Zond 8

Zond 8, a member of the Soviet Union's Zond program, 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 in the Indian Ocean on October 27, 1970.

• Launch Date/Time: 1970-10-20 at 19:55:39 UTC
• On-orbit dry mass: 5375 kg