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Venera 2MV-1 No.1,^[2][1] also known as Sputnik 19 in the West, was a Soviet spacecraft, which was launched in 1962 as part of the Venera programme.

Due to a problem with its upper stage it failed to leave low Earth orbit, and reentered the atmosphere a few days later.^[3] It was the first of two Venera 2MV-1 spacecraft, both of which failed to leave Earth orbit.^[1]

With the failure of the pair of 1VA missions to Venus and pair of 1M missions to Mars, otherwise known as 1MV, OKB-1 set out to create a better design that would survive the harsh conditions of space. However, with other projects like Vostok and Luna 6, and with the Mars launch window being in October/November 1962 and the launch windows for Venus being just a month earlier in August/September 1962, there was not enough time to design a separate spacecraft. To finish the spacecraft in time, Sergei Korolev, head of OKB-1, commissioned the 2MV spacecraft, a multipurpose interplanetary spacecraft to be used by both the upcoming Venus and Mars missions, with only slight variations depending on the spacecraft’s destination. The 2MV spacecraft were further split into:^[4]

• 2MV-1 No.1, this spacecraft
• 2MV-1 No.2, a Venus lander identical to this one
• 2MV-2, a Venus orbiter

• 2MV-3, a Mars lander
• 2MV-4 No.1 a Mars orbiter
• 2MV-4 No.2, also known as Mars 1, a Mars orbiter

Even though all three 2MV-1 landers originated from the same design, the Venus and Mars versions had to be significantly different as the conditions on Venus were much different than the conditions on Mars. OKB-1 estimated that the atmosphere of Venus would be around 1.5 to 5 bars and 77°C while some others in the world astronomical community who expected much higher pressures and temperatures as high as 324°C, much closer to actual conditions. As a result of the difference in atmospheric conditions, the probe was more heavily built with a robust heat shield but a smaller and lighter parachute compared to its Martian counterpart. The last difference between the Venus and Mars probes was that the Venus versions were designed to float with a motion detector to detect wave action. This was because the conditions below the cloud layer of Venus were not known at the time and many believed that Venus could contain liquid oceans. ^[4]The spacecraft was powered by 2.6m² of solar cells that charged a 46amp/hr nickel-cadmium battery at 1.3-2.6Amps.^[5][6]

The landing compartment was intended to detach shortly before its planetary encounter with the orbital compartments which carried the landers expected to burn up during atmospheric entry. The 90cm spherical descent capsule weighed 350kg and was sterilized before launch to prevent contaminating Venus as the possibility of life wasn’t ruled out.^[6] During its descent, the spacecraft would naturally orient itself retrograde so it could be protected by the heat shield, as the centre of mass was offset from their centre of figure. Starting in the Summer of 1960, models of the lander was launched up to 50km in altitude with R-11A sounding rockets to test the design at high altitudes.^[4]

The rocket used would be the 8K78 “Molniya” which had 1 successful launch out of 4 at that time. It had previously launched the probe pair Mars 1M in October 1960 and the Venus 1VA N.1 unsuccessfully with its only successful launch being the Venera 1 in February 1961. For the 2MV spacecraft, the 8K78 would get a number of improvements to increase its reliability as even though it was almost a 2 year old design, it was still the most powerful rocket in the world with 4 time the lifting capability of its American counterpart, the Atlas-Agena.^[4]

• Ultraviolet detectors
• Chemical gas analyzer
• Temperature sensors
• Density sensors
• Pressure sensors
• Gamma-ray counter
• Movement detector
• Surface gamma-ray detector
• Meteorite detector^[5]

Venera 2MV-1 No.1 was launched at 02:18:45 UTC on 25 August 1962, atop a Molniya 8K78 carrier rocket flying from Site 1/5 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome.^[2] The first three stages of the rocket operated nominally, injecting the fourth stage and payload into a low Earth orbit. The fourth stage then coasted until one hour and fifty seconds after launch, when it fired its ullage motors in preparation for ignition. One of the four ullage motors failed to fire and, because of the asymmetric torque, the stage began to tumble out of control. Then, the main engine ignited for a four-minute burn to place the spacecraft into heliocentric orbit. Forty-five seconds later, its engine cut off from lack of fuel as it was sloshing around in the tank. This left the spacecraft stranded in Earth orbit for 3 days, until it reentered the atmosphere 3 days later.^[5][7] It reentered the atmosphere on 28 August 1962, three days after it had been launched.^[8][1]

The designations Sputnik 23,^[5] and later Sputnik 19 was used by the United States Naval Space Command to identify the spacecraft in its Satellite Situation Summary documents, since the Soviet Union did not release the internal designations of its spacecraft at that time, and had not assigned it an official name due to its failure to depart geocentric orbit.^[9]

• List of missions to Venus