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Home , Blok D, LK (spacecraft), Luna 14, Surveyor 7, Zond 4, Zond 5

1968

93) few craters, much like the mare sites, although the general area was rougher. About Nation: U.S. (43) 21 hours after landing, ground controllers Objective(s): lunar soft-landing fired a pyrotechnic charge to drop the alpha- : Surveyor-G scattering instrument on the lunar surface. Spacecraft Mass: 1,040.1 kg When the instrument failed to move, con- Mission Design and Management: NASA JPL trollers used the robot arm to force it down. : Atlas- (AC-15 / Atlas The scoop on the arm was used numerous 3C no. 5903C / Centaur D-1A) times for picking up soil, digging trenches, Launch Date and Time: 7 January 1968 / and conducting at least sixteen surface- 06:30:00 UT bearing tests. Apart from taking 21,274 pho- Launch Site: ETR / launch complex 36A tographs (many of them in ), Surveyor Scientific Instruments: 7 also served as a target for Earth-based 1) imaging system lasers (of 1-watt power) to accurately 2) alpha-scattering instrument measure the distance between Earth and the 3) surface sampler . Although it was successfully reacti- 4) footpad magnet vated after the lunar night, Surveyor 7 Results: Since Surveyors 1, 3, 5, and 6 success- finally shut down on 21 February 1968. In fully fulfilled requirements in support of total, the five successful Surveyors returned Apollo, NASA opted to use the last remaining more than 87,000 photos of the lunar surface Surveyor for a purely scientific mission out- and demonstrated the feasibility of soft- side of exploring a potential landing site for landing a spacecraft on the lunar surface. the early Apollo flights. After an uneventful coast to the Moon, Surveyor 7 successfully set 94) down at 01:05:36 UT on 10 January 1968 on no name / [Luna] the ejecta blanket emanating from the bright Nation: USSR (51) crater in the south of the near side. Objective(s): Landing coordinates were 40.86° south lati- Spacecraft: Ye-6LS (no. 112) tude and 11.47° west longitude, about 29 kilo- Spacecraft Mass: unknown meters north of Tycho’s rim and 2.4 Mission Design and Management: GSMZ kilometers from the craft’s target. Initial photos from the surface showed surprisingly Launch Vehicle: 8K78M (no. Ya716-57)

1968 69 Launch Date and Time: 7 February 1968 / Spacecraft: Ye-6LS (no. 113) 10:43:54 UT Spacecraft Mass: unknown Launch Site: NIIP-5 / launch site 1 Mission Design and Management: GSMZ Scientific Instruments: unknown Lavochkin Results: During launch to Earth orbit, the Launch Vehicle: 8K78M (no. Ya716-58) third-stage engine cut off prematurely because Launch Date and Time: 7 / of an excessive propellant consumption rate 10:09:32 UT via the gas generator. The spacecraft never Launch Site: NIIP-5 / launch site 1 reached Earth orbit. The goal of the mission Scientific Instruments: unknown was evidently to test communications systems Results: successfully entered lunar in support of the -L3 human lunar landing orbit at 19:25 UT on 10 April 1968. Initial program. orbital parameters were 160 x 870 kilometers at 42° inclination. The primary goal of the 95) flight was to test communications systems in support of the N1-L3 piloted lunar landing Nation: USSR (52) project. Ground tracking of the spacecraft’s Objective(s): deep space mission orbit also allowed controllers to accurately Spacecraft: 7K-L1 (no. 6L) map lunar gravitational anomalies in order to Spacecraft Mass: c. 5,375 kg predict trajectories of future lunar missions Mission Design and Management: TsKBEM such as those of the LOK and LK lunar Launch Vehicle: 8K82K + (-K no. landing vehicles. Luna 14 also carried scien- 232-01) tific instruments to study cosmic rays and Launch Date and Time: 2 March 1968 / charged particles from the Sun, although few 18:29:23 UT details have been revealed. Launch Site: NIIP-5 / launch site 81L Scientific Instruments: unknown 97) Results: The Soviets decided to send this next no name / [Zond] 7K-L1 spacecraft, not on a circumlunar flight, Nation: USSR (54) but to about 330,000 kilometers into deep Objective(s): circumlunar flight space in the opposite direction of the Moon in Spacecraft: 7K-L1 (no. 7L) order to test the main spacecraft systems Spacecraft Mass: c. 5,375 kg without the perturbing effects of the Moon Mission Design and Management: TsKBEM (much like the Surveyor model test flights in Launch Vehicle: 8K82K + Blok D (Proton K no. 1965 and 1966). The spacecraft was success- 232-01 / Blok D no. 15L) fully boosted on its trajectory and reached an Launch Date and Time: 22 April 1968 / apogee of 354,000 kilometers. During the 23:01:27 UT flight, although a key attitude-control sensor Launch Site: NIIP-5 / launch site 81P worked only intermittently, controllers man- Scientific Instruments: unknown aged to aim the spacecraft for a guided reentry Results: During this third attempt at a circum- back into Earth’s atmosphere. Unfortunately, lunar mission, the Proton rocket’s second- the same sensor failed at reentry, preventing stage engine spuriously shut down at the vehicle from maintaining stable orienta- T+194.64 seconds due to an erroneous signal tion. Instead, Zond 4 began to carry out a direct from the payload. The emergency rescue ballistic reentry for landing in the Indian system was activated, and the 7K-L1 capsule Ocean. An emergency destruct system, how- was later recovered about 520 kilometers from ever, destroyed the returning capsule over the the launch pad. Gulf of Guinea to prevent foreign observers from recovering the wayward spacecraft. 98) 96) Nation: USSR (55) Luna 14 Objective(s): circumlunar flight Nation: USSR (53) Spacecraft: 7K-L1 (no. 9L) Objective(s): lunar orbit Spacecraft Mass: c. 5,375 kg

70 Deep Space Chronicle Mission Design and Management: TsKBEM 4) cosmic-ray gradient detector Launch Vehicle: 8K82K + Blok D upper stage 5) radio wave propagation experiment (Proton-K no. 234-01 / Blok D no. 17) 6) electric field detector Launch Date and Time: 14 / 7) detector 21:42:11 UT 8) celestial mechanics experiment Launch Site: NIIP-5 / launch site 81L Results: Pioneer 9 was the fourth in a series of Scientific Instruments: probes designed to study interplanetary 1) biological payload space from heliocentric orbit. In its 297.5-day 2) radiation detectors orbit at 0.75 x 1.0 AU, the cylindrical, spin- 3) imaging system stabilized spacecraft obtained valuable data Results: Zond 5 was the first Soviet spacecraft on the properties of the , cosmic to complete a successful circumlunar mis- rays, and interplanetary magnetic fields. The sion—after three failures. During the flight to Delta launch vehicle also carried the Test and the Moon, the main stellar attitude control Training Satellite (TETR-B), which was put sensor failed due to contamination of the into Earth orbit to test ground-based commu- sensor’s optical surface. Controllers used less nications systems in support of the Apollo accurate backup sensors to perform two mid- program. NASA maintained contact with course corrections. The spacecraft successfully Pioneer 9 until 19 May 1983. Subsequent circled around the far side of the Moon at a attempts to use Search for Extraterrestrial range of 1,950 kilometers on 18 September, Intelligence (SETI) equipment to establish taking high-resolution photos of the Moon and contact with the probe on 3 March 1987 Earth. On the return leg of the flight, a second failed, and the Agency officially declared the attitude-control sensor failed and the space- spacecraft inactive. craft’s three-axis stabilization platform switched off the guided reentry system. As a 100) result, Zond 5 performed a direct ballistic Zond 6 reentry (instead of a guided one) and splashed Nation: USSR (56) down safely in the backup target area in the Objective(s): circumlunar flight Indian Ocean at 32°38' south latitude and Spacecraft: 7K-L1 (no. 12L) 65°33' east longitude, about 105 kilometers Spacecraft Mass: c. 5,375 kg from the nearest Soviet tracking ship. Landing Mission Design and Management: TsKBEM time was 16:08 UT on 21 September. Zond 5 Launch Vehicle: 8K82K + Blok D (Proton-K no. carried an extensive biological payload 235-01 / Blok D no. 19) including two steppe tortoises to measure the Launch Date and Time: 10 November 1968 / effects of circumlunar flight. The tortoises sur- 19:11:31 UT vived the trip and were returned to Moscow. Launch Site: NIIP-5 / launch site 81L Scientific Instruments: 99) 1) biological payload Pioneer 9 2) radiation detectors Nation: U.S. (44) 3) imaging system Objective(s): solar orbit 4) photo-emulsion camera Spacecraft: Pioneer-D 5) micrometeoroid detector Spacecraft Mass: 65.36 kg Results: Zond 6 was the second spacecraft that Mission Design and Management: NASA ARC the Soviets sent around the Moon. Soon after Launch Vehicle: Thor-Delta E-1 (no. 60 / Thor translunar injection, ground controllers dis- no. 479 / DSV-3E) covered that the vehicle’s high-gain antenna Launch Date and Time: 8 November 1968 / had failed to deploy. Given that the main atti- 09:46:29 UT tude-control sensor was installed on the Launch Site: ETR / launch complex 17B antenna boom, controllers had to make plans Scientific Instruments: to use a backup sensor for further attitude 1) triaxial fluxgate magnetometer control. The spacecraft circled the far side of 2) plasma analyzer the Moon at a range of 2,420 kilometers, once 3) cosmic-ray-anisotropy detector again taking black-and-white photographs of

1968 71 the Moon. During the return flight, tempera- successfully carried a fully automated guided tures in a peroxide tank for the reentry into the primary landing zone in attitude-control thrusters dropped far below . A radio altimeter, not designed acceptable levels. Engineers attempted to for work in depressurized spacecraft, issued heat the tank by direct sunlight, but as they an incorrect command to jettison the main later discovered, such a procedure affected parachutes. As a result, the spacecraft plum- the weak pressurization seal of the main meted to the ground and was destroyed. hatch and led to slow decompression of the Although the main biological payload was main capsule. Despite the failures, Zond 6 lost, rescuers salvaged film from the cameras.

72 Deep Space Chronicle