Mission Summary
Luna 12 accomplished what Luna 11 could not, returning the first detailed Soviet photographs of the Moon from lunar orbit. Launched October 22, 1966, it carried the same camera package as its predecessor, fitted with a redesigned propulsion system meant to correct the fault that had spoiled the earlier flight.
The probe reached the Moon on October 25 and settled into orbit. About two hours later its imaging system switched on and ran for 64 minutes, capturing dozens of pictures that were developed, fixed, and scanned aboard the spacecraft for transmission to Earth. The Soviet press released the first of them on October 29, showing the Sea of Rains and the Aristarchus crater at a resolution of 15 to 20 meters.
With its imaging task complete, Luna 12 was set spinning to carry out a program of orbital science, which it fulfilled with only the spectrophotometer failing. Controllers maintained contact through 302 communications sessions before the link was finally lost on January 19, 1967.
Sources and notes can be found on the Sources page.
