[2] With the Cuban Missile Crisis unfolding, the USSR spacecraft Mars 2MV-4 No.1 was launched at 17:55:04 UTC on 24 October 1962, atop a Molniya 8K78 carrier rocket flying from Site 1/5 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

When the Blok L ignited following a coast phase, lubricant leaked out of the turbopump, which consequently seized up and disintegrated.

[2] Twenty two pieces of debris from the spacecraft and upper stage were catalogued, which decayed between 29 October 1962 and 26 February 1963.

[7] The designations Sputnik 29, and later Sputnik 22, were used by the United States Naval Space Command to identify the spacecraft in its Satellite Situation Summary documents, since the Soviet Union did not release the internal designations of its spacecraft at that time, and had not assigned it an official name due to its failure to depart geocentric orbit.

[3][8] A United States Ballistic Missile Early Warning System station in Alaska detected the debris from the launch, and initially identified it as incoming nuclear warheads, since the launch had occurred during the Cuban Missile Crisis.