Luna 1975A

Luna 1975A (Ye-8-5M series) was a Soviet unmanned space mission, part of the Luna program, and similar to the later Luna 24 mission which successfully collected and returned to Earth a sample of lunar material.

An attempt had been made a year before its launch with Luna 23 but the sample collecting apparatus was damaged during landing. It is thought that Luna 1975A was targeted for the same area as the previous probe, Mare Crisium (Sea of Crises). Launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome it failed to enter Earth orbit because of a problem with a booster on the Proton launcher. It was not acknowledged in the Soviet press at the time since it failed to reach orbit, and Luna 1975A was the name given to it by observers in the West. It was known internally within the Soviet space programme as E-8-5M No. 412. In 1976, Luna 24, the last Luna mission, landed several hundred meters from Luna 23 and successfully returned samples.

*Launch Date/Time: 1975-10-16 at 4:04 UTC
*On-orbit dry mass:

Sequence
prev=Luna 23
list=Luna programme
next=Luna 24

References

* [http://www.russianspaceweb.com/spacecraft_planetary_lunar.html Russian Space Web]
* [http://www.astronautix.com/craft/lunye85m.htm Encyclopedia Astronautica]
* [http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/tent_launch.html NASA Tentatively Identified Missions and Launch Failures]