Zond program
The
Zond program was a series of
Soviet unmanned space missions sent to the
Moon from
1964 to
1979. While the Zond program is considered here as a lunar program, it should be noted that Zond 1 was sent in the direction of
Venus and Zond 2 in the direction of
Mars. The later Zond missions (4-8) were tests for manned lunar missions in addition to their usual missions of collecting information about the Moon. Instrumentation flown on these missions gathered data on
micrometeor flux, solar and
cosmic rays, magnetic fields, radio emissions, and
solar wind. Biological payloads were also flown and many photographs were taken.