Zond 1, launched April 2, 1964, was the second Soviet spacecraft to reach Venus. On its journey, a slow leak formed in a crack in a sensor window, which caused the compartment to lose air pressure. The vacuum tubes, used in Soviet electronics, overheat without air to cool them. Ground control turned on Zond 1's radio system when there was little atmosphere inside. The electronics shorted out.
By the middle of April 1964, all transmissions from the main spacecraft had ceased, but ground control could still communicate with the lander, and they received space radiation and spectrometer measurements.
Two course corrections were performed during the flight but the second one was off by 65 ft/sec, and ground controllers placed it into a spin-stabilization mode. By May 14, all communications failed, and on July 14 it passed within 100,000 km of Venus.
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