Zond 4, part of the Soviet

Zond program Zond (russian: Зонд, lit=probe) was the name given to two distinct series of Soviet robotic spacecraft launched between 1964 and 1970. The first series, based on the 3MV planetary probe, was intended to gather information about nearby plan ...

and an uncrewed version of

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 ...

crewed Moon-flyby spacecraft, was one of the first Soviet experiments towards crewed circumlunar spaceflight. It was launched to test the

spaceworthiness Spaceworthiness, or aerospaceworthiness, is a property, or ability of a spacecraft to perform to its design objectives and navigate successfully through both the space environment and the atmosphere as a part of a journey to or from space. As in ...

of the new capsule and to gather data about flights in circumterrestrial space. It was the first Soviet spacecraft to possess a computer, the 34 kg Argon 11. The spacecraft was successfully launched into a 354,000 km apogee orbit 180 degrees away from the Moon, It was launched away from the Moon probably to avoid trajectory complications with lunar gravity. However, on re-entry the L1's guidance system failed. It hit the atmosphere precisely at the calculated time, but was not guided to generate lift and fly out of the atmosphere again. A ballistic re-entry would mean no recovery on Soviet soil, so the APO destruct system automatically blew up the capsule at 10 to 15 km altitude, 180–200 km off the

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

n coast at

Guinea Guinea ( ),, fuf, 𞤘𞤭𞤲𞤫, italic=no, Gine, wo, Gine, nqo, ߖߌ߬ߣߍ߫, bm, Gine officially the Republic of Guinea (french: République de Guinée), is a coastal country in West Africa. It borders the Atlantic Ocean to the we ...

References

External links

Astronautix.com Information on Lunar L1 program, including Zond 4
Zond program Spacecraft launched in 1968 1968 in the Soviet Union {{USSR-spacecraft-stub