Goals: Like Venera 8, which embarked on a successful mission four days earlier, this spacecraft was to land on Venus with a design that devoted less of its mass to resisting pressure and more to thermal protection, instruments and a stronger parachute.

Accomplishments: None. Failure of the engine that was to propel it from Earth orbit to Venus marooned the spacecraft in an elliptical orbit around Earth for more than a month until it finally reentered Earth's atmosphere.