Venera 2MV-1 No.2,
also known as Sputnik 20 in the
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to the various nations and states in the regions of Europe, North America, and Oceania. , 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
Venera
The Venera (, , which means "Venus" in Russian) program was the name given to a series of space probes developed by the Soviet Union between 1961 and 1984 to gather information about the planet Venus. Ten probes successfully landed on the s ...
programme. Due to a problem with its upper stage it failed to leave
low Earth orbit
A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never mor ...
, and reentered the atmosphere a few days later.
It was the second of two Venera 2MV-1 spacecraft, both of which failed to leave Earth orbit. The previous mission,
Venera 2MV-1 No.1, was launched several days earlier.
Launch
Venera 2MV-1 No.2 was launched at 02:12:30 UTC on 1 September 1962, atop a
Molniya 8K78 carrier rocket flying from
Site 1/5 at the
Baikonur Cosmodrome.
The lower stages of the rocket operated nominally, injecting the fourth stage and payload into a
low Earth orbit
A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never mor ...
. Following a
coast phase, the upper stage was to have ignited around sixty-one minutes and thirty seconds after launch, in order to place the spacecraft into
heliocentric orbit. The ignition command did not reach the engine, however, and the fuel valves did not open, so the upper stage failed to ignite leaving the payload in
geocentric orbit
A geocentric orbit or Earth orbit involves any object orbiting Earth, such as the Moon or artificial satellites. In 1997, NASA estimated there were approximately 2,465 artificial satellite payloads orbiting Earth and 6,216 pieces of space debri ...
.
It reentered the atmosphere on 6 September 1962, five days after it had been launched.
Satellite designation
The designations Sputnik 24, and later Sputnik 20, 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 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 Earth orbit.
See also
*
List of missions to Venus
There have been 46 (including gravity-assist flybys) space missions to the planet Venus. Missions to Venus constitute part of the exploration of Venus.
List
As of 2020, the Soviet Union, United States, European Space Agency and Japan have con ...
References
Spacecraft launched in 1962
Venera program
Spacecraft which reentered in 1962
2MV
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