Mission Summary
This spacecraft was the fourth Soviet attempt to soft-land on the Moon, another setback in the persistent Ye-6 campaign that would not pay off until Luna 9. Launched March 21, 1964, it carried the same small egg-shaped capsule its predecessors had, designed to settle onto the surface and return the first photographs from the Moon.
The mission ended during the boost phase, before the spacecraft reached even a parking orbit around Earth. The third stage’s main liquid oxygen valve failed to open when its valve rod broke, so the engine never built full thrust and shut down early, roughly eight minutes after liftoff.
The spacecraft never reached orbit and was lost, going unacknowledged by Soviet authorities like the failures before it. It was the fourth Ye-6 attempt to fall short, one more entry in a frustrating run of launch-vehicle and control failures that would delay the Soviet soft-landing goal for nearly three more years.
Sources and notes can be found on the Sources page.
