1968-013A
The L-1 No. 6 spacecraft was given the code-name Zond-4 after launch. The earlier Zond space probes were planetary probes in the MV series and entirely unrelated to the L-1 lunar program.
In an interview with Bert Vis, Vitaliy Sevastyanov reported that he and Popovich were participating in a simulated L-1 mission at Yevpatoria during the flight; their communications from the L-1 simulator were routed through Zond-4 in deep space and then back to TsUP. He said that the spacecraft reentered on Mar 9 over the Atlantic in the Gulf of Guinea, but was destroyed at an altitude of 15 km by ground command because no recovery fleet was available at that time. Another report claimed that attitude control failed on reentry and still other rumours suggested that it landed accidentally in China, but the Sevastyanov report has now been confirmed.
The Energiya history states that an orientation system problem led to a ballistic reentry and use of the auto destruct above the Gulf of Guinea. The intent was to make a 46 km pass and skip out to 145 km for final reentry,but the skip did not work and the auto destruct fired at 15 km altitude.
The reentry time implies an apogee of about 294000 km and a TLI velocity of 10.84 km/s.
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| Zond-4 |
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| Date | Time | Event | Orbit |
|---|
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| 1968 Mar 2 | 1829:23 | Launch by Proton | KB |
| | 1838 | Stage 3 sep | -1500 x 200 x 51.5 |
| | 1842? | Blok D burn 1, 150s? |
| | 1844? | Blok D MECO-1 |
| | 1940 | | 88.4 192 x 205 x 51.5 |
| | | SOK cone sep |
| | 1941:19 | Blok-D burn, TLI, 459s |
| | | SOZ units sep |
| | 1948:50 | Blok-D MECO-2, TLI |
| | 1949? | Blok-D sep |
| 1968 Mar 4 | 0435 | TCM cancelled |
| 1968 Mar 6 | | TCM 15s |
| 1968 Mar 9 | 1811 | PAO sep from SA |
| | 1819 | Entry |
| | 1819:58 | Reentry, attitude control failed |
| | 1821 | APO destruct activated |
