Luna 8 velocity sufficiently for a survivable landing, "Luna 8" plummeted to the lunar surface and crashed at 21:51:30 UT on 6 December in the west of Oceanus Procellarum. The coordinates of the crash site are . Luna 8 Luna 8 (E-6 series), also known as Lunik 8, was a lunar space probe of the Luna program. It was launched in on December 3, 1965 with the objective of achieving a soft landing on the Moon. However, its retrorocket firing occurred too late, and suffered a hard impact on the lunar surface on the Oceanus Procellarum (Ocean of Storms). The mission did
Luna programme not assigned a Luna number. Those that failed in low Earth orbit were usually given Cosmos designations. The estimated cost of the Luna programme was about $4.5 billion. "Luna 1" (January 1959) missed its intended impact with the Moon and became the first spacecraft to fall into orbit around the Sun. "Luna 2" (September 1959) mission successfully hit the Moon's surface, becoming the first man-made object to reach the Moon. "Luna 3" (October 1959) rounded the Moon later that year, and returned the first photographs of its far side, which can never be seen from Earth. "Luna 9" (February 1966)