Luna 5 crashes into the Moon
MAY 12, 2015
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.030963
On this day in 1965 the Soviet Union’s Luna 5 spacecraft crashed into the Moon after its retro rockets failed to fire. If the mission had succeeded, Luna 5 would have been the first spacecraft to achieve a soft landing on the Moon or any other extraterrestrial body. That milestone was achieved in February 1966 by Luna 9, which was also the first spacecraft to transmit photographic data from a planetary surface.
Date in History: 12 May 1965
© 2015 American Institute of Physics
