Description : Two communications sessions were achieved in the days right after launch, one on 12 February at a distance of 126,300 km, and one on 13 February at 488,900 km. The station was scheduled to transmit nominally every 5 days. On 17 February, a communication session took place from 1.89 million km, showing normal operations with temperature of 29 C and pressure of 900 mm inside the dome. The scientific instruments also returned data. On 22 February a command session was held at 3.2 million km, according to the OKB-1 Design Bureau the commands were acknowledged, but this has also been reported as a failure and the last successful communications may have been on 17 February. On 27 February "fadeouts" were reported, there is no record of successful communication. On 4 March, at a distance of 7.5 million km, communications failed, and no further contact was made with Venera 1. 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.

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Space Event :

VENERA 1 (PROBE) · VENUS FLYBY MISSION · MOLNIYA