Zond 5

Launch Success

Liftoff Time (GMT)

21:42:10

Saturday September 14, 1968

Mission Details

Launch Notes

First living being to fly over the Moon. An issue with the stellar trackers caused the spacecraft to splash down in the Indian Ocean instead of landing in Kazakhstan, despite this it was recovered intact, and the animals onboard survived.

Zond-5

Wiki

Zond-5 carried two 40-gram Horsfield tortoises each, as well as several hundred flies, Drosophilidae flies, sucker blackberries (a beetle), salads, algae and bacteria. The specimen survived the reentry. Zond-5 became the first spacecraft to circle the Moon and return to Earth. L1 was a Soviet spacecraft launched on Proton, designed in parallel of 7K-L1, which flew on the N-1 launcher. It was conceived to carry out crewed flybys of the Moon, like Apollo 8. This spacecraft sent the first living beings to fly over the Moon, turtles, on board Zond 5. The work made on this spacecraft will be used for the improvement of the Soyuz spacecraft.

Trans Lunar Injection

1 Payload

5,375 kilograms

Rocket

Retired
Proton-K/Block D

Active 1967 to 1976

Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center logo

Manufacturer

Khrunichev

Rocket

Height: 56.14m

Payload to Orbit

LEO: 18,900 kg

GTO: 9,000 kg

Liftoff Thrust

8,840 Kilonewtons

Fairing

Diameter: 3.9m

Height: 8.9m

Stages

4

Launch Site

Site 81/23

Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan

Fastest Turnaround

11 days 23 hours

Stats

Proton-K


7th

Mission

3rd

Mission of 1968

Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center


347th

Mission

54th

Mission of 1968

1968


83rd

Orbital launch attempt