p. 79.
- ^ Siddiqi 2018, p. 80.
- ^ "Soviet and Russian Lunar Exploration" (PDF). p. 314.
- ^ Betz, Eric (18 September 2018). "The First Earthlings Around the Moon Were Two Soviet Tortoises". Discover. Archived from the original on 28 September 2019. Retrieved 14 July 2019.
- ^ Siddiqi 2003, p. 653.
- ^ "Tentatively Identified Missions and Launch Failures". NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive. Retrieved 9 March 2019.
- ^ Zak, Anatoly (14 July 2018). "L1 No. 7L: A circumlunar mission attempt". Russian Space Web. Retrieved 8 July 2019.
- ^ Zak, Anatoly. "Mission L1 No. 8L: A deadly accident". Russian Space Web. Retrieved 30 April 2023.
- ^ a b c d e Zak, Anatoly. "Zond 5". Russian Space Web. Retrieved 9 March 2019.
- ^ a b Gaidamakin et al. 1969, p. 2.
- ISBN 0-312-82362-2.
- ^ a b c Siddiqi 2003, p. 654.
- ^ a b Madigral, Alexis C. (27 December 2012). "Who Was First in the Race to the Moon? The Tortoise". Atlantic. Retrieved 9 March 2019.
- ^ a b Bausman, John (15 November 1968). "Turtles, Flies Circle the Moon". The Journal News. White Plains, New York. Associated Press. p. 24 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Tortoise blood fights radiation sickness 6 May 2002 www.upi.com accessed 21 September 2021
- ^ SOMATIC MUTATION RATE IN TRADESCANTIA STAMEN HAIRS AT LOW RADIATION LEVELS: FINDING OF LOW DOUBLING DOSES OF MUTATIONS SADAO ICHIKAWA, www.jstage.jst.go.jp, 1972 Volume 47 accessed 21 September 2021
- ^ Radioactivity[permanent dead link] Dr. Fred Omega Garces 8 February 2011 faculty.sdmiramar.edu accessed 21 September 2021
- ^ "Earth-Cloud Photography". NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive. Retrieved 28 February 2019.
- ^ "Proton Detectors". NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive. Retrieved 28 February 2019.
- ^ "Space Recordings Returned by Zond 5". The New York Times. 24 September 1968. p. 41.
- ^ a b Siddiqi 2003, p. 655.
- ^ Siddiqi 2003, pp. 655–656.
- ^ Cassutt 2007, p. 320.
- ^ Oleg Pavlenko (Олег Павленко), Из истории Морского космического флота. К 35-летию полета корабля «Зонд-5» (From the history of the Sea Space Fleet. On the 35th anniversary of the Zond 5 mission) (in Russian) (includes photos of the reentry capsule recovery)
- ^ "Zond 5, Landing Point, Miss Distance". NASA. Archived from the original on 27 September 2011.
- ^ a b Siddiqi 2003, p. 656.
- ^ Siddiqi 2018, pp. 79–80.
- ^ Day, Dwayne A. (9 February 2009). "Chasing the Zond". The Space Review. Retrieved 9 March 2019.
- ^ "ENERGIA's driving force". ENERGIA. Retrieved 9 March 2019.
- ^ "Russ Lead in Race to the Moon Top British Space Expert Says". Arizona Republic. Phoenix, Arizona. Associated Press. 23 September 1968. p. 6 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Bloom, Mark (1 October 1968). "Flight of Russian Moonship Called Blow to its Program". Daily News. New York, New York. p. 5 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Gaidamakin et al. 1969, p. 1.
- ^ Gaidamakin et al. 1969, p. 3.
- ^ "Soviets Recover Spacecraft After Flight Around Moon Opens Way for a Manned Shot". The Morning Call. Allentown, Pennsylvania. New York Times News Service. 23 September 1968. p. 3 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Soviets Reveal Moonflight Probes Foretell Real Trip". Clarion-Ledger. Jackson, Mississippi. Associated Press. 25 November 1968. p. 34 – via Newspapers.com.
- ISBN 9781471164064.
- ISBN 9781642795875.
- ISBN 9781429971782.
- ISBN 9780387848242.
- ^ "Russia: Location of Russian Manned Spacecraft". Astronautix. Archived from the original on 20 August 2016. Retrieved 19 August 2018.
References
- Cassutt, Michael (2007). Red Moon. Tom Doherty Associates. ISBN 978-1-4299-7172-0.
- Gaidamakin, N. A.; Parfenov, G. P.; Petrukhin, V. G.; Antipov, V. V.; Saksonov, P. P.; Smirvona, A. V. (1969). Zug, George R.; Peters, James A. (eds.). Патоморфологические и гистохимические изменения в органах черепах на борту космического корабля «Зонд-5» [Patho-Morphological and Histochemical Changes in the Organs of Turtles on Board the "Zond-5" Probe] (PDF). 18th IAF Conference (in Russian). Translated by Friedman, Morris D. La Plata, Argentina.
- Siddiqi, Asif A. (2018). Beyond Earth: A Chronicle of Deep Space Exploration, 1958–2016 (PDF). Washington, D.C.: NASA History Program Office. p. 80. LCCN 2017059404. SP-2018-4041.
- Siddiqi, Asif A. (2003) [2000]. The Soviet Space Race with Apollo. Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida. ISBN 978-0-8130-2628-2.