Venera 8 Credit - NASA

Carried a TV system and scientific instruments.

Typical orbit: 222 km x 296 km at 52 degrees inclination. Mass: 960 kg (2,110 lb). Associated Launch Vehicle: Molniya 8K78M.

• 1965 November 12 - Venera 2 - Program: Venera. Launch Site: Baikonur. Launch Vehicle: Molniya 8K78M. Mass: 962 kg (2,120 lb). Perigee: 205 km (127 mi). Apogee: 315 km (195 mi). Inclination: 51.80 deg. Period: 89.71 min.

  Venera 2 was launched towards the planet Venus and carried a TV system and scientific instruments. On February 27, 1966, the spacecraft passed Venus at a distance of 24,000 km and entered a heliocentric orbit. The spacecraft system had ceased to operate before the planet was reached and returned no data.

• 1965 November 23 - Cosmos 96 - Program: Venera. Launch Site: Baikonur. Launch Vehicle: Molniya 8K78M. FAILURE: At T+528 sec, during the final thrust phase of the Block I's 8D715K engine, one of the combustion chambers blew up due to a tear in the fuel pipeline. This resulted in an abnormal separation of the upper stages. Mass: 960 kg (2,110 lb). Perigee: 222 km (137 mi). Apogee: 296 km (183 mi). Inclination: 51.90 deg. Period: 89.70 min.

  The escape stage Block L entered parking orbit tumbling and was not able to operate properly.

• Krebs, Gunter, Gunter's Space Page, University of Frankfurt, 1996. Accessed at: http://www.skyrocket.de/space.

• NASA Report, Flight of the Interplanetary Automatic Stations Venus-2 and Venus-3, . Accessed at: http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19660022598_1966022598.pdf. -right click to download pdfs!

• National Space Science Center Planetary Page, As of 19 February 1999.. Accessed at: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/planetary_home.html.

• Novosti Kosmonavtiki, "Otmenenniy Start "Molniya-M"", 1997, Issue 1, page 29.

• Varfolomyev, Timothy, Spaceflight, "Soviet Rocketry that Conquered Space - Part 5", 1998, Volume 40, page 85. 1: Sp 95/37-260; Sp 96/38-31 (8K71 launches); 2: Sp 96/38-48; 3: Sp 96/38-206; Sp 96/38-317 (designatons); 4: Sp 98/40-28; 5:Sp 98/40-85

• McDowell, Jonathan, Jonathan's Space Home Page, Harvard University, 1997-present. Jonathan McDowell's complete on-line listing of all objects orbited and over 20,000 rocket launches Accessed at: http://www.planet4589.org/jsr.html.

• USAF Satellite Database, USAF Institute of Technology, 1995. Accessed at: ftp://archive.afit.af.mil/pub/space/.

• NASA Report, Solar wind observations with the aid of the interplanetary station Venera-3, . Accessed at: http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19670017084_1967017084.pdf. -right click to download pdfs!

• JPL Mission and Spacecraft Library, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 1997. Accessed at: http://msl.jpl.nasa.gov/home.html.