Zond 5
Template:Short description Template:Good article Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox spaceflight Zond 5 (Template:Langx) was a spacecraft of the Soviet Zond program. In September 1968 it became the first spaceship to travel to and circle the Moon in a circumlunar trajectory, 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 Russian tortoises, fruit fly eggs, and plants.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The 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.
The Zond spacecraft was a version of the Soyuz 7K-L1 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.
BackgroundEdit
Out of the first four circumlunar missions launched by the Soviet Union there was one partial success, Zond 4, and three failures.Template:Sfn After Template:Nowrap's mission in March 1968, a follow-up, Zond 1968A, 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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In July, Zond 1968B was being prepared for launch when the Template:Nowrap 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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
The Template:Nowrap mission was originally planned to fly cosmonauts around the Moon, but the failures of Template:Nowrap and Template:Nowrap led the Soviets to send an uncrewed mission instead, from fear of the negative propaganda of an unsuccessful crewed flight.<ref name=rsw />
PayloadEdit
Two Russian tortoises (Agrionemys horsfieldii) were included in the biological payload, weighing Template:Convert each pre-flight.Template:Sfn Along with the tortoises, insects and micro-organisms were part of the crew.<ref name="obst">Template:Cite book</ref> 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. 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.Template:Sfn The food deprivation was a part of pathomorphological and histochemical experiments.Template:Sfn 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-celled green algae Chlorella, and one strain of lysogenic bacteria.Template:Sfn<ref name=atlantic /> The purpose of sending a variety of terrestrial lifeforms was to test the effect of cosmic radiation on them.<ref name=journalnews /> However, the test subjects were not analogous to humans, because the choice of life forms were all extremophiles with a substantially higher radioresistance.<ref>Tortoise blood fights radiation sickness 6 May 2002 www.upi.com accessed 21 September 2021</ref><ref>SOMATIC MUTATION RATE IN TRADESCANTIA STAMEN HAIRS AT LOW RADIATION LEVELS: FINDING OF LOW DOUBLING DOSES OF MUTATIONS SADAO ICHIKAWA, www.jstage.jst.go.jp, 1972 Volume 47 accessed 21 September 2021</ref><ref>Radioactivity Dr. Fred Omega Garces 8 February 2011 faculty.sdmiramar.edu accessed 21 September 2021</ref> The Russian Academy of Sciences stated that a mannequin equipped with radiation sensors occupied the pilot's seat.<ref name=nssdc />
Kazan Optical and Mechanical Plant had developed the AFA-BA/40 imager, which was installed on the spacecraft, giving it the ability to image the Earth.<ref name=rsw>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Template:Nowrap also contained proton detectors.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Template:Nowrap could transmit some of its data back to ground stations, although data stored onboard and collected after return to Earth has less noise.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
MissionEdit
Launch and trajectoryEdit
Template:Nowrap launched on 14 September 1968 at 21:42.10Template:SpacesUTC, from Site 81 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The thrust of the third-stage rocket was terminated at Template:Convert, which was the start of a 251-second coast. Template:Nowrap, the upper-stage rocket, ignited and burned for 108 seconds, placing the spacecraft into a parking orbit of Template:Convert. Fifty-six minutes into the parking orbit the Template:Nowrap fired a final time for the trans-lunar injection.<ref name=rsw /> After this maneuver, the launch was announced to the world.Template:Sfn Mission Control discovered a problem with Template:Nowrap's attitude and traced the cause to a contaminated star tracker. Heat caused some of the interior coating to outgas,Template:Sfn which delayed an attitude correction on the way to the Moon. The maneuver was performed Template:Convert from Earth using the Sun and the Earth as reference points.<ref name=rsw />
On 18 September, the spacecraft flew around the Moon, although it did not orbit it.<ref name=atlantic>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The closest distance was Template:Convert.<ref name=nssdc /> On the way back from the Moon, another star tracker failed. The spacecraft also erroneously switched off the guided reentry system.Template:Sfn Eight ships were deployed to the Indian Ocean prior to launch, as a precaution in case the spacecraft could not reach Soviet territory; only three of them had rescue helicopters on board.<ref name=rsw />
Reentry and recoveryEdit
Template:Location map On 21 September, the reentry capsule entered the Earth's atmosphere.Template:Sfn The primary landing zone was in Kazakhstan, but instead Template:Nowrap splashed down in the Indian Ocean and was recovered by the Soviet vessels Borovichy (Боровичи) and Vasiliy Golovnin (Василий Головнин).Template:Sfn<ref>Oleg Pavlenko (Олег Павленко), Из истории Морского космического флота. К 35-летию полета корабля «Зонд-5» (From the history of the Sea Space Fleet. On the 35th anniversary of the Zond 5 mission) Template:In lang (includes photos of the reentry capsule recovery)</ref> It landed at Template:Coord,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Template:Convert from the nearest Soviet naval ship. The landing occurred at night, which impaired recovery efforts.Template:Sfn
Template:Nowrap became the first spacecraft to circle the Moon and return to Earth. The entire journey took 6Template:Spacesdays, 18Template:Spaceshours and 24Template:Spacesminutes.Template:Sfn The biological specimens were safely recovered.<ref name=nssdc /> Template:USS shadowed the Soviet recovery ships, collecting intelligence,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> but left shortly after the spacecraft was brought on board the Soviet ship.Template:Sfn
Results and future plansEdit
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High-quality photographs of the Earth, the first photos of their kind,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> were taken at a distance of Template:Convert.<ref name=nssdc /> British astronomer Bernard Lovell, considered to be Britain's top space expert, said that the Template:Nowrap mission showed that the Soviets were ahead in the Space Race. The British Interplanetary Society believed that the USSR would be able to send cosmonauts around the Moon within a matter of months.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
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 survive. 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.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
The official Soviet news agency, TASS, announced in November 1968 that the flight carried living animals. The tortoises were dissected on 11 October after fasting for 39Template:Spacesdays. The flying tortoises, identified as Template:Numero and Template:Numero, had lost 10% of their body weight during the trip, but showed no loss of appetite.Template:Sfn 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 levels in their liver and that the flight also affected the internal structures of their spleens.<ref name=journalnews>Template:Cite news</ref> The authors concluded that the changes in the flight tortoises were primarily due to starvation, with the space travel having little effect.Template:Sfn 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 flight, in an attempt to show they were close to being able to carry out a crewed trip to the Moon.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Cosmonaut crew communications test and hoaxEdit
The Zond 5 caused a scare in the United States when on 19 September 1968, the voices of cosmonauts Valery Bykovsky, Vitaly Sevastyanov and Pavel Popovich were transmitted from the spacecraft and intercepted by Jodrell Bank Observatory and the CIA.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> 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, there was a real concern that the Soviets might actually beat NASA to the Moon. Apollo 17 astronaut Eugene Cernan remarked that the incident had "shocked the hell out of us."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
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, in the Crimea. 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 [by] the Americans. The U.S. space advisor Frank Borman got a phone call from President Nixon [actually Johnson], 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!'"<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
LocationEdit
The Template:Nowrap capsule is on display at the RKK Energiya museum, located in Moscow Oblast, Russia.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
See alsoEdit
- Animals in space
- Zond 6, turtles on a circumlunar mission in November 1968
- Zond 7, four turtles flew the August 1969 circumlunar flight
- Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum, and Phooey, five mice who orbited the Moon a record 75 times in December 1972, while traveling on NASA's Apollo 17 mission
- List of missions to the Moon
- Korabl-Sputnik 5, another Soviet mission some mistakenly thought was crewed.
NotesEdit
ReferencesEdit
External linksEdit
Template:Zond program Template:Moon spacecraft Template:Orbital launches in 1968 Template:N1-L3 Template:Inspace Template:Individual turtles