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Mission record

Venera 1

Also known as Venus 1, Gamma (Venera), 1961 Gamma 1, Venera1

U.S.S.R · Launched

Explore trajectory

Lost · Partial success

An Automatic Interplanetary Station launched from an Earth orbiting platform towards Venus, which NSSDCA calls the first spacecraft to fly by Venus. It carried a magnetometer, ion traps, micrometeorite detectors and cosmic radiation counters, and a pressurized sphere carrying a Soviet pennant designed to float on the putative Venus oceans after the intended Venus impact. A session on 17 February from 1.89 million km showed normal operations with a temperature of 29 C and a pressure of 900 mm inside the dome, and the scientific instruments also returned data; a command session on 22 February at 3.2 million km was acknowledged according to the OKB-1 Design Bureau, but has also been reported as a failure. On 4 March, at a distance of 7.5 million km, communications failed and no further contact was made. The silent spacecraft passed within 100,000 km of Venus and entered a heliocentric orbit.

Destinations
Launch vehicle
Modified SS-6 (Sapwood) with 2nd Generation Upper Stage + Escape Stage
Launch site
Tyuratam (Baikonur Cosmodrome), U.S.S.R
Countries
Soviet Union
Mission types
Flyby, Impactor

Chronology

Mission timeline

  1. Launch

    Launched towards Venus from a Tyazheliy Sputnik platform

    NSSDCA's launch/orbital information page gives the launch date and time as 1961-02-12T02:09:00Z, recorded here at minute precision because the page prints a whole minute with zero seconds. The master catalog records that Venera 1 was launched on 12 February 1961 along with an Earth orbiting launch platform with a SL-6/A-2-e launcher, and that from a 229 x 282 km, 65.7 degree inclination orbit the station was launched from the platform towards Venus with the fourth stage Zond rocket.

    Earth

  2. Flyby

    Passed Venus with no contact

    The master catalog records that the mid-course correction motors could not be fired, and on May 19 and 20, 1961, Venera 1 passed within 100,000 km of Venus and entered a heliocentric orbit. The launch/orbital information page gives the same encounter a closest approach time of 1961-05-20 00:00:00 and a periapsis of 16.50 RV against its own definition 1 RV = 6052 km. Recorded at day precision on the later of the two days the master catalog names, because that page publishes a two-day span and the trajectory page's 00:00:00 is a midnight placeholder rather than an observed time.

    Venus

  3. Loss of contact

    Communications failed at 7.5 million km

    The master catalog records that on 4 March, at a distance of 7.5 million km, communications failed, and no further contact was made with Venera 1. Carried without a timestamp because the sentence that prints the day prints no year and this catalog does not read a year out of a neighbouring sentence. The same page records a competing account rather than resolving it: a command session on 22 February at 3.2 million km was acknowledged according to the OKB-1 Design Bureau, but this has also been reported as a failure and the last successful communications may have been on 17 February.

Mission architecture

Vehicles

  • Venera 1 · Spacecraft

    Destinations: Venus

Trajectory record

Trajectory dataset not yet available

No verified trajectory dataset is committed for this mission, so Mission Atlas renders no path.

Provenance

Sources

Each source is listed once and labeled with the mission, event, trajectory, or destination/body context it supports.

Data verified through September 3, 2026