Luna 15

Luna 15 (Ye-8-5 series) was an unmanned space mission of the Luna program, also called Lunik 15.

Luna 15 was a last minute Soviet attempt to steal some of Apollo 11's publicity by being the first mission to return lunar soil to Earth. Luna 15 was placed in an intermediate Earth orbit after launch and was then sent toward the Moon. The spacecraft was capable of studying circumlunar space, the lunar gravitational field, and the chemical composition of lunar rocks. It was also capable of providing lunar surface photography. The mission was a failure, however, after completing 86 communications sessions and 52 orbits of the Moon at various inclinations and altitudes, the spacecraft impacted the lunar surface on July 21, 1969. The mission was important in that it saw one of the first instances of Soviet/American cooperation when the USSR released Luna 15's flight plan to ensure it would not collide with Apollo 11.

Luna 15, launched only three days before the historic Apollo 11 mission to theMoon, was the third Soviet attempt to recover and bring lunar soil back to Earth. In a race to reach the Moon and return to Earth, the parallel missions of Luna 15 and Apollo 11 were, in some ways, the culmination of the Moon race that defined the space programs of both the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1960s. After a midcourse correction the day after launch, Luna 15 entered lunar orbit at 10:00 UT on 17 July 1969. The spacecraft remained in lunar orbit for two days while controllers checked all onboard systems and performed two orbital maneuvers. Astronauts Armstrong and Aldrin had already set foot on the Moon when Luna 15 fired its main retrorocket engine to initiate descent to the surface at 15:47 UT on 21 July 1969. Unfortunately,transmissions ceased only 4 minutes after deorbit at a calculated altitude of 3 kilometers. The spacecraft had probably crashed onto the side of a mountain. Impact coordinates were 17° north latitude and 60° east longitude in Mare Crisium.

sequence
prev=Luna 1969C
list=Luna programme
next=Cosmos 300

External links

* [http://www.zarya.info/Diaries/Luna/Luna.php Zarya - Luna programme chronology]