Zenit (, ) was a series of military photoreconnaissance satellites launched by the Soviet Union between 1961 and 1994. To conceal their nature, all flights were given the public Kosmos designation.
Description
The basic design of the Zenit satellites was similar to the Vostok crewed spacecraft, sharing the return and service modules.
Early Zenits were launched using the Vostok rocket; later versions used the Voskhod and the Soyuz rockets. The first flights were launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome but subsequent launches also took place at Plesetsk Cosmodrome.
Most Zenits flew in a slightly elliptical orbit with a perigee of around and an apogee between ; the missions usually lasted between 8 and 15 days.
History
In 1956, the Soviet government issued a secret decree that authorised the development of "Object D" which led to the program to launch Sputnik 3 (Sputnik 1 was a simplified spin-off of the Object D program.) The text of the decree remains secret, but it apparently authorised another satellite program – "Object OD-1" – which was to be used for photo-reconnaissance from space.
By 1958, the OKB-1 design bureau was simultaneously working on Object OD-1 and Object OD-2 – an early design for the Vostok crewed spacecraft. The development of Object OD-1 was experiencing serious difficulties so the head of OKB-1, Sergei Korolev, initiated work to see if a design based on Object OD-2 could be used for an uncrewed photo-reconnaissance satellite. This may have been a political manoeuvre that would enable him to continue the crewed space program and avoid diverting more of OKB-1's resources into Object OD-1.
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