Kosmos 50

  1964-070A

---

Zenit-2 No. 25 was launched on 1964 Oct 28, 8 days after the previous flight landed. It was the fourth 51 degree mission. On Nov 5 after completing a standard 8 day flight the deorbit burn was attempted, but the DU did not operate correctly. The APO-2 system was activated and the spacecraft exploded. NORAD cataloged hundreds of debris fragments, all of which reentered rapidly. Pieces of the Kosmos-50 payload were recovered in Malawi.

Kosmos-50
Date	Time	Event	Orbit
1964 Oct 28	1040?	Launch by Vostok 8A92	KB
	1044?	Blok-E burn
	1050?	Blok-E sep
			88.7 196 x 241 x 51.3 (TASS)
	1325		89.03 186 x 265 x 51.4
1964 Oct 28	1920		88.74 190 x 233 x 51.23
	1729		88.71 187 x 233 x 51.2
1964 Nov 5	1030?	Attempted reentry
	1036?	APO-2 destruct