It was launched by the Soviet Union in 1971 as part of the Dnepropetrovsk Sputnik programme.

[2] It was launched aboard a Kosmos-3M carrier rocket,[3] from Site 132/1 at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome.

[4] Kosmos 394 was placed into a low Earth orbit with a perigee of 522 kilometres (324 mi), an apogee of 552 kilometres (343 mi), 65.8 degrees of inclination, and an orbital period of 95.4 minutes.

[5] Kosmos 394 was the second of the five original DS-P1-M satellites to be launched, and the first to successfully reach orbit.

[1] The three subsequent launches were all successful, before the satellite was replaced with a derivative, Lira.