56 years ago, November 16, 1965, from the Baikonur cosmodrome launched the Lightning-M carrier with an automatic interplanetary station “Venus-3” towards Venus. She became the first in history with an artificial object that reached the surface of another planet.
Vena-2 and Venera-3 stations were the last flight machines from a series of unified spacecraft 3MV, developed in 1962-1964 in OKB-1 (today – Rocket and Space Corporation “Energy”. with .P. Korolev, is part of the state corporation “Roskosmos”) for the study of long-range space. The first 3WMV stations were used for the technological development of Martian expeditions.
In early 1965, the President of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR Mstislav Keldysh proposed to take advantage of the next “astronomical window” to send to the “morning star” at once a group of 3MV devices. “Venus-2”, launched on November 12, 1965, was intended to study and photographing the planet with a span trajectory, and Vena-3 had to make a soft landing on its surface to directly measure pressure, temperature and other physical parameters with passing search for presumble Signs of life.
Both “Venus” after the launch successfully switched to the Venusian Trail and began to perform the flight program due to the high-precision removal using an accelerated block L, also created by the designers of the OKB-1. However, with an approach to the Sun, an increasing overheating of the arms of aircraft equipment AMS as a result of the abnormal functioning of the thermoregulation system was revealed. The violation of the thermal balance was critical, and on the register to Venus in February 1966 the connection with the stations ceased. According to ballistic calculations, on March 1, 1966, Venen-3 in automatic mode entered the Venusian atmosphere, and her descent apparatus delivered to the surface of the planet Pennant with the image of the coat of arms of the Soviet Union inside the Metal Globe of the Earth.
The history of distant interplanetary projects of OKB-1 ended with the Mission “Venus-3”. Korolev Stations “Luna”, “Mars” and “Venus” paved the road to the apparatuses of the following generations, remaining a symbol of outstanding achievements of domestic science and technology at the initial stage of the study of outer space.