Soviet and Russian Lunar Exploration

# 5993 was named after him, and the International Biographic Centre named him one
of the outstanding people of the 20th century.
Final round of moon missions
Sample return Ye-8-5 missions
14 Jun 1969 Failure
13 Jul 1969 Luna 15 (failure)
23 Sep 1969 Failure (Cosmos 300)
22 Oct 1969 Failure (Cosmos 305)
19 Feb 1970 Failure
12 Sep 1970 Luna 16
2 Sep 1971 Luna 18 (failure)
14 Feb 1972 Luna 20
Sample return Ye-8-5M series
28 Oct 1974 Luna 23 (failure)
16 Oct 1975 Failure
9 Aug 1976 Luna 24
Lunokhod (Ye-8) missions
19 Feb 1969 Failure
10 Nov 1970 Luna 17/Lunokhod
8 Jan 1973 Luna 21/Lunokhod 2
Orbiting (Ye-8LS) missions
28 Sep 1971 Luna 19
2 Jun 1974 Luna 22
The Ye-8 series did eventually provide the Soviet Union with some form of credible
alternative to Apollo and saved some face. The two Lunokhods attracted the most
public attention and probably made the most popular impact. They were sophisticated
vehicles of exploration and it was a loss to science that Lunokhod 3 was not
flown. The soil sample return mission series, although technically difficult and
impressive in their own right, cannot be said to have been a great success and the
gains were achieved for a disproportionate effort. Although three missions did bring
lunar samples back, their haul was small at 325 g, compared with Apollo's 380 kg,
while seven missions had failed altogether. The Ye-8LS lunar orbiters may well have
achieved solid results, but they were poorly publicized or disseminated. The heart
seems to have gone out of the programme in June 1973 and one has the impression
that permission was given to fly already-built hardware on the understanding that
there would be no further missions thereafter for the foreseeable future. By the time
Luna 22 flew, the N-1 programme had been suspended and there was little reason to
draw attention to the lunar programme generally. It is probably no coincidence that
the last mission, in August 1976, took place only months after the N-1 was finally
cancelled in March 1976. It seems that both the manned and unmanned programmes
were run down in parallel.