Mission Type: Impact
Launch Vehicle: 8K78 (no. T103-13)
Launch Site: NIIP-5 / launch site 1
Spacecraft Mass: c. 1,100 kg
Spacecraft Instruments: Unknown
References:
Deep Space Chronicle: A Chronology of Deep Space and Planetary Probes 1958-2000, Monographs in Aerospace History No. 24, by Asif A. Siddiqi
National Space Science Data Center, http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/

This was the second of three Venus spacecraft launched by the Soviets in 1962.

Like its predecessor launched in August 1962 (also a Venus impact probe), the spacecraft never left parking orbit around Earth because of a malfunction in the Blok L upper stage designed to send the probe out of Earth orbit toward Venus.

Evidently, the valve that controlled the delivery of fuel into the combustion chamber of the Blok L engine (the S1.5400) never opened. As a result, the engine never fired. The payload decayed within five days of launch.