Zond 7

Zond 7
Names	Soyuz 7K-L1 s/n 11
Mission type	Lunar flyby Spacecraft test
Operator	OKB-1
COSPAR ID	1969-067A
SATCATno.	04062
Mission duration	6 days, 18 hours, & 25 minutes[1]
Spacecraft properties
Bus	Soyuz 7K-L1
Manufacturer	OKB-1
Launch mass	5,375 kilograms (11,850 lb)[1]
Start of mission
Launch date	August 7, 1969, 23:48:06 UTC[1]
Rocket	Proton-KD
Launch site	Baikonur81/23
End of mission
Disposal	Soft landing and recovery
Recovered by	Soviet Union
Landing date	August 14, 1969 (1969-08-14) at 20:13 UTC
Landing site	50 km south ofKustanai,Kazakhstan,USSR[2]
Flyby ofMoon
Closest approach	August 11, 1969
Distance	1,984.6 km (1,233.2 mi)
Zond ← Zond 6 Zond 8 →

TheZond 7 spacecraft, part of the SovietZond program, was launched towards the Moon on aProton-K D rocket on August 7, 1969. Its mission was to support studies of the Moon andcircumlunar space, to obtain color photography of Earth and the Moon from varying distances, and to flight test the spacecraft systems. It was an unpiloted version of theSoyuz 7K-L1, a crewed Moon-flyby spacecraft.

Earth photos were obtained on August 9, 1969. On August 11, 1969, the spacecraft flew past the Moon at a distance of 1984.6 km and conducted two picture taking sessions. On its way back from the Moon the spacecraft tested its radio systems by transmitting recorded voices.^[3]

Zond 7 carried four turtles,^[3][4] a follow-up to the September 1968Zond 5 mission which carried two tortoises on a circumlunar lunar mission, and the November 1968Zond 6 mission which also carried turtles.

A human-like tissue-equivalent phantom for radiation measurements was placed aboard. The phantom was equipped with 20 channels for radiation detectors (thermoluminescent glasses and nuclear photoemulsions) distributed along the whole body for measurement of doses in critical organs. The doses accumulated during the flight through the radiation belts and around the Moon were between 0.2 and 0.7 rad in different points at the depth of 3 g/cm² from the body surface.^[5]

Like otherZond circumlunar craft, Zond 7 used a relatively uncommon technique calledskip reentry to shed velocity upon returning to Earth.Of all circumlunar Soviet Zond craft launches, Zond 7 would have been the first to make a safe flight for a cosmonaut had it been crewed.

Zond 7 reentered Earth's atmosphere on August 14, 1969, and achieved a soft landing in a preset region south ofKustanai, Kazakhstan. The return capsule is on display at theDmitrov Facility ofBauman University in Orevo, Russia.

• 
  Zond 7 orbit, photographs of the Earth and the Moon on a USSRminiature sheet, 1969
• 
  A photograph of the Earth taken by Zond 7 on a postage stamp of the USSR in 1969

• Animals in space
• Timeline of first images of Earth from space
• Zond 5, two tortoises who flew to the Moon on the Soviet Union's September 1968 Zond 5 circumlunar flight
• Zond 6, turtles on a circumlunar mission in November 1968
• Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum, and Phooey, five mice who orbited the Moon a record 75 times on the December 1972Apollo 17 mission
• List of missions to the Moon

• This article was originally based on material fromNASA (NSSDC) information on Zond 7Archived 2019-06-30 at theWayback Machine

• Soviet Lunar Images
• NASA page on Zond 7 NSSDC ID: 1969-067AArchived 2019-06-30 at theWayback Machine
• Zond 7 image of Earth andEarthset from Zond 7 on the Bruce Murray Space Image Library

• Missions to the Moon
• Zond program
• Spacecraft launched in 1969
• 1969 in the Soviet Union
• Lunar flybys
• Animals in space
• Individual turtles
• Successful space missions

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