Luna E-6LS No.112, sometimes identified by NASA as Luna 1968A, 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 1968. It was a

Luna E-6LS Luna commonly refers to: * Earth's Moon, named "Luna" in Latin, Spanish and other languages * Luna (goddess), the ancient Roman personification of the Moon * Luna (name), including a list of people and characters with this given name and surname * ...

spacecraft, the second of three to be launched. The spacecraft was intended to enter

Selenocentric orbit In astronomy and spaceflight, a lunar orbit (also known as a selenocentric orbit) is an orbit by an object around Earth's Moon. In general these orbits are not circular. When farthest from the Moon (at apoapsis) a spacecraft is said to be at apo ...

, where it would study 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 demonstrate technology for future crewed Lunar missions. Luna E-6LS No.112 was launched at 10:43:54 on 7 February 1968, atop a

Molniya-M The Molniya-M (, GRAU index: 8K78M) was a Soviet and Russian launch vehicle derived from the R-7 Semyorka Intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). The original 8K78 booster had been the product of a rushed development program and its launc ...

8K78M

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 ...

with a Blok-L upper stage, 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 ...

. During third stage flight, a fuel valve or inlet became stuck, resulting in the

gas generator A gas generator is a device for generating gas. A gas generator may create gas by a chemical reaction or from a solid or liquid source, when storing a pressurized gas is undesirable or impractical. The term often refers to a device that uses a ...

consuming fuel at a higher rate than normal. The rocket ran out of fuel 524.6 seconds after launch, and consequently failed to reach orbit. Prior to the release of information about its mission, NASA correctly identified that it had been an attempt to place a spacecraft into orbit around the Moon, and that the later

Luna 14 Luna 14 (E-6LS series) was an uncrewed space mission of the Luna program run by the Soviet Union. It was also called Lunik 14. Overview The spacecraft is believed to have been similar to Luna 12 and the instrumentation was similar to that carr ...

spacecraft had the same configuration.

References

Spacecraft launched in 1968 Luna programme Spacecraft launched by Molniya-M rockets {{USSR-spacecraft-stub