Partial success · Partial success
Soviet uncrewed circumlunar spacecraft that photographed the Moon and completed a guided skip reentry. The return capsule depressurized and its parachute was jettisoned at excessive altitude; it was destroyed on impact, although some photographic film was recovered.
- Destinations
- Launch vehicle
- Proton Booster Plus Upper Stage and Escape Stages
- Launch site
- Tyuratam (Baikonur Cosmodrome), U.S.S.R
- Countries
- Soviet Union
- Mission types
- Flyby
Chronology
Mission timeline
Milestone
Translunar injection
Milestone
Midcourse correction
Milestone
Inbound midcourse correction
Impact
Return capsule destroyed after premature parachute jettison
NASA’s later history documents depressurization and parachute release at about5.3km altitude, correcting the contemporary account of a successful landing.
EarthMilestone
Final midcourse correction
Mission architecture
Vehicles
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.
- Independent descent/return states and a source-defined body-fixed landing location; a landing date alone does not define either.
- Separate state histories and release epochs for the listed vehicles; a parent mission trajectory cannot be assigned to every component.
- 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 October 12, 2026
- Zond 6 - NASA NSSDCA Spacecraft Details — NSSDCAArchive · Supports: mission claims · event claims
- NASA current Zond 6 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
- Johnson (1995): The Soviet Reach for the Moon, L1 and L3 hardware — OTHERTechnical document · Supports: mission claims · event claims
- Arnold (2013): Planetary Entry Probes, Zond schematic — NASATechnical document · Supports: mission claims · event claims
- Zond6 controlled descent, NASA translation (1968) — NASATechnical document · Supports: mission claims · event claims
- NSSDC (1977): Lunar and planetary data catalog, Zond photographs and indexes — NASATechnical document · Supports: mission claims · event claims
- Deep Space Chronicle: A Chronology of Deep Space and Planetary Probes 1958–2000, NASA/SP-2002-4524 — NASATechnical document · 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