Soviet and Russian Lunar Exploration

Abstract

When Luna 15 was smashed to pieces in the Sea of Crises in July 1969, Russia’s plan to upstage Apollo by the first automatic recovery of lunar soil came unstuck. But the Soviet Union permitted the programme to continue, for two reasons: first, because the series could produce a credible automatic programme for the exploration of the moon; and, second, because the series was important if the Soviet man-on-the-moon programme were to be completed after all. Such hopes still existed in reality up to the summer of 1974 and on paper for another two years.