Tyazhely Sputnik (russian: Тяжёлый Спутник, meaning ''Heavy Satellite''), also known by its development name as Venera 1VA No. 1,
and in the West as Sputnik 7, 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 intended to be the first spacecraft to explore
Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never fa ...
. 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 ...
. In order to avoid acknowledging the failure, the Soviet government instead announced that the entire spacecraft, including the upper stage, was a test of a "Heavy Satellite" which would serve as a launch platform for future missions. This resulted in the upper stage being considered a separate spacecraft, from which the probe was "launched", on several subsequent missions.
Tyazhely Sputnik was launched at 01:18:03 UTC on 4 February 1961, 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 ...
.
When the upper stage ignited,
cavitation
Cavitation is a phenomenon in which the static pressure of a liquid reduces to below the liquid's vapour pressure, leading to the formation of small vapor-filled cavities in the liquid. When subjected to higher pressure, these cavities, cal ...
in the
liquid oxygen
Liquid oxygen—abbreviated LOx, LOX or Lox in the aerospace, submarine and gas industries—is the liquid form of molecular oxygen. It was used as the oxidizer in the first liquid-fueled rocket invented in 1926 by Robert H. Goddard, an applica ...
flowing through the oxidiser pump caused the pump to fail, resulting in an engine failure 0.8 second after ignition.
It reentered the atmosphere over
Siberia
Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...
on 26 February 1961.
According to the memoirs of
Boris Chertok
Boris Yevseyevich Chertok (russian: link=no, Бори́с Евсе́евич Черто́к; – 14 December 2011) was a Russian electrical engineer and the control systems designer in the Soviet Union's space program, and later found employm ...
, "A pendant shaped like a small globe with the continents etched on it was placed on the 1VA. Inside this small sphere was a medal depicting the Earth-to-Venus flight path. On the other side of the medal was the emblem of the Soviet Union. The pendant was placed in a spherical capsule with thermal shielding to protect it during entry into Venus' atmosphere at reentry velocity."
In what he refers to as a "Strange but True
ncident.. in the history of cosmonautics", while the spacecraft was originally thought to have re-entered over the Pacific Ocean, it was subsequently (in 1963) found to have re-entered over Siberia, when this medal made its way back to Chertok by way of his boss, Chief Rocket Designer
Sergei Korolev
Sergei Pavlovich Korolev (russian: Сергей Павлович Королёв, Sergey Pavlovich Korolyov, sʲɪrˈɡʲej ˈpavləvʲɪtɕ kərɐˈlʲɵf, Ru-Sergei Pavlovich Korolev.ogg; ukr, Сергій Павлович Корольов, ...
. He relates that "while swimming in a river – a tributary of the Biryusa River in eastern Siberia – a local boy hurt his foot on some sort of piece of iron. When he retrieved it from the water, rather than throw it into deeper water, he brought it home and showed it to his father. The boy’s father, curious as to what the dented metal sphere contained, opened it up and discovered this medal inside… The boy’s father brought his find to the police. The local police delivered the remains of the pendant to the regional department of the KGB, which in turn forwarded it to Moscow. In Moscow the appropriate KGB directorate… after notifying Keldysh as president of the Academy of Sciences", delivered the pendant to Korolev. "Thus,
hertokwas awarded the medal that had been certified for the flight to Venus by the protocol that
e and Korolevsigned in January 1961. After the launch we were all certain that the Tyazhelyy sputnik and the pendant had sunk in the ocean. Now it turned out that it had burned up over Siberia. The pendant had been designed to withstand Venus' atmosphere and therefore it reached the Earth’s surface."
The sister probe,
Venera 1
''Venera 1'' (russian: Венера-1 meaning ''Venus 1''), also known as Venera-1VA No.2 and occasionally in the West as ''Sputnik 8'' was the first spacecraft to fly past Venus, as part of the Soviet Union's Venera programme. Launched in Febr ...
, successfully launched and was injected into a heliocentric orbit toward Venus one week later, although telemetry on the mission failed a week into flight.
See also
*
List of missions to Venus
There have been 46 (including gravity-assist flybys) space missions to the planet Venus. Missions to Venus constitute part of the exploration of Venus.
List
As of 2020, the Soviet Union, United States, European Space Agency and Japan have con ...
*
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 ...
References
{{Orbital launches in 1961
1961 in the Soviet Union
Spacecraft launched in 1961
Venera program
Spacecraft which reentered in 1961
1MV