Payload
SPUTNIK 8
DecayedPayloadLEO
Venera 1, also known as Venera-1VA No.2 and occasionally in the West as Sputnik 8, was the first spacecraft to perform an interplanetary flight and the first to fly past Venus, as part of the Soviet Union's Venera programme. Launched in February 1961, it was intended as an impactor, but flew past Venus on 19 May of the same year; however, radio contact with the probe was lost before the flyby, resulting in returning only some data and only from interplanetary space.
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Launch
- Launch date
- February 12, 1961 at 12:34 AM UTC
- Launch site
- Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan
- Launched by
- Molniya 8K78 →
- Operator
- Soviet Space Program
- Launch record
- View full launch →
Orbit
- Orbit regime
- LEO
- Apoapsis
- 242 km
- Periapsis
- 169 km
- Inclination
- 65.01°
- Orbital period
- 88.61 min
Spacecraft
- Operator
- Russia (CIS / former USSR)
- Launch mass
- 600 kg
Identity
- COSPAR (Int'l)
- 1961-003C
- NORAD catalog №
- 77
- Object type
- Payload
- Owner / operator
Russia (CIS / former USSR)
- Status
- Decayed
- Decay / reentry
- February 25, 1961
End of mission
- Last active / ended
- February 25, 1961
- Time in service
- 13 days
- Fate
- Reentered Earth's atmosphere and was destroyed.
- Final status
- Decayed