Completed · Success
Zond 3 was a Soviet spacecraft launched towards the Moon and interplanetary space that photographed the lunar farside during a flyby at a closest approach of 9200 km, returning 25 pictures of very good quality. After the lunar flyby it continued space exploration in a heliocentric orbit until the last communications were made in March 1966.
- 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
Chronology
Mission timeline
Milestone
Lunar photography began
Milestone
Image transmission at2.2millionkm Earth distance
Milestone
Image retransmission at31.5millionkm Earth distance
Mission architecture
Vehicles
Zond 3 · Spacecraft
Destinations: Moon
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 beyond the approximate launch clock where required by an orbital reconstruction; the remaining event date 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 October 12, 2026
- Zond 3 - NASA NSSDCA Spacecraft Details — NSSDCAArchive · Supports: mission claims · event claims
- NASA current Zond 3 mission and hardware record — NSSDCATechnical document · Supports: mission claims · event claims
- Siddiqi (2018): Beyond Earth, a chronicle of deep space exploration 1958–2016 — NASAMission page · Supports: mission claims · event claims
- NSSDC (1977): Lunar and planetary data catalog, Zond photographs and indexes — NASATechnical document · Supports: mission claims · event claims
- NORAD Weekly Intelligence Review, issue 30/65, 23 July 1965, Zond 3 launch report — OTHERArchive · Supports: mission claims · event claims
- DE421 lunar mean-Earth and principal-axes frame specification — NAIFTechnical document · Supports: destination/body context
- DE440 lunar mean-Earth and principal-axes frame specification — NAIFSpice · Supports: destination/body context
- IAU rotational elements and body radii (PCK 00011) — NAIFSpice · Supports: destination/body context
- LOLA global lunar height maps, LDEM_4 V3 original PDS source label — NASATechnical document · Supports: destination/body context
- LOLA 2023 south-polar elevation, uncertainty and effective-resolution maps — NASATechnical document · Supports: destination/body context
- Blue Ghost Lunar Lander Seen From Above: LROC site and terrain context — NASATechnical document · Supports: destination/body context
- Moon Facts — NASAOther · Supports: destination/body context
- SLDEM2015 Blue Ghost region: original PDS elevation-grid label — NASATechnical document · Supports: destination/body context
- JPL Solar System Dynamics Astrodynamic Parameters — JPLOther · Supports: destination/body context
- Planet Sizes and Locations in Our Solar System — NASAOther · Supports: destination/body context