Mission Summary
This unnamed Soviet probe was lost at launch on February 7, 1968, before it could reach orbit. Unlike the soft-landing attempts that came before it, this was a Ye-6LS spacecraft built to circle the Moon and test communications equipment for the Soviet Union’s N1-L3 crewed lunar landing program.
The flight failed during the climb to Earth orbit. The third-stage engine shut down early, after burning through its propellant too quickly because of a fault in its gas generator, and the spacecraft never reached orbit.
The loss was one of several setbacks in the effort to prove out the communications and tracking systems that a Soviet crewed landing would need. Its near-identical successor, Luna 14, carried out the same mission successfully two months later.
Sources and notes can be found on the Sources page.
