Kosmos 96 3MV-4 Venus Flyby Spacecraft

Kosmos 96 was the Soviet 3MV-4 No. 6 Venus flyby spacecraft launched on 23 November 1965. The payload reached Earth orbit, but its tumbling Blok L upper stage could not fire for trans-Venus injection; the probe remained in Earth orbit under the Kosmos designation and decayed on 9 December 1965. Its instrument suite included a three-component magnetometer, imaging system, solar X-ray detector, cosmic-ray gas-discharge counters, piezoelectric detectors, ion traps, photon Geiger counter, and cosmic-radio receivers.