zond8

Zond = probe
http://mentallandscape.com/C_Zond08_64.jpg
http://mentallandscape.com/C_Zond08_60.jpg
http://mentallandscape.com/C_Zond08_67.jpg
http://mentallandscape.com/C_Zond08_59detail.jpg

Soviet engineers pioneered the use of cameras on spacecraft, obtaining the first images of the far side of the Moon and the first images from the surface of the Moon and Venus. Soviet planetary spacecraft used cycloramic and swept linear photometers rather than vidicon television cameras. On later American missions, the Viking lander's panoramic camera and the Mars Odyssey linear pushbroom camera hark back to Soviet camera designs.

Zond-5 through Zond-8 returned film images of the Moon and Earth from 1968 to 1970. The camera system was developed at the Moscow State University of Geodesy and Cartography (MIIGAiK) under Boris N. Rodionov. Zond-6 and 8 carried a 400 mm camera using 13 × 18 cm frames of panchromatic film. Zond-7 carried a 300 mm camera shooting on 5.6 × 5.6 cm film (both color and panchromatic). The original Zond-8 negatives have been digitized in Moscow to about 8000 × 6000 pixels, and are still among the best close images of that planet.

The second series of test spacecraft being a precursor to manned circumlunar loop flights used a stripped-down variant of Soyuz spacecraft, consisting of the service and descent modules, but lacking the orbital module.

They were launched on the Proton rocket which was just powerful enough to send the Zond on a free return trajectory around the Moon without going into lunar orbit (the type path that Apollo 13 flew in its emergency abort). With minor modification, Zond was capable of carrying two cosmonauts.
http://mentallandscape.com/V_Cameras.htm

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http://mentallandscape.com/C_CatalogMoon.htm

Zond-8

Zond-8 flew by the Moon on October 24, 1970 and returned to Earth with high quality photographs, some from as close as 1350 km. Images were shot with the 400 mm AFA-BAM camera, on 13 × 18 cm frames of isopanchromatic film. A session of 20 full-Moon pictures was followed by a session of 78 Lunar-surface pictures (including 17 shots of the Earth over the Lunar horizon).

The images below are 20 percent of full size. Frames flagged with a star are from 6000 × 8000 pixel images digitized in Moscow from the original negatives. The remainder are from lower resolution scans of film copies in the archives of the US Geological Survey.

The announced objectives of Zond 8 were investigations of the Moon and circumlunar space and testing of onboard systems and units. The spacecraft obtained photographs of Earth on 21 October 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 the Earth's atmosphere and splashed down 730 km SE of the Chagos Archipelago, in the Indian Ocean on 27 October 1970, 24 km from the USSR recovery ship Taman.^[1]^[2]