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| A Zond 3 launch cover postmarked in Tartu with a hand cancel on July 19, 1965, one day after the spacecraft’s launch. |
Zond 3 was a Soviet unmanned lunar flyby spacecraft launched from Baikonur on July 18, 1965. It flew past the Moon on July 20, passing about 9,200 km from the lunar surface, before continuing into a heliocentric orbit. Its principal objective was to photograph the far side of the Moon, completing photographic coverage begun by Luna 3 in 1959. Zond 3 obtained 25 high-quality photographs of the lunar far side, revealing previously unseen craters, highlands, and large surface formations. The images were recorded on film and automatically processed and transmitted back to Earth.
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| Photo: The dark side of the Moon photographed by Zond 3. |
The spacecraft also carried instruments to study energetic particles, solar and cosmic radiation, magnetic fields, micrometeoroids, and ultraviolet and infrared radiation. After the lunar encounter, Zond 3 continued transmitting data from deep space, demonstrating communications and spacecraft-operation techniques at great distances.
