Failed · Failure
A Soviet attempt to land an eight-wheel Lunokhod rover on the Moon, lost when the payload fairing and spacecraft broke apart during ascent. Published accounts disagree on the failure time.
- Destinations
- Launch vehicle
- SL-12/D-1-e
- Launch site
- Tyuratam (Baikonur Cosmodrome)
- Countries
- Soviet Union
- Mission types
- Rover
Chronology
Mission timeline
Mission architecture
Vehicles
Trajectory record
Trajectory dataset not yet available
Known dates and encounters do not uniquely determine a flight path. This mission’s sourced timeline is available above; no verified trajectory is currently published here.
What is needed to reconstruct this path?
- A frame-qualified position and vector velocity at an epoch, or equivalent complete orbital elements.
- Separate state histories and release epochs for the listed vehicles; a parent mission trajectory cannot be assigned to every component.
- Finer event-time constraints where required by an orbital reconstruction; the stored day/month/year precision is retained.
- The actual failed-flight state history. Intended destinations are not evidence that the spacecraft reached them.
Provenance
Sources
Each source is listed once and labeled with the mission, event, trajectory, or destination/body context it supports.
Data verified through October 12, 2026
- Tentatively Identified Missions and Launch Failures - NASA NSSDCA — NSSDCAArchive · Supports: mission claims · event claims
- Luna 1969A current flight-outcome and spacecraft record — NSSDCATechnical document · Supports: mission claims
- Siddiqi (2018), Beyond Earth: failed Luna mission narratives — NASATechnical document · Supports: mission claims
- Deep Space Chronicle: A Chronology of Deep Space and Planetary Probes 1958–2000, NASA/SP-2002-4524 — NASATechnical document · Supports: mission claims · event claims
- DE421 lunar mean-Earth and principal-axes frame specification — NAIFTechnical document · Supports: destination/body context
- DE440 lunar mean-Earth and principal-axes frame specification — NAIFSpice · Supports: destination/body context
- IAU rotational elements and body radii (PCK 00011) — NAIFSpice · Supports: destination/body context
- LOLA global lunar height maps, LDEM_4 V3 original PDS source label — NASATechnical document · Supports: destination/body context
- LOLA 2023 south-polar elevation, uncertainty and effective-resolution maps — NASATechnical document · Supports: destination/body context
- Blue Ghost Lunar Lander Seen From Above: LROC site and terrain context — NASATechnical document · Supports: destination/body context
- Moon Facts — NASAOther · Supports: destination/body context
- SLDEM2015 Blue Ghost region: original PDS elevation-grid label — NASATechnical document · Supports: destination/body context
- JPL Solar System Dynamics Astrodynamic Parameters — JPLOther · Supports: destination/body context
- Planet Sizes and Locations in Our Solar System — NASAOther · Supports: destination/body context