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Mission record

Cosmos 167

Also known as Cosmos167, Kosmos 167

U.S.S.R · Launched

Explore trajectory

Failed · Failure

A Soviet mission intended to be a Venus lander, similar in design to the Venera 4 spacecraft launched five days earlier on 12 June 1967. The spacecraft became stranded in Earth orbit and was designated Cosmos 167; its orbit decayed and it re-entered Earth's atmosphere eight days after launch. NSSDCA records that from 1962 the name Cosmos was given to Soviet spacecraft which remained in Earth orbit regardless of whether that was their intended final destination.

Destinations
Launch vehicle
Molniya-M
Launch site
Tyuratam (Baikonur Cosmodrome), U.S.S.R
Countries
Soviet Union
Mission types
Lander

Chronology

Mission timeline

  1. Launch

    Launched on a Molniya-M and stranded in Earth orbit

    The launch/orbital information page prints 1967-06-17T02:36:38Z and a 187 x 266 km Earth orbit at 51.800 degrees inclination. Both pages print Molniya-M as the launch vehicle, which is the launch vehicle NSSDCA also prints for the stranded Cosmos 96 and unlike the Modified SS-6 (Sapwood) string its Venera 4 sister flight carries. Source review: The orbit page uses a midnight start rather than the 02:36:38 launch clock. That date field supplies no measured element epoch. The catalog's undated stranded-in-orbit milestone has no actual escape-ignition clock; no timestamp is invented for it.

    Earth

  2. Mission end

    Re-entered Earth's atmosphere; NSSDCA decay date 1967-06-25

    The launch/orbital information page prints 1967-06-25 under the heading Decay Date; the master catalog states that the orbit decayed and the spacecraft re-entered Earth's atmosphere 8 days after launch.

    Earth

  3. Milestone

    Stranded in Earth orbit and designated Cosmos 167

    The master catalog records that the spacecraft became stranded in Earth orbit and was designated Cosmos 167, and describes the general failure mode: Soviet planetary missions were put into an Earth parking orbit as a launch platform and then launched toward their targets with an engine burn of roughly 4 minutes, and if the engine misfired or the burn was not completed the probes would be left in Earth orbit and given a Cosmos designation. Carried without a timestamp because the page dates neither the burn nor the designation.

Mission architecture

Vehicles

  • Cosmos 167 · Spacecraft

    Destinations: Venus

    • Spuskaemiy apparat · Other

Trajectory record

Time-dependent navigation trajectory

Source states place the model at the selected time. Reconstructed flight, estimates, predictions and historical mission plans are identified by interval; gaps remain visible.

J2000 · Sun-centered display · positions interpolated between source states

Coverage: June 18, 1967 to June 18, 1967

Source records and sampling assumptions are retained with the repository data. Model attitude and surface appearance are illustrative.

  • Cosmos 167: bounded derived 15-minute Earth-orbit TLE arc; later decay time remains day-only · June 18, 1967 to June 18, 1967

Provenance

Sources

Each source is listed once and labeled with the mission, event, trajectory, or destination/body context it supports.

Data verified through October 7, 2026