The Kosmos-3M used UDMH fuel and AK27I oxidizer (red fuming nitric acid) to lift roughly 1,400 kg (3,100 lb) of payload into orbit.

It differed from the earlier Kosmos-3 in its finer control of the second-stage burn, allowing operators to tune the thrust and even channel it through nozzles that helped orient the rocket for the launching of multiple satellites at one time.

Some of the more noteworthy ones: On 22 December 1970, a launch of a target vehicle for ASAT tests lost thrust at liftoff and fell back onto the pad at Plesetsk, exploding and badly damaging it.

Due to the tense relations between the U.S. and Soviet Union at this time, the U.S. military was widely suspected of having shot down the launch vehicle and General Secretary Yuri Andropov personally informed of this possibility.

[citation needed] More recently, on 21 November 2000, a Kosmos 3M launcher failed to place the QuickBird 1 satellite into orbit due to a failure of its second stage.