History of spaceflight of studying the moon.The program ran from 1959 to 1976 and consisted of 15 successful missions, the program achieved many first achievements and collected data on the Moon's chemical composition, gravity, temperature, and radiation. Luna 2 became the first man made object to make contact with the moons surface in September 1959. Luna 3 returned the first photographs of the far side of the moon in October 1959. The Vostok Programme the first Soviet spaceflight project to put the Soviet citizens into low Earth orbit and return them safely. The programme carried out six manned spaceflights between 1961 and 1963.
Luna 3 Luna 3 Luna 3, or E-2A No.1 was a Soviet spacecraft launched in 1959 as part of the Luna programme. It was the first-ever mission to photograph the far side of the Moon and the third Soviet space probe to be sent to the neighborhood of the Moon. Though it returned rather poor pictures by later standards, the historic, never-before-seen views of the far side of the Moon caused excitement and interest when they were published around the world, and a tentative "Atlas of the Far Side of the Moon" was created after image processing improved the pictures. These views