Luna Programme
루나 계획
The Luna Programme was the Soviet Union's series of robotic lunar missions flown between 1959 and 1976, which racked up monumental firsts in space exploration: first lunar impact (Luna 2), first photographs of the Moon's far side (Luna 3), first soft landing (Luna 9), first robotic sample return (Luna 16), and the first wheeled rovers on another world (Lunokhod). Begun at Korolev's OKB-1 and later transferred to the Lavochkin design bureau, the programme achieved its breakthroughs despite nearly half of its 24 official launches ending in failure: failures that were concealed from the public at the time. The soil samples and imagery it returned laid the foundations of planetary science alongside the American Apollo programme. It was discontinued after Luna 24 in 1976; Russia revived the Luna name with Luna 25 in 2023.
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Sources
- Wikipedia (EN) overview of the Luna programme, its mission types (impactors, flybys, soft landers, orbiters, rovers, sample return), spacecraft designations (E-1 through E-8-5M), and the full list of 24+ missions
- Wikipedia (RU) Russian article confirming the programme ran 1958–1976 (16 successful, 17 failed launches) from Baikonur, was transferred from OKB-1 to Lavochkin in 1965, and was formally discontinued in 1977
- russianspaceweb.com Anatoly Zak's independent reference (RussianSpaceWeb.com) with the complete launch table of all 47 Soviet/Russian lunar attempts, E-series development history, and mission-by-mission details