History
In 1956, the Soviet government issued a secret decree that authorised the development of 'Object D' which led to the program to launch Sputnik 3 (Sputnik 1 was a simplified spin-off of the Object D program.) The text of the decree remains secret, but it apparently authorised another satellite program – ‘Object OD-1’ – which was to be used for photo-reconnaissance from space.
By 1958, the OKB-1 design bureau was simultaneously working on Object OD-1 and Object OD-2—an early design for the Vostok manned spacecraft. The development of Object OD-1 was experiencing serious difficulties so the head of OKB-1, Sergei Korolev, initiated work to see if a design based on Object OD-2 could be used for an unmanned photo-reconnaissance satellite. This may have been a political manoeuvre that would enable him to continue the manned space program and avoid diverting more of OKB-1’s resources into Object OD-1.
Despite bitter opposition from the military, the Soviet government endorsed Korolov’s approach and issued decrees on 22 and 25 May 1959 that ordered the development of three different spacecraft, all based on the same basic, Object OD-2, design. Spacecraft 1K would be a simplified prototype, 2K was to be a reconnaissance satellite and 3K was to be for manned flights. The name Vostok was also initially used for all three of these craft. But in 1961 the name became publicly known as the name of Yuri Gagarin's spacecraft so the 'Vostok 2' reconnaissance satellite was renamed 'Zenit 2'.
The first Zenit launch attempt took place on 11 December 1961, but there was a fault in the rocket’s third stage and the spacecraft was destroyed using its destruct charge. The second attempt—publicly referred to as Kosmos 4—was successfully launched on 26 April 1962 and re-entered three days later. However a failure in the orientation system meant few useful pictures were obtained; usable pictures had a resolution of about 5 to 7 meters. The third Zenit (Kosmos 7) was launched on 28 July 1962 and successfully returned with pictures eleven days later. A further ten flights (including two more launch failures) took place before the system was considered operational.
Many versions of the satellite were developed for different reconnaissance missions and flights continued until 1994.
Read more about this topic: Zenit (satellite)
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