Mars 2MV-4 No.1 also known as Sputnik 22 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

Mars program The Mars program was a series of uncrewed spacecraft launched by the Soviet Union between 1960 and 1973. The spacecraft were intended to explore Mars, and included flyby probes, landers and orbiters. Early Mars spacecraft were small, and launche ...

me, and was intended to make a flyby of

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin at ...

, and transmit images of the planet back to Earth. Due to a problem with the rocket which launched it, it was destroyed in low Earth orbit. It was the first of two Mars 2MV-4 spacecraft to be launched, the other being the

Mars 1 Mars 1 Mars 1, also known as 1962 Beta Nu 1, Mars 2MV-4 and Sputnik 23, was an automatic interplanetary station launched in the direction of Mars on November 1, 1962, the first of the Soviet Mars probe program, with the intent of flying by the ...

spacecraft which was launched eight days later.

Launch

With the Cuban Missile Crisis unfolding, the USSR spacecraft ''Mars 2MV-4 No.1'' was launched at 17:55:04 UTC on 24 October 1962, atop a Molniya 8K78 carrier rocket flying from Site 1/5 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The lower stages of the rocket performed nominally, placing the payload and the

Blok L Blok may refer to: *Blok (surname) *Blok (comics), the fictional superhero of the DC Comics universe *Blok M, downtown shopping area in Jakarta, Indonesia *Mega Bloks, plastic building blocks produced by Mega Bloks, Incorporated *The Vlaams Blok (D ...

upper stage into low Earth orbit. When the Blok L ignited following a coast phase, lubricant leaked out of the

turbopump A turbopump is a propellant pump with two main components: a rotodynamic pump and a driving gas turbine, usually both mounted on the same shaft, or sometimes geared together. They were initially developed in Germany in the early 1940s. The purpo ...

, which consequently seized up and disintegrated. This caused the main engine to explode, destroying the upper stage and spacecraft. Twenty two pieces of debris from the spacecraft and upper stage were catalogued, which decayed between 29 October 1962 and 26 February 1963.

Designations

The designations Sputnik 29, and later Sputnik 22, 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 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

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

Ballistic Missile Early Warning System The RCA 474L Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS, "474L System", Project 474L) was a United States Air Force Cold War early warning radar, computer, and communications system, for ballistic missile detection. The network of twelve ra ...

station in

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S. ...

detected the debris from the launch, and initially identified it as incoming

nuclear warheads A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...

, since the launch had occurred during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Scientific Instruments

The spacecraft carried two instruments on board: *

Imaging System Imaging is the representation or reproduction of an object's form; especially a visual representation (i.e., the formation of an image). Imaging technology is the application of materials and methods to create, preserve, or duplicate images. ...

* Magnetometer

References

{{Mars programme Spacecraft launched in 1962 1962 in the Soviet Union Mars program Spacecraft which reentered in 1962 Destroyed space probes

Launch

Designations

Scientific Instruments

See also

References