Luna E-8-5 No.402, also known as Luna Ye-8-5 No.402, and sometimes identified by
NASA as Luna 1969C,
was a
Soviet spacecraft under
Luna programme which was lost in a launch failure in 1969. It was a
Luna E-8-5
Luna commonly refers to:
* Earth's Moon, named "Luna" in Latin
* Luna (goddess), the ancient Roman personification of the Moon
Luna may also refer to:
Places Philippines
* Luna, Apayao
* Luna, Isabela
* Luna, La Union
* Luna, San Jose
Romania
* ...
spacecraft, the first of at least eleven to be launched.
It was intended to perform a
soft landing Soft landing may refer to:
* Soft landing (aeronautics), any landing which does not result in the destruction of the payload and/or the vehicle
* Soft landing (economics), a business cycle downturn which avoids recession
{{disambiguation ...
on the
Moon, collect a sample of
lunar soil, and
return it to the Earth. It was, along with
Luna 15, one of two unsuccessful missions which had been launched by the Soviet Union in a last-ditch attempt to upstage the
Apollo 11 landing under
Moon race.
Luna E-8-5 No.402 was launched at 04:00:07 UTC on 14 June 1969 atop a
Proton-K 8K78K
carrier rocket with a
Blok D upper stage, flying from
Site 81/24 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 ...
.
The upper stage failed to ignite, and consequently the spacecraft failed to achieve orbit.
Prior to the release of information about its mission, NASA correctly identified that it had been an attempted sample return mission. However, they believed that a previous attempt had been made, using a spacecraft launched on 30 April, which had also been lost in a launch failure. They designated that attempt was ''Luna 1969B''.
No Luna spacecraft or Proton rocket was launched on that date.
References
Luna programme
Sample return missions
Missions to the Moon
Spacecraft launched in 1969
1969 in the Soviet Union
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