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Zond 5 (russian: Зонд 5, lit=Probe 5) was a spacecraft 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 ...
. In September 1968 it became the first spaceship to travel to and circle the
Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...
, the first Moon mission to include animals, and the first to return safely to Earth. Zond 5 carried the first terrestrial organisms to the vicinity of the Moon, including two
tortoises Tortoises () are reptiles of the family Testudinidae of the order Testudines (Latin: ''tortoise''). Like other turtles, tortoises have a turtle shell, shell to protect from predation and other threats. The shell in tortoises is generally hard, ...
, fruit fly eggs, and plants. The Russian tortoises underwent biological changes during the flight, but it was concluded that the changes were primarily due to starvation and that they were little affected by space travel. A significant feature of travel to the Moon with terrestrial organisms, and their surviving the return trip, is that it establishes that transit through the Van Allen radiation belt may be less likely to be harmful for future space travelers. The Zond spacecraft was a version of the
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 ...
crewed lunar-flyby spacecraft. It was launched by a Proton-K carrier rocket with a Block D upper-stage to conduct scientific studies during its lunar flyby.


Background

Out of the first four circumlunar missions launched by the
Soviet Union 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 nationa ...
there was one partial success,
Zond 4 Zond 4, part of the Soviet Zond program and an uncrewed version of Soyuz 7K-L1 crewed Moon-flyby spacecraft, was one of the first Soviet experiments towards crewed circumlunar spaceflight. It was launched to test the spaceworthiness of the ne ...
, and three failures. After 's mission in March 1968, a follow-up,
Zond 1968A Zond may refer to * Zond program, Soviet unmanned space program undertaken from 1964 to 1970 ** Zond 1, spacecraft ** Zond 2, spacecraft ** Zond 3, spacecraft **Zond 4, spacecraft ** Zond 5, spacecraft ** Zond 3MV-1 No.2, spacecraft **Zond 7, space ...
, was launched on 23 April. The launch failed when an erroneous abort command shut down the Proton rocket's second stage. The escape rocket fired and pulled the descent module to safety. In July,
Zond 1968B Zond program (Зонд; Russian for "probe") was a Soviet robotic spacecraft program launched between 1964 and 1970, using two spacecraft series, one for interplanetary exploration, and the other for lunar exploration. Program details The pro ...
was being prepared for launch when the second-stage rocket exploded on the launchpad, killing three people, but leaving the Proton first-stage booster rocket and the spacecraft itself with only minor damage. The mission was originally planned to fly
cosmonauts An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally ...
around the Moon, but the failures of and led the Soviets to send an uncrewed mission instead, from fear of the negative propaganda of an unsuccessful crewed flight.


Payload

Two
Russian tortoise The Russian tortoise (''Testudo horsfieldii''), also commonly known as the Afghan tortoise, the Central Asian tortoise, Horsfield's tortoise, four-clawed tortoise, and the (Russian) steppe tortoise, is a threatened species of tortoise in the fam ...
s (''Agrionemys horsfieldii'') were included in the biological payload, weighing each pre-flight. Soviet scientists chose tortoises since they were easy to tightly secure. There were also two tortoises used as control specimens and four more in a
vivarium A vivarium (Latin, literally for "place of life"; plural: ''vivaria'' or ''vivariums'') is an area, usually enclosed, for keeping and raising animals or plants for observation or research. Water-based vivaria may have open tops providing they a ...
. Twelve days before launch, the two space-bound tortoises were secured in the vehicle and deprived of food and water; the control tortoises were similarly deprived. The food deprivation was a part of pathomorphological and
histochemical Histology, also known as microscopic anatomy or microanatomy, is the branch of biology which studies the microscopic anatomy of biological tissues. Histology is the microscopic counterpart to gross anatomy, which looks at larger structures vis ...
experiments. The biological payload also included fruit fly eggs, cells of wheat, barley, pea, pine, carrots and tomatoes, specimens of the wildflower species '' Tradescantia paludosa'', three strains of the single-
cell Cell most often refers to: * Cell (biology), the functional basic unit of life Cell may also refer to: Locations * Monastic cell, a small room, hut, or cave in which a religious recluse lives, alternatively the small precursor of a monastery ...
ed
green algae The green algae (singular: green alga) are a group consisting of the Prasinodermophyta and its unnamed sister which contains the Chlorophyta and Charophyta/ Streptophyta. The land plants (Embryophytes) have emerged deep in the Charophyte alga ...
''
Chlorella ''Chlorella'' is a genus of about thirteen species of single-celled green algae belonging to the division Chlorophyta. The cells are spherical in shape, about 2 to 10 μm in diameter, and are without flagella. Their chloroplasts contain th ...
'', and one strain of lysogenic bacteria. The purpose of sending a variety of terrestrial lifeforms was to test the effect of
cosmic radiation Cosmic rays are high-energy particles or clusters of particles (primarily represented by protons or atomic nuclei) that move through space at nearly the speed of light. They originate from the Sun, from outside of the Solar System in our ow ...
on them. However, the test subjects were not analogous to humans, because the choice of life forms were all extremophiles with a substantially higher radioresistance. The
Russian Academy of Sciences The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; russian: Росси́йская акаде́мия нау́к (РАН) ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across t ...
stated that a mannequin equipped with radiation sensors occupied the pilot's seat. Kazan Optical and Mechanical Plant had developed the AFA-BA/40
imager An image sensor or imager is a sensor that detects and conveys information used to make an image. It does so by converting the variable attenuation of light waves (as they pass through or reflect off objects) into signals, small bursts of cur ...
, which was installed on the spacecraft, giving it the ability to
image An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimensio ...
the Earth. also contained
proton A proton is a stable subatomic particle, symbol , H+, or 1H+ with a positive electric charge of +1 ''e'' elementary charge. Its mass is slightly less than that of a neutron and 1,836 times the mass of an electron (the proton–electron mass ...
detectors. could transmit some of its data back to ground stations, although data stored onboard and collected after return to Earth has less noise.


Mission


Launch and trajectory

launched on 14 September 1968 at 9:42.10UTC, from Site 81 at the
Baikonur Cosmodrome ''Baiqoñyr ğaryş ailağy'' rus, Космодром Байконур''Kosmodrom Baykonur'' , image = Baikonur Cosmodrome Soyuz launch pad.jpg , caption = The Baikonur Cosmodrome's "Gagarin's Start" Soyuz ...
. The thrust of the third-stage rocket was terminated at , which was the start of a 251-second coast. , the upper-stage rocket, ignited and burned for 108 seconds, placing the spacecraft into a parking orbit of . Fifty-six minutes into the parking orbit the fired a final time for the
trans-lunar injection A trans-lunar injection (TLI) is a propulsive maneuver used to set a spacecraft on a trajectory that will cause it to arrive at the Moon. History The first space probe to attempt TLI was the Soviet Union's Luna 1 on January 2, 1959 which w ...
. After this maneuver, the launch was announced to the world. Mission Control discovered a problem with 's attitude and traced the cause to a contaminated star tracker. Heat caused some of the interior coating to
outgas Outgassing (sometimes called offgassing, particularly when in reference to indoor air quality) is the release of a gas that was dissolved, trapped, frozen, or absorbed in some material. Outgassing can include sublimation and evaporation (which ...
, which delayed an attitude correction on the way to the Moon. The maneuver was performed from Earth using the Sun and the Earth as reference points. On 18 September, the spacecraft flew around the Moon, although it did not orbit it. The closest distance was . On the way back from the Moon, another star tracker failed. The spacecraft also erroneously switched off the guided reentry system. The Soviet government had deployed eight ships to the
Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by ...
prior to the launch, as a precaution in case the spacecraft could not reach Soviet territory; only three of them had rescue helicopters on board.


Reentry and recovery

On 21 September, the reentry capsule entered the Earth's atmosphere. The primary landing zone was in
Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...
, but instead splashed down in the Indian Ocean and was recovered by the Soviet vessels ''Borovichy'' (Боровичи) and ''Vasiliy Golovnin'' (Василий Головнин). It landed at −32°38' latitude and 65°33' longitude, from the nearest Soviet naval ship. The landing occurred at night, which impaired recovery efforts. became the first spacecraft to circle the Moon and return to Earth. The entire journey took 6days, 18hours and 24minutes. Although the ballistic reentry would probably have been lethal for human occupants, it did not appear to affect the biological specimens, which were alive when the descent module was opened four days after landing. shadowed the Soviet recovery ships, collecting intelligence, but left shortly after the spacecraft was brought on board the Soviet ship.


Results and future plans

High-quality photographs of the Earth, the first photos of their kind, were taken at a distance of . British astronomer
Bernard Lovell Sir Alfred Charles Bernard Lovell (31 August 19136 August 2012) was an English physicist and radio astronomer. He was the first director of Jodrell Bank Observatory, from 1945 to 1980. Early life and education Lovell was born at Oldland Com ...
, considered to be Britain's top space expert, said that the mission showed that the Soviets were ahead in the
Space Race The Space Race was a 20th-century competition between two Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, to achieve superior spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race between the t ...
. The
British Interplanetary Society The British Interplanetary Society (BIS), founded in Liverpool in 1933 by Philip E. Cleator, is the oldest existing space advocacy organisation in the world. Its aim is exclusively to support and promote astronautics and space exploration. S ...
believed that the USSR would be able to send cosmonauts around the Moon within a matter of months. In October 1968, sources in the U.S. claimed the mission was not as successful as the Soviets advertised. The mission had been intended to fly closer to the Moon, and its actual distance did not allow for useful lunar photography. They also said that the angle at which the spacecraft reentered the atmosphere was too steep for a cosmonaut to have survived. The sources indicated that the spacecraft landed in the Indian Ocean when the planned location was in Soviet territory, which was a factor in the recovery taking ten hours. The official Soviet
news agency A news agency is an organization that gathers news reports and sells them to subscribing news organizations, such as newspapers, magazines and radio and television broadcasters. A news agency may also be referred to as a wire service, newswir ...
,
TASS The Russian News Agency TASS (russian: Информацио́нное аге́нтство Росси́и ТАСС, translit=Informatsionnoye agentstvo Rossii, or Information agency of Russia), abbreviated TASS (russian: ТАСС, label=none) ...
, announced in November 1968 that the flight had carried living animals. The tortoises were dissected on 11 October after fasting for 39days. The flying tortoises, identified as and , had lost 10% of their body weight during the trip, but showed no loss of appetite. The control tortoises lost 5% of their weight. Comparison of analyses of blood from the space-travelling tortoises and the control specimens revealed no differences. Another analysis showed the flying tortoises had elevated iron and
glycogen Glycogen is a multibranched polysaccharide of glucose that serves as a form of energy storage in animals, fungi, and bacteria. The polysaccharide structure represents the main storage form of glucose in the body. Glycogen functions as one of ...
levels in their
liver The liver is a major organ only found in vertebrates which performs many essential biological functions such as detoxification of the organism, and the synthesis of proteins and biochemicals necessary for digestion and growth. In humans, it i ...
and that the flight also affected the internal structures of their
spleen The spleen is an organ found in almost all vertebrates. Similar in structure to a large lymph node, it acts primarily as a blood filter. The word spleen comes .
s. The authors concluded that the changes in the flight tortoises were primarily due to starvation, with the space travel having little effect. In November 1968, it was announced that the spacecraft was planned as a precursor to a crewed lunar spacecraft. The Soviets made this announcement a month before the planned
Apollo 8 Apollo 8 (December 21–27, 1968) was the first crewed spacecraft to leave low Earth orbit and the first human spaceflight to reach the Moon. The crew orbited the Moon ten times without landing, and then departed safely back to Earth. The ...
flight, in an attempt to show they were close to being able to carry out a crewed trip to the Moon.


Cosmonaut crew communications test and hoax

The Zond 5 caused a scare in the United States when on 19 September 1968, the voices of cosmonauts
Valery Bykovsky Valery Fyodorovich Bykovsky (russian: Вале́рий Фёдорович Быко́вский; 2 August 1934 – 27 March 2019) was a Soviet cosmonaut who flew on three space flights: Vostok 5, Soyuz 22, and Soyuz 31. He was also backup for Vost ...
,
Vitaly Sevastyanov Vitaly Ivanovich Sevastyanov (russian: Вита́лий Ива́нович Севастья́нов; 8 July 1935 – 5 April 2010) was a Soviet cosmonaut and an engineer who flew on the Soyuz 9 and Soyuz 18 missions. He trained as an engin ...
and
Pavel Popovich Pavel Romanovich Popovich (russian: Па́вел Рома́нович Попо́вич, uk, Павло Романович Попович, Pavlo Romanovych Popovych) (5 October 1930 – 29 September 2009) was a Soviet cosmonaut. Popovich was the ...
were transmitted from the spacecraft and intercepted by Jodrell Bank Observatory and the
CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
. The cosmonauts were apparently reading out telemetry data and computer readings, and even discussing making an attempt to land. At the height of the
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...
, there was a real concern that the Soviets might actually beat
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedin ...
to the Moon.
Apollo 17 Apollo 17 (December 7–19, 1972) was the final mission of NASA's Apollo program, the most recent time humans have set foot on the Moon or traveled beyond low Earth orbit. Commander Gene Cernan and Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt walke ...
astronaut
Eugene Cernan Eugene Andrew Cernan (; March 14, 1934 – January 16, 2017) was an American astronaut, naval aviator, electrical engineer, aeronautical engineer, and fighter pilot. During the Apollo 17 mission, Cernan became the eleventh human being t ...
remarked that the incident had "shocked the hell out of us." Popovich would later recall: "When we realized we would never make it to the moon, we decided to engage in a little bit of hooliganism. We asked our engineers to link the on-the-probe receiver to the transmitter with a jumper wire. Moon flight missions were then controlled from a command centre in
Yevpatoria Yevpatoria ( uk, Євпаторія, Yevpatoriia; russian: Евпатория, Yevpatoriya; crh, , , gr, Ευπατορία) is a city of regional significance in Western Crimea, north of Kalamita Bay. Yevpatoria serves as the administrative ...
, in the
Crimea Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a p ...
. When the probe was on its path round the Moon, I was at the center. So I took the mic and said: "The flight is proceeding according to normal; we’re approaching the surface..." Seconds later my report – as if from outer space – was received on Earth, including ythe Americans. The U.S. space advisor Frank Borman got a phone call from President Nixon
Johnson Johnson is a surname of Anglo-Norman origin meaning "Son of John". It is the second most common in the United States and 154th most common in the world. As a common family name in Scotland, Johnson is occasionally a variation of ''Johnston'', a ...
], who asked: 'Why is Popovich reporting from the moon?' My joke caused real turmoil. In about a month's time. Frank came to the USSR, and I was instructed to meet him at the airport. Hardly had he walked out of his plane when he shook his fist at me and said: 'Hey, you, space hooligan!'"


Location

The return capsule is on display at the
RKK Energiya museum The RKK Energiya museum is a museum dedicated to the early achievements of Russian space exploration programmes. It is located on the grounds of the RKK Energiya factory in Korolyov, near Moscow. The date of the company founding is consider ...
, located in
Moscow Oblast Moscow Oblast ( rus, Моско́вская о́бласть, r=Moskovskaya oblast', p=mɐˈskofskəjə ˈobləsʲtʲ), or Podmoskovye ( rus, Подмоско́вье, p=pədmɐˈskovʲjə, literally " under Moscow"), is a federal subject of R ...
, Russia.


See also

* Animals in space *
Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum, and Phooey Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum, and Phooey were five mice who traveled to the Moon and circled it 75 times on the 1972 Apollo 17 mission. NASA gave them identification numbers A3305, A3326, A3352, A3356, and A3400, and their nicknames were given by the Apollo 1 ...
, five mice who orbited the Moon 75 times in December 1972, while traveling on NASA's
Apollo 17 Apollo 17 (December 7–19, 1972) was the final mission of NASA's Apollo program, the most recent time humans have set foot on the Moon or traveled beyond low Earth orbit. Commander Gene Cernan and Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt walke ...
mission *
Korabl-Sputnik 5 Korabl-Sputnik 5 (russian: Корабль-Спутник 5 meaning ''Ship-Satellite 5'') or Vostok-3KA No.2, also known as Sputnik 10 in the West, was a Soviet spacecraft which was launched in 1961, as part of the Vostok programme. It was the last ...
, another Soviet mission some mistakenly thought was crewed.


Notes


References

* * * *


External links


Zond 5 image of Earth
{{Inspace Missions to the Moon Zond program Spacecraft launched in 1968 1968 in the Soviet Union Life in space Lunar flybys Animals in space Animal testing in the Soviet Union Individual tortoises