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Mission record

Venera 1

Also known as Venus 1, Gamma (Venera), 1961 Gamma 1, Venera1

U.S.S.R · Launched

Explore trajectory

Lost · Partial success

An Automatic Interplanetary Station launched from an Earth orbiting platform towards Venus, which NSSDCA calls the first spacecraft to fly by Venus. It carried a magnetometer, ion traps, micrometeorite detectors and cosmic radiation counters, and a pressurized sphere carrying a Soviet pennant designed to float on the putative Venus oceans after the intended Venus impact. A session on 17 February from 1.89 million km showed normal operations with a temperature of 29 C and a pressure of 900 mm inside the dome, and the scientific instruments also returned data; a command session on 22 February at 3.2 million km was acknowledged according to the OKB-1 Design Bureau, but has also been reported as a failure. On 4 March, at a distance of 7.5 million km, communications failed and no further contact was made. The silent spacecraft passed within 100,000 km of Venus and entered a heliocentric orbit.

Destinations
Launch vehicle
Modified SS-6 (Sapwood) with 2nd Generation Upper Stage + Escape Stage
Launch site
Tyuratam (Baikonur Cosmodrome), U.S.S.R
Countries
Soviet Union
Mission types
Flyby, Impactor

Chronology

Mission timeline

  1. Launch

    Launched towards Venus from a Tyazheliy Sputnik platform

    NSSDCA's launch/orbital information page gives the launch date and time as 1961-02-12T02:09:00Z, recorded here at minute precision because the page prints a whole minute with zero seconds. The master catalog records that Venera 1 was launched on 12 February 1961 along with an Earth orbiting launch platform with a SL-6/A-2-e launcher, and that from a 229 x 282 km, 65.7 degree inclination orbit the station was launched from the platform towards Venus with the fourth stage Zond rocket. Source review: NSSDCA gives February 12 launch 02:09 UTC; the NASA history gives 00:34:38 UT. Do not equate one to injection without an original flight log. NSSDCA reports an OKB-1 acknowledgment on February 22 but notes other accounts of failure. February 27 fadeouts are unconfirmed, and the March 4 attempt at 7.5 million km failed. March 4 is not the last confirmed telemetry date. The reported heliocentric apsides and inclination lack node, periapsis argument, phase, precise epoch and frame.

    Earth

  2. Loss of contact

    Contact attempt failed at a reported 7.5 million km

    The March 4 attempt failed. February 17 contact is confirmed in the inspected accounts; the February 22 acknowledgment is disputed and later fadeouts are unconfirmed. This day does not identify the last good telemetry or a measured navigation state.

  3. Flyby

    Estimated Venus passage after contact loss

    The master catalog records that the mid-course correction motors could not be fired, and on May 19 and 20, 1961, Venera 1 passed within 100,000 km of Venus and entered a heliocentric orbit. The launch/orbital information page gives the same encounter a closest approach time of 1961-05-20 00:00:00 and a periapsis of 16.50 RV against its own definition 1 RV = 6052 km. Recorded at day precision on the later of the two days the master catalog names, because that page publishes a two-day span and the trajectory page's 00:00:00 is a midnight placeholder rather than an observed time. The sources give May 19–20 and approximately 100000 km; May 20 is a date-only catalog marker, not a measured closest-approach epoch.

    Venus

Mission architecture

Vehicles

  • Venera 1 · Spacecraft

    Destinations: Venus

Trajectory record

Trajectory dataset not yet available

Known dates and encounters do not uniquely determine a flight path. This mission’s sourced timeline is available above; no verified trajectory is currently published here.

What is needed to reconstruct this path?
  • A frame-qualified position and vector velocity at an epoch, or equivalent complete orbital elements.
  • Approach/departure directions and burn vectors between the reported encounters; body names and encounter distances alone are insufficient.
  • Finer event-time constraints where required by an orbital reconstruction; the stored day/month/year precision is retained.

Provenance

Sources

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

Data verified through September 14, 2026