Luna 8 was an
unmanned space mission of the
Luna program, also called Lunik 8.
Luna 8 was launched with the probable mission of achieving a soft landing on the
Moon. However, the retrofire was late, and the spacecraft impacted the lunar surface in the
Sea of Storms. The mission did complete the experimental development of the star-orientation system and ground control of radio equipment, flight trajectory, and other instrumentation.
- Launch Date/Time: 1965-12-03 at 10:48:00 UTC
- On-orbit dry mass: 1550 kg