Soviet and Russian Lunar Exploration

Lunar map after Zond 3
features of the western side of the moon were used to calibrate the subsequent features
and the idea was to cover those parts of the moon not seen by the Automatic
Interplanetary Station, which had swung round over the eastern limb of the moon.
As Zond 3 soared over the far northwestern hemisphere of the moon, its f106-mm
camera blinked away for 68min at 1/100th and 1/300th of a second. By 05: 32, when
imaging was concluded, 25 wide-view pictures were taken, some covering territory as
large as 5 million km 2 and, in addition, three ultraviolet scans were made. The details
shown were excellent and were on 1,100 lines (the American Ranger cameras of the
same time were half that).
Soviet scientists waited till Zond 3 was 1.25 million km away before commanding
the signals to be transmitted by remote control. They were rebroadcast several times,
the last photo-relay being on 23rd October at a distance of 30 million km. There was
grandeur in the photographs as Zond swung around the moon's leading edge - whole
new mountain ranges, continents and hundreds of craters swept into view. Transmissions
were received from a distance of 153.4 million km, the last being on 3rd March
1966. Course corrections were made using a new system of combined solar and stellar
orientation.
Zond 3 had been built by OKB-1 entirely in-house, not using the I-100 control
system. It was the last deep space probe designed within OKB-1, before the moon
programme was handed over to Lavochkin.
With Zond 3, the primitive moon maps of the lunar farside issued after the
journey of the Automatic Interplanetary Station could now be updated. Whereas
the nearside was dominated by seas (maria), mountain ranges and large craters, the
farside was a vast continent with hardly any maria, but pockmarked with small
craters. The Russians again exercised discoverers' prerogative to name the new features
in their own language. Thus, there were new gulfs, the Bolshoi Romb and the Maly
Romb (big and small) and new ribbon maria Peny, Voln and Zmei [7].