Venera 2MV-1 No.2, also known as Sputnik 20 in the

Western world The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to the various nations and state (polity), states in the regions of Europe, North America, and Oceania.

, 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 1962 as part of the

Venera The Venera (, , which means "Venus" in Russian) program was the name given to a series of space probes developed by the Soviet Union between 1961 and 1984 to gather information about the planet Venus. Ten probes successfully landed on the s ...

programme. Due to a problem with its upper stage it failed to leave

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never mor ...

, and reentered the atmosphere a few days later. It was the second of two Venera 2MV-1 spacecraft, both of which failed to leave Earth orbit. The previous mission, Venera 2MV-1 No.1, was launched several days earlier.

Launch

Venera 2MV-1 No.2 was launched at 02:12:30 UTC on 1 September 1962, atop a

Molniya Molniya (Russian for ''lightning'') may refer to: * Molniya (satellite), a Soviet military communications satellite ** Molniya orbit * Molniya (explosive trap), a KGB explosive device * Molniya (rocket), a variation of the Soyuz launch vehicle * OKB ...

8K78 carrier rocket flying from Site 1/5 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 ...

. The lower stages of the rocket operated nominally, injecting the fourth stage and payload into a

. Following a

coast phase An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile with a range greater than , primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery (delivering one or more thermonuclear warheads). Conventional, chemical, and biological weapons c ...

, the upper stage was to have ignited around sixty-one minutes and thirty seconds after launch, in order to place the spacecraft into

heliocentric orbit A heliocentric orbit (also called circumsolar orbit) is an orbit around the barycenter of the Solar System, which is usually located within or very near the surface of the Sun. All planets, comets, and asteroids in the Solar System, and the Sun i ...

. The ignition command did not reach the engine, however, and the fuel valves did not open, so the upper stage failed to ignite leaving the payload in

geocentric orbit A geocentric orbit or Earth orbit involves any object orbiting Earth, such as the Moon or artificial satellites. In 1997, NASA estimated there were approximately 2,465 artificial satellite payloads orbiting Earth and 6,216 pieces of space debris ...

. It reentered the atmosphere on 6 September 1962, five days after it had been launched.

Satellite designation

The designations Sputnik 24, and later Sputnik 20, were used by the United States

Naval Space Command The Naval Space Command (NSC) was a military command of the United States Navy and former component command of United States Space Command. It was headquartered at Dahlgren, Virginia, and began operations on 1 October 1983. Naval Space Command use ...

to identify the spacecraft in its Satellite Situation Summary documents, since the Soviet Union did not release the internal designations of its spacecraft at that time, and had not assigned it an official name due to its failure to depart Earth orbit.

References

Spacecraft launched in 1962 Venera program Spacecraft which reentered in 1962 2MV {{USSR-spacecraft-stub

Launch

Satellite designation

See also

References