Soyuz 7K-L1 No.4L, sometimes identified by NASA as Zond 1967A, was a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

spacecraft which was launched in 1967 as part of the Zond programme. It was a

Soyuz 7K-L1 The Soyuz 7K-L1 "Zond" spacecraft was designed to launch men from the Earth to circle the Moon without going into lunar orbit in the context of the Soviet crewed Moon-flyby program in the Moon race. It was based on the Soyuz 7K-OK. Several mo ...

spacecraft, the first of nine to be launched. Although it was intended to perform a circumlunar flyby of the Moon before returning to the Earth for landing, it failed to achieve Earth orbit. Soyuz 7K-L1 No.4L was launched at 22:11:54 UTC on 27 September 1967 atop a Proton-K 8K78K carrier rocket with a Blok D upper stage, flying from Site 81/23 at the

Baikonur Cosmodrome The Baikonur Cosmodrome ( kk, Байқоңыр ғарыш айлағы, translit=Baiqoñyr ğaryş ailağy, ; russian: Космодром Байконур, translit=Kosmodrom Baykonur, ) is a spaceport in an area of southern Kazakhstan leased to R ...

. A rubber plug came loose and lodged in some plumbing at liftoff, causing one first stage engine to shut off. The booster eventually lost attitude control and became unstable during flight, so the automatic shutdown command was sent at T+97 seconds and it crashed downrange. The spacecraft separated from the rocket by means of the SAS

launch escape system A launch escape system (LES) or launch abort system (LAS) is a crew-safety system connected to a space capsule that can be used to quickly separate the capsule from its launch vehicle in case of an emergency requiring the abort of the launch, suc ...

, and came down between downrange. The next morning, recovery crews located the descent module, however approaching it was tricky due to spilled propellant and still-burning booster debris in the area. It was collected by a

Mil Mi-6 The Mil Mi-6 (NATO reporting name Hook), given the article number ''izdeliye 50'' and company designation V-6, is a Soviet/Russian heavy transport helicopter that was designed by the Mil design bureau. It was built in large numbers for both mili ...

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...

and returned to Baikonur. Prior to the release of information about its mission, NASA correctly identified that it had been a test of a spacecraft intended for manned Lunar flights. However, they were unsure whether it was intended to reach the Moon itself.

References

Spacecraft launched in 1967 Zond program {{USSR-spacecraft-stub