Mission Summary
The final attempt of the initial Soviet E-1 lunar trilogy, this mission closed out a frantic first year of competitive space tracking. Designated internally as Luna E-1 No. 3 (and known globally in intelligence files as Luna 1958C), the spacecraft was rolled out to the Baikonur pad under freezing winter conditions just two days before the American launch of Pioneer 3.
Engineers optimized the 794-pound (360 kg) craft for a high-speed lunar collision. It retained the classic spherical design of the previous variants, packed with basic cosmic ray detectors, fluxgate magnetometers, and a specialized sodium gas canister designed to release a glowing orange cloud in deep space for visible optical tracking from Earth.
This flight made it further than its predecessors but fell victim to a secondary system failure. The rocket climbed cleanly through the lower atmosphere, completely bypassing the destructive Pogo vibrations that had shattered the two previous launches. However, exactly 245 seconds into the mission, a cooling system malfunction caused a core fuel valve on the core stage to freeze shut. The main engines instantly starved, leaving the upper stages unable to break free from orbit. The unpowered assembly coasted blindly along a brief ballistic arc before reentering the atmosphere and burning up over the Pacific Ocean.
Sources and notes can be found on the Sources page.
