The name
Luna was used to designate a variety of spacecraft designs, to achieve several types of missions: flyby, lunar orbiter, soft lander, and sample return spacecraft. Notable achievements include the first Moon flyby (Luna 1), the first impact (Luna 2), the first photos of the far side (Luna 3), the first soft landing (Luna 9), and the first robotic sample return (Luna 16).
Impactors Impactor spacecraft had the generic designation of
Ye-1 (or
E-1 depending on transliteration from Russian) and were designed to hit the near side of the Moon.
Luna 1 (January 1959) missed its intended impact with the Moon and became the first spacecraft to escape the Earth-Moon system. This was Luna's only impact success out of six tries from September 1958 to September 1959.
Flybys A flyby is the simplest lunar spacecraft, requiring neither a propulsion device for slowing, nor a guidance system sensitive enough to hit the Moon. Flyby spacecraft had the generic designations of
Ye-2 and
Ye-3 (
E-2 and
E-3 depending on transliteration from Russian). Their function was to transmit photographs back to Earth.
Luna 3 (October 1959) rounded the Moon later that year, and returned the first photographs of its
far side, which can never be seen from
Earth. Two successful soft landings were achieved out of thirteen attempts from January 1963 to December 1966.
Orbiters Orbiter spacecraft require less thrust and propellant than landers, but still require enough to achieve
lunar orbit insertion.
Luna 10 (March 1966) became the first artificial satellite of the Moon. Luna flew six successful orbiters out of eight attempts from March 1966 to May 1974. The first attempted Lunokhod failed in February 1969.
Luna 17 (November 1970) and
Luna 21 (January 1973) carried
Lunokhod vehicles, which were the first robotic wheeled vehicles to explore the Moon's terrain.
Lunokhod 2 operated for about four months, and covered of terrain, A third Lunokhod was built and intended for launch in 1977, but never flew due to lack of launchers and funding.
Sample return More complex soft lander craft can robotically scoop up a small amount of
lunar material, lift off from the surface, and return the material to Earth. Luna program sample return landers had the generic designations of
Ye-8-5 or
Ye-8-5M (
E-8-5 or
E-8-5M depending on transliteration from Russian).
Luna 16 (September 1970),
Luna 20 (February 1972) and
Luna 24 (August 1976), returned samples of
lunar soil to Earth. A total of of soil sample was returned from the three missions.
Luna 15 (July 1969) flew at the same time as the
Apollo 11 mission.
Neil Armstrong and
Buzz Aldrin had already performed the first crewed lunar landing when Luna 15 began its descent, and the spacecraft crashed into a mountain minutes later. == Mission success rates ==