Zond program (original) (raw)

The Zond program was a series of Soviet unmanned space missions sent to the Moon from 1964 to 1979. While the Zond program is considered here as a lunar program, it should be noted that Zond 1 was sent in the direction of Venus and Zond 2 in the direction of Mars. The later Zond missions (4-8) were tests for manned lunar missions in addition to their usual missions of collecting information about the Moon. Instrumentation flown on these missions gathered data on micrometeor flux, solar and cosmic rays, magnetic fields, radio emissions, and solar wind. Biological payloads were also flown and many photographs were taken.