Zenit-2

The Zenit-2 is a Ukrainian, previously Soviet, expendable carrier rocket. First flown in 1985, it has been launched 37 times, with six failures. It is a member of the Zenit family of rockets, and was designed by the Yuzhnoye Design Bureau.

With 13-15 ton payload in LEO it was intended as up-middle class launcher greater than 7-ton payload middle Soyuz and smaller than 20-ton payload heavy Proton. Zenit-2 would be certified for manned launches and placed in specially built launch pad at Baykonur spaceport, carrying the new manned partially reusable Zarya spacecraft that developed in end of the 1980s but was canceled. Also in the 1980s Vladimir Chelomey's firm proposed never realised 15-ton Uragan spaceplane launched by Zenit-2.

A modified version, the Zenit-2S, is used as the first two stages of the Sea Launch Zenit-3SL rocket. Launches of Zenit-2 rockets are conducted from Baikonur Cosmodrome Site 45/1. A second pad, 45/2, was also constructed, but was only used for two launches before being destroyed in an explosion. A third pad, Site 35 at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome was never completed, and work was abandoned after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Zenit (satellite)

Zenit (Russian: Зени́т, IPA: [zʲɪˈnʲit], Zenith) was a series of military photoreconnaissance satellites launched by the Soviet Union between 1961 and 1994. To conceal their nature, all flights were given the public Kosmos designation. Over a 33 year period, over five hundred Zenits were flown making it the most numerous type of satellite in the history of spaceflight.

Description

The basic design of the Zenit satellites was similar to the Vostok manned spacecraft, sharing the return and service modules. It consisted of a spherical re-entry capsule 2.3 m in diameter with a mass of around 2400 kg. This capsule contained the camera system, its film, recovery beacons, parachutes and a destruct charge. In orbit, this was attached to a service module that contained batteries, electronic equipment, an orientation system and a liquid fuelled rocket engine that would slow the Zenit for re-entry, before the service module detached. The total length in orbit was around 5 m and the total mass was between 4600 kg and 4740  kg.