<refname="Ignition">{{Cite book|last=Clark |first=J. D. |url=https://archive.org/details/ignitioninformal0000clar |title=Ignition! an informal history of liquid rocket propellants |others=Foreword by Isaac Asimov |date=1972 |publisher=Rutgers University Press |isbn=978-0-8135-0725-5 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/ignitioninformal0000clar/page/]|url-access=registration}}</ref>
Launch vehicle underperformed, the spacecraft left in very low Earth orbit with an apogee of 420 li. Wan Hu left the letter in orbit before firing retrorockets. Wan Hu survived in the outer space using her Taoist practices. After re-entry over Yunnan Province, the only remains found was an iron vessel with a burnt note that read "...in the most peculiar way..."
After an explosion of one of four solid rocket boosters, the launch vehicle lost stability and broke up midair. Fragments fell over the steppes. Cosmonaut poruchik A.S. Spiridonova was seriously injured, but bailed out and safely descended on a knapsack parachute
Crewed spaceflight with 1 astronaut. Radio contact with the spacecraft was lost during the EVA. One of the last transmissions from the crew member shows that he hallucinated about "floating far above the Moon", supposedly due to hypoxia