Luna E-1 No.2, 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 1958B, 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 second of four to be launched. 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 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. Facing continued political pressure to beat the US,

Sergei Korolev Sergei Pavlovich Korolev (14 January 1966) was the lead Soviet Aerospace engineering, rocket engineer and spacecraft designer during the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s. He invented the R-7 Sem ...

lost his temper and exclaimed "Do you think only American rockets explode!?" Once again, he knew that the

Pioneer 1 Pioneer 1 (also known as Able 2) was an American space probe, the first under the auspices of NASA, which was launched by a Thor-Able rocket on 11 October 1958. It was intended to orbit the Moon and make scientific measurements, but due to a g ...

probe was set for launch on October 11, but again decided to wait. Just like with the attempt in August, the US Moon shot failed to attain orbit. Luna E-1 No.2 was launched on 12 October 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 ...

. As the Pogo oscillation issue on Luna E-1 No.1 could not be adequately resolved due to the rushed launch schedules, a couple of stopgap measures were tried including disabling the propellant utilization system at T+85 seconds and throttling the engines down to reduce structural loads on the stack. The booster flew until T+104 seconds when it exploded once again from vibration rupturing the propellant lines.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Luna E-1 No.2 Luna programme Spacecraft launched in 1958