Luna 14
Luna 14 — a Soviet lunar orbiter (in orbit 10 April 1968) whose main task was to test communications between the Moon and Earth for a planned crewed lunar orbiter. Over about 75 days it also studied the Moon's gravity and motion and the radiation around it. It was the last of the second generation of Luna probes.
Key facts
Mission & specifications
Mission
- Operator
- Lavochkin (USSR)
- Launched
- April 7, 1968
- Status
- Completed
Trajectory
- Distance from the Sun
- 0.996 AU
- Computed from the cached position
- Distance from Earth
- 1,461,182 km
- Computed from cached positions
- Distance from Venus
- 0.276 AU
- Computed from cached positions
Mission
Luna 14 was the last of the Soviet Union's second-generation Moon probes, and its main job was a test run. Launched on 7 April 1968, it entered a lunar orbit of 160 by 870 km, inclined 42°, at 19:25 UT on 10 April. Its purpose was to test the radio link between a spacecraft at the Moon and ground stations on Earth, in preparation for the planned Soviet crewed lunar orbiter. Alongside that it studied how the masses of Earth and Moon interact, the Moon's gravity field and its motion, solar particles, cosmic rays and the effects of ionising radiation on living tissue, and it tested gear transmissions in a vacuum, as Luna 11 and 12 had. The spacecraft operated for about 75 days; like the other early orbiters it would eventually have struck the Moon, at a date and place that are unknown. The next Soviet lunar spacecraft were far heavier machines, launched on the Proton rocket.
- 1968Luna 14 launches toward the Moon from the Baikonur CosmodromeLaunch
The last of the second-generation Luna probes.
It begins testing the radio link a crewed lunar orbiter would need.
Images
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