Everything about Zond 3 totally explained
Zond 3, a member of the
Soviet Zond program, was the first Zond spacecraft to successfully complete its mission (a Lunar flyby) and took a number of amazing photographs for its time. It is believed that Zond 3 was initially designed as a companion spacecraft to
Zond 2 to be launched to Mars during the 1964 launch window. The opportunity to launch was missed, and the spacecraft was launched on a Mars trajectory, although Mars was no longer attainable, as a spacecraft test.
Spacecraft design
The spacecraft design was similar to
Zond 2, in addition to the imaging equipment it carried a
magnetometer,
ultraviolet (0.25 to 0.35 micrometre and 0.19 to 0.27 micrometre) and
infrared (3 to 4 micrometre)
spectrographs,
radiation sensors (gas-discharge and scintillation counters), a
radiotelescope and a
micrometeoroid instrument. It also had an experimental
ion engine.
Mission
The spacecraft, a
Mars 3MV-4A, was launched from a
Tyazheliy Sputnik (65-056B) earth orbiting platform towards the
Moon and interplanetary space. The spacecraft was equipped with an
f/106 mm camera and TV system that provided automatic inflight film processing. On
July 20 lunar flyby occurred approximately 33 hours after launch at a closest approach of 9200 km. 25 pictures of very good quality were taken of the lunar farside from distances of 11,570 to 9960 km over a period of 68 minutes. The photos covered 19,000,000 km² of the lunar surface. Photo transmissions by facsimile were returned to Earth from a distance of 2,200,000 km and were retransmitted from a distance of 31,500,000 km (some signals still being transmitted from the distance of the orbit of
Mars), thus proving the ability of the communications system. After the lunar flyby, Zond 3 continued space exploration in a heliocentric orbit.
This article was originally based on material from NASA (NSSDC) information on Zond 3
Further Information
Get more info on 'Zond 3'.
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