Zond 7
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Zond 7, a member of the Soviet Union's Zond program and the only truly successful test of the Soyuz 7K-L1, was launched towards the Moon from a mother spacecraft (69-067B) on a mission of further studies of the Moon and circumlunar space, to obtain color photography of Earth and the Moon from varying distances, and to flight test the spacecraft systems. Earth photos were obtained on August 9, 1969. On August 11, 1969, the spacecraft flew past the Moon at a distance of 1984.6 km and conducted two picture taking sessions. Zond 7 reentered Earth's atmosphere on August 14, 1969, and achieved a soft landing in a preset region south of Kustanai.
Zond 7 used a relatively uncommon technique called "skip reentry" to shed velocity upon returning to Earth.
- Launch Date/Time: 1969-08-07 at 23:48:06 UTC
- On-orbit dry mass: 5979 kg
| Preceded by Zond L1S-2 |
Zond program | Succeeded by Zond 8 |
| Zond program |  |
|---|---|
| Zond Probes: Zond 1 | Zond 1964A | Zond 2 | Zond 3 | Zond1967A | Zond 1967B | Zond 4 | Zond 1968A | |
| Lunar "Soyuz": Zond 5 | Zond 6 | Zond 1969A | Zond L1S-1 | Zond L1S-2 | Zond 7 | Zond 8 |
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|---|---|---|
| Soyuz missions | Soyuz 1, Soyuz 2, Soyuz 3, Soyuz 4, Soyuz 5, Soyuz 6, Soyuz 7, Soyuz 8 |  |
| Zond (Soyuz 7K-L1) Lunar missions | Zond 5, Zond 6, Zond 1969A, Zond L1S-1, Zond L1S-2, Zond 7, Zond 8 | |
| LK Lander test missions | Cosmos 379, Cosmos 398 and Cosmos 434 | |
| Hardware | N1 rocket, L3, LOK Command Ship, LK Lander, Zond, Soyuz | |
This article was originally based on material from NASA (NSSDC) information on Zond 7
