Luna programme became the first probe to achieve a soft landing on another planetary body. It returned five black and white stereoscopic circular panoramas, which were the first close-up shots of the Lunar surface. "Luna 10" (March 1966) became the first artificial satellite of the Moon. "Luna 17" (November 1970) and "Luna 21" (January 1973) carried the Lunokhod vehicles, which roamed around on the Moon's terrain. Another major achievement of the Luna programme, with "Luna 16" (September 1970), "Luna 20" (February 1972) and "Luna 24" (August 1976), was the ability to collect samples of lunar soil and return them to Earth. The
Luna E-1A No.1 mission, NASA correctly identified that it had been an attempted Lunar impact mission, however they incorrectly believed that it had been launched on 16 June, two days before its actual launch. Luna E-1A No.1 Luna E-1A No.1 or E-1 No.5, sometimes identified by NASA as Luna 1959A, was a Soviet spacecraft which was lost in a launch failure in 1959. It was a Luna E-1A spacecraft, the first of two to be launched. It was intended to impact the surface of the Moon, and in doing so would be the first man-made object to reach its surface. Launch was originally