| Vostok 8 was a ten day manned flight that was originally planned for the last quarter of 1963 and would be the second high altitude flight into the lower Van Allen radiation belt for radiological-biological studies. Opposition by the Ministry of Defence led to it being cancelled, only to be resurrected and evolving into a ten-day group flight with Vostok 9 set for the late summer of 1964. Finally all further Vostok flights were cancelled in favor of the multi-manned Voskhod in February 1964.
Vostok 9 was originally proposed as a high altitude manned Vostok flight for extended scientific studies to be flown by the end of 1963. The spacecraft would have been allowed to naturally decay to a re-entry after ten days. After the plans for additional Vostok missions were revived later in 1963, purposes of these flights were to be: geophysical and astronomical research; photography of the solar corona; solar x-ray imagery; medical-biological research; detailed study of the effects of weightlessness on the human organism; dosimetry; and engineering tests of ion flow sensors to be used for orientation of later Soyuz spacecraft. By the end of 1963 Vostok 9 was set to make a ten-day group flight with Vostok 8 in the late summer of 1964. All remaining Vostok 3KA 3 missions were canceled in the spring of 1964 in favor of Vostok 3KV 4 and 3KD missions.
References:
Encyclopedia Astronautica: Vostok 8.
Encyclopedia Astronautica: Vostok 9.
Russian Space Web
Wikipedia.
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