Key facts
- Mission type
- Lunar lander
- Operator
- Soviet space program
- Cospar id
- 1963-008B
- Mission duration
- 13 days (launch to last contact)
- Spacecraft
- Ye-6 No.4
- Manufacturer
- OKB-1
- Launch mass
- 1,422 kilograms (3,135 lb)
- Launch date
- April 2, 1963, 08:04:00 ( 1963-04-02UTC08:04Z ) UTC
- Rocket
- Molniya-L 8K78/E6
- Launch site
- Baikonur 1/5
- Last contact
- April 15, 1963
- Periapsis altitude
- 690,000 km (430,000 mi)
- Apoapsis altitude
- 89,250 km (55,460 mi)
- Epoch
- April 2, 1963
- Closest approach
- April 5, 1963, 13:25 UT
- Distance
- 8,400 kilometres (5,200 mi)
via Wikipedia infobox
~10 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Luna 4, or E-6 No.4 (Ye-6 series), sometimes known in the West as Lunik 4, was a Soviet spacecraft launched in 1963 as part of the Luna program to attempt the first soft landing on the Moon. Following a successful launch, the spacecraft failed to perform a course correction and as a result it missed the Moon, remaining instead in Earth orbit before possibly transitioning into a solar orbit. Though the mission was unsuccessful, it nevertheless marked a new epoch in the Space Race, which culminated in the successful landing of Luna 9 in 1966.
Background
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Luna 4” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.