Venera 1 (nonfiction)

Mockup (1:1) of the spacecraft Venera 1 at Memorial Museum of Astronautics (Moscow).

Venera 1 (Russian: Венера-1 meaning Venus 1), also known as Venera-1VA No.2 and occasionally in the West as Sputnik 8 was the first spacecraft to fly past Venus, as part of the Soviet Union's Venera program.

Launched on February 12, 1961, it flew past Venus on May 19 of the same year; however, radio contact with the probe was lost before the flyby, resulting in it returning no data.

Nonfiction cross-reference

• Spacecraft (nonfiction)

External links:

• Venera 1 @ Wikipedia