1966-08-24 · 60 years ago

Luna-11 — launch

Date in UTC

Luna 11 (E-6LF series) was an uncrewed space mission of the Soviet Union's Luna program. It was also called Lunik 11. Luna 11 was launched towards the Moon on board a Molniya-M and entered lunar orbit on 27 August 1966. 137 radio transmissions and 277 orbits of the Moon were completed before the batteries failed on 1 October 1966. This subset of the "second-generation" Luna spacecraft, the E-6LF, was designed to take the first photographs of the surface of the Moon from lunar orbit. A secondary objective was to obtain data on mass concentrations ("mascons") on the Moon first detected by Luna 10. Using the Ye-6 bus, a suite of scientific instruments (plus an imaging system similar to the one used on Zond 3) replaced the small lander capsule used on the soft-landing flights.

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_11. Related NASA reference: https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/chronology.html#1966. Description adapted from Wikipedia contributors (CC BY-SA 4.0; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).

Category
Launches and Flight Tests
Type
Orbital launch
Subjects
Space transportation
Mission
Luna 11
Organization
Strategic Rocket Forces
Vehicle
Molniya 8K78M
Location
NIIP-5, Baykonur, Kazakstan
Country
SU
Human involvement
Uncrewed
Outcome
Successful

Sources and attribution

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