Due to a problem with its upper stage it failed to leave low Earth orbit, and reentered the atmosphere a few days later.

[3] It was the second of two Venera 2MV-1 spacecraft, both of which failed to leave Earth orbit.

[1] Venera 2MV-1 No.2 was launched at 02:12:30 UTC on 1 September 1962, atop a Molniya 8K78 carrier rocket flying from Site 1/5 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

Following a coast phase, the upper stage was to have ignited around sixty-one minutes and thirty seconds after launch, in order to place the spacecraft into heliocentric orbit.

[5] The designations Sputnik 24,[6] and later Sputnik 20, 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 Earth orbit.