Luna E-6 No.3, also identified as No.2 and sometimes by NASA as Luna 1963B,
was a
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
spacecraft which was lost in a launch failure in 1963. It was a
Luna E-6 spacecraft,
the second of twelve to be launched,
and the second consecutive launch failure.
It was intended to be the first spacecraft to perform a
soft landing Soft landing may refer to:
*Soft landing (aeronautics)
A soft landing is any type of aircraft, rocket or spacecraft landing that does not result in significant damage to or destruction of the vehicle or its payload, as opposed to a hard la ...
on the
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...
, a goal which would eventually be accomplished by the final E-6 spacecraft,
Luna 9
Luna 9 (Луна-9), internal designation Ye-6 No.13, was an uncrewed space mission of the Soviet Union's Luna programme. On 3 February 1966, the Luna 9 spacecraft became the first spacecraft to achieve a survivable landing on a celestial bod ...
.
Luna E-6 No.3 was launched at 09:26:14 UTC on 3 February 1963, atop a
Molniya-L
The Molniya (russian: Молния, meaning "lightning"), GRAU Index 8K78, was a modification of the well-known R-7 Semyorka rocket and had four stages.
The 8K78 resulted from a crash program by the Korolev Bureau to develop a booster for laun ...
8K78L
carrier rocket
A launch vehicle or carrier rocket is a rocket designed to carry a payload (spacecraft or satellites) from the Earth's surface to outer space. Most launch vehicles operate from a launch pad, launch pads, supported by a missile launch contro ...
,
flying from
Site 1/5 at the
Baikonur Cosmodrome
The Baikonur Cosmodrome ( kk, Байқоңыр ғарыш айлағы, translit=Baiqoñyr ğaryş ailağy, ; russian: Космодром Байконур, translit=Kosmodrom Baykonur, ) is a spaceport in an area of southern Kazakhstan leased to R ...
.
A torque sensor in the
gyroscope
A gyroscope (from Ancient Greek γῦρος ''gŷros'', "round" and σκοπέω ''skopéō'', "to look") is a device used for measuring or maintaining orientation and angular velocity. It is a spinning wheel or disc in which the axis of rota ...
used to control the pitch of the upper stage malfunctioned, resulting in control of the rocket being lost.
The spacecraft failed to achieve orbit, and reentered the atmosphere over the
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...
.
Prior to the release of information about its mission, NASA correctly identified that it had been an attempt to land a spacecraft on the Moon. However, they believed the launch had occurred on 2 February.
References
External links
Zarya - Luna programme chronology
Luna programme
Spacecraft launched in 1963
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