Luna E-1 No.3, sometimes identified by

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

as ''Luna 1958C'', was a

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

spacecraft which was lost in a launch failure in 1958. It was a Luna E-1 spacecraft, the third of four to be launched, all of which were involved in launch failures. It was intended to impact the surface of the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It Orbit of the Moon, orbits around Earth at Lunar distance, an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth diameter, Earth's diameter). The Moon rotation, rotates, with a rotation period (lunar ...

, and in doing so become the first

man-made Artificiality (the state of being artificial, anthropogenic, or man-made) is the state of being the product of intentional human manufacture, rather than occurring naturally through processes not involving or requiring human activity. Connotati ...

object to reach its surface. The spacecraft was intended to release of

sodium Sodium is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Na (from Neo-Latin ) and atomic number 11. It is a soft, silvery-white, highly reactive metal. Sodium is an alkali metal, being in group 1 element, group 1 of the peri ...

, in order to create a cloud of the metal which could be observed from Earth, allowing the spacecraft to be tracked. Prior to the release of information about its mission, NASA correctly identified that it had been an attempted Lunar impact mission. Luna E-1 No.3 was launched on 4 December 1958 atop a

Luna Luna commonly refers to: * Earth's Moon, named "Luna" in Latin, Spanish and other languages * Luna (goddess) In Sabine and ancient Roman religion and myth, Luna is the divine embodiment of the Moon (Latin ''Lūna'' ). She is often presented as t ...

8K72

carrier rocket A launch vehicle is typically a rocket-powered vehicle designed to carry a payload (a crewed spacecraft or satellites) from Earth's surface or lower atmosphere to outer space. The most common form is the ballistic missile-shaped multistag ...

, flying from Site 1/5 at the

Baikonur Cosmodrome The Baikonur Cosmodrome is a spaceport operated by Russia within Kazakhstan. Located in the Kazakh city of Baikonur, it is the largest operational space launch facility in terms of area. All Russian Human spaceflight, crewed spaceflights are l ...

. Modifications to correct the vibration issue on previous launches by installing dampers on the LOX feed lines worked and the booster completed the strap-on burn successfully. However, the launch was another failure as the core stage lost thrust at T+245 seconds. Engine performance fell to 70% and it began deviating from its flight trajectory. The AVD system terminated thrust and the booster fell 4,200 km (2,609 miles) downrange. Investigation found that a gear of the core stage hydrogen peroxide pump was improperly lubricated and failed during flight, causing loss of turbopump performance and engine thrust.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Luna E-1 No.3 Luna programme Spacecraft launched in 1958