Zond 8, a formal member of the Soviet Zond program and unmanned version of Soyuz 7K-L1 manned moon-flyby spacecraft, was launched from an Earth orbiting platform, Tyazheliy Sputnik (70-088B), towards the Moon. The announced objectives were investigations of the moon and circumlunar space and testing of onboard systems and units. The spacecraft obtained photographs of Earth on October 21 from a distance of 64,480 km. The spacecraft transmitted flight images of Earth for three days. Zond 8 flew past the Moon on October 24, 1970, at a distance of 1110.4 km and obtained both black and white and color photographs of the lunar surface. Scientific measurements were also obtained during the flight. Zond 8 reentered Earth's atmosphere and splashed down 730 km SE of the Chagos Archipelago, in the Indian Ocean on October 27, 1970, 24 km from the USSR recovery ship Taman. The Chagos Archipelago is south of the Maldive Islands.
- Launch Date/Time: 1970-10-20 at 19:55:39 UTC
- Launch Site: Tyuratam (Baikonur Cosmodrome), U.S.S.R
- On-orbit dry mass: 5375 kg