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Venera 2MV-1 No.1, also known as Sputnik 19 in the West, was a
Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...
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 first of two Venera 2MV-1 spacecraft, both of which failed to leave Earth orbit.


Launch

Venera 2MV-1 No.1 was launched at 02:18:45 UTC on 25 August 1962, atop a Molniya 8K78 carrier rocket flying from Site 1/5 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The first three stages of the rocket operated nominally, injecting the fourth stage and payload into a
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 ...
. The fourth stage then coasted until one hour and fifty seconds after launch, when it fired its
ullage motor Ullage motors (also known as ullage engines or ullage rockets) are relatively small, independently fueled rocket engines that may be fired prior to main engine ignition, when the vehicle is in a zero-g situation. The resulting acceleration causes ...
s in preparation for ignition. One of the ullage motors failed to fire, and when the main engine ignited for a four-minute burn to place the spacecraft into heliocentric orbit, the stage began to tumble out of control. Forty-five seconds later, its engine cut off, leaving the spacecraft stranded in Earth orbit. It reentered the atmosphere on 28 August 1962, three days after it had been launched.


Spacecraft designation

The designations Sputnik 23, and later Sputnik 19 was 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 us ...
to identify the spacecraft in its
Satellite Situation Summary A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioisotope ...
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
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 debri ...
.


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 ...


References

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