Luna E-6 No.2 Luna E-6 No.2 Luna E-6 No.2, also identified as No.1, and sometimes known in the West as Sputnik 25, was a Soviet spacecraft which launched in 1963, but was placed into a useless orbit due to a problem with the upper stage of the rocket that launched it. It was a Luna E-6 spacecraft, the first of twelve to be launched, It was intended to be the first spacecraft to perform a soft landing on the Moon, a goal which would eventually be accomplished by the final E-6 spacecraft, Luna 9. Luna E-6 No.2 was launched at 08:49 UTC on
Moon escape Earth's gravity and pass near the Moon was "Luna 1"; the first human-made object to impact the lunar surface was "Luna 2", and the first photographs of the normally occluded far side of the Moon were made by "Luna 3", all in 1959. The first spacecraft to perform a successful lunar soft landing was "Luna 9" and the first unmanned vehicle to orbit the Moon was "Luna 10", both in 1966. Rock and soil samples were brought back to Earth by three "Luna" sample return missions ("Luna 16" in 1970, "Luna 20" in 1972, and "Luna 24" in 1976),