Luna 11
Encyclopedia
Luna 11 was an unmanned space mission of the Soviet Union's Luna program. It is also called Lunik 11.
Luna 11 was launched towards the Moon
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...

 from an earth-orbiting platform and entered lunar orbit on 27 August 1966. The objectives of the mission included the study of:
  1. lunar gamma- and X-ray emissions in order to determine the Moon's chemical composition;
  2. lunar gravitational anomalies;
  3. the concentration of meteorite streams near the Moon; and,
  4. the intensity of hard corpuscular radiation near the Moon.


A total of 137 radio transmissions and 277 orbits of the Moon were completed before the batteries failed on 1 October 1966.

This subset of the “second-generation” Luna spacecraft, the Ye-6LF, was designed to take the first photographs of the surface of the Moon from lunar orbit. A secondary objective was to obtain data on mass concentrations
(“mascons”) on the Moon first detected by Luna 10. Using the basic Ye-6 bus, a suite of scientific instruments (plus an imaging system similar to the one used on Zond 3) replaced the small lander capsule used on the soft-landing flights. The resolution of the photos was reportedly 15 to 20 meters. A technological experiment included testing the efficiency of gear transmission in vacuum as
a test for a future lunar rover. Luna 11, launched only two weeks after the U.S. Lunar Orbiter, successfully entered lunar orbit at 21:49 UT on 27 August. Parameters were 160 x 1,193 kilometers. During the mission, the TV camera failed to return usable images because the spacecraft lost proper orientation
to face the lunar surface when a foreign object was lodged in the nozzle of one of the attitude-control thrusters. The other instruments functioned without fault before the mission formally ended on 1 October 1966 after the power supply had been depleted.

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