#zond — Public Fediverse posts

Lastly, this is a fine view of the Orientale area, with the limb at left crossing the South Pole-Aitken basin and giving a nice topographic profile of the basin. #moon #zond

These are views over Mare Orientale looking east with the peaks of the Cordilleras on the horizon. I have done no cosmetic cleanup to these images. #moon The Earth has a big reseau cross over it. #Zond

Some Zond 8 images now. This is a very reduced version of the high resolution image swath.
#moon #zond

This map shows the Zond 8 image strip coverage, the Zond 6 and 7 image areas, and the Apollo image coverage (omitting only Apollo 13 and the global views taken during departure). Soviet planetary geologists made a nice set of maps of the Zond 8 area with relief drawings and a geological interpretation. Until LRO these were the best images of that region. A limb profile gave another look at topography in the South Pole-Aitken basin (see Zond 6 notes). #moon #zond

Kira Shingareva came to Houston one year with CD-ROMs of scanned Zond 8 images. A set went to LPI, I got a set, there may have been others (I was her driver and guide on that trip). The scans revealed something interesting: the images were good quality but had a few scratches. They had not been protected as well as Apollo negatives were (after being developed they were copied and the originals archived for decades with all work done on copies). Only recently were they scanned again.
#moon #zond

Luna 16 was followed by Zond 8, the last test flight of this type of spacecraft. It followed the pattern of a flight around the Moon and back, not going into orbit (like Artemis 2, not Apollo 8 and 10). NSSDCA provides a few details:
https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraft/display.action?id=1970-088A

The photography was much better on this mission with large images taken of a full disk and a lower altitude strip of the farside highlands. Don Mitchell has a good selection:

http://mentallandscape.com/C_CatalogMoon.htm (halfway down). #moon #zond

This map shows the extent of Zond 7 image coverage, extending a bit further south than my mosaic. This is from an index I scanned in Moscow.

NOTE: in my original posts for Zond 7 I accidentally called it Zond 6, which we have already covered. Posts have been corrected. #moon #Zond

Zond 7 was the next test flight of the spacecraft intended to fly people to the Moon. It was a very successful flight and the only one which would have landed a crew safely, if it had a crew. But it didn't - it flew some turtles and a radiation sensor package, and it took pictures of Earth and the Moon. Here are two images from the mission, Earth over the limb (Earth is setting, not rising) and a mosaic of image running down the terminator showing Oceanus Procellarum at right. #moon #Zond

Next up after Zond 6 was Luna 15, a sample return lander which flew at the same time as Apollo 11. This was a last-ditch effort to bring a sample back before Apollo, allowing the Soviet Union some small bragging rights. If Luna 15 had followed the flight profile of Luna 16 it might have returned lunar samples slightly ahead of Apollo 11, but it spent an extra day in lunar orbit and lost that chance. Then it crashed the day after Apollo 11 landed - but where? #moon #Zond

This map is based on a Zond 6 image index map I scanned at MIIGAiK. The region covered here was mostly seen by Lunar Orbiter obliquely near the terminator, and the Vavilov image shows some Zond 6 coverage was the best available at the time. The most significant science was from the full disk view. Careful measurement of the limb at lower left revealed a huge depressed area - the South Pole-Aitken basin (ref in ALT text). #moon #Zond

Zond 6 images taken on film were nearly lost when the spacecraft crashed in Soviet territory. The film container was split and light spoiled some pictures, but enough were intact that some scenes could be recovered. Here (from material I scanned in Moscow) are views of a full-phase disk centred north of Orientale, A limb view with Earth, a mosaic of frames covring part of the farside, and a close-up of Vavilov crater. #moon #Zond

Zond 5 lost attitude sensors, could not land in the Soviet Union but fell into the Indian Ocean where it was recovered. Cosmonauts might not have survived the re-entry. Images of Earth were taken but not the Moon (at least none were released).

Zond 6 flew a better trajectory and this time brought back images of the Moon. The landing was again spoiled (parachutes ejected at high altitude). This and other problems would have killed a crew. This was only a few weeks before Apollo 8. #moon #Zond

... on return Zond 4's guidance system failed and it hit the atmosphere without performing its 'skip' out of the atmosphere and back in at lower velocity. The spacecraft was destroyed over the Atlantic Ocean near Africa so it would not be recovered by the US.

Next, in September 1968, was Zond 5. This flew around the Moon and back to Earth with a biological payload (turtles and various invertebrates, plants etc. But again its return was compromised. #moon #Zond

The purpose of the spacecraft series we call Zond 4 to Zond 8 was to perfect a very complex trajectory and re-entry before humans were entrusted to them. Later they became the Soyuz spacecraft still used for space station crews. I don't know what they would have been called if they took people to the Moon. The first was called Zond 4, early in 1968. It was sent to lunar distance but 180 degrees from the Moon so lunar gravity would not complicate its orbit. On return... #moon #Zond

Now we move to a new class of lunar spacecraft, Zond. But this is nothing like Zond 3, the old Mars probe which was repurposed to image the far side of the Moon. These Zonds were what later became Soyuz spacecraft, initially designed to carry people to the Moon and later to Soviet space stations. And the timing is significant - this is the second half of 1968, with Apollo ramping up and not much time for a Soviet mission to leap ahead. Tomorrow we will get to grips with the Zonds. #moon #Zond

Hello Gilotin.art, where I'm apparently now appearing in your timelines.

I'm a miniature painter who focuses on non-GW games and is currently obsessed with Infinity.

Please enjoy these pictures of a Vertigo Zondbot I painted recently.

#infinitythegame #infinitytheuniverse #corvusbelli #nomad #zond #remote #robot #miniatures #miniaturewargaming #armypainting #warhammer #minipainting #miniaturepainting #miniaturewargaming #wargaming #tabletopgaming #tabletopgames #tabletopminiatures #tabletopwargaming #miniaturegames #painting #kimerakolors