| Luna 8 | |||||
| Mission Type: | Lunar lander | ||||
| Operator: | Soviet space program | ||||
| Cospar Id: | 1965-099A | ||||
| Satcat: | 1810 | ||||
| Mission Duration: | 3 days | ||||
| Spacecraft Type: | Ye-6 | ||||
| Manufacturer: | OKB-1 | ||||
| Launch Mass: | 1550kg (3,420lb) | ||||
| Launch Date: | UTC | ||||
| Launch Rocket: | Molniya 8K78 | ||||
| Launch Site: | Baikonur 31/6 | ||||
| Interplanetary: |
| ||||
| Programme: | Luna programme | ||||
| Previous Mission: | Luna 7 | ||||
| Next Mission: | Luna 9 | ||||
Luna 8 (E-6 or Ye-6 series), also known as Lunik 8, was a lunar space probe of the Luna program.
It was launched in on 3 December 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 complete the experimental testing of its stellar-guidance system and the ground-control of its radio telemetry equipment, its flight trajectory, and its other instrumentation.
This, the eleventh Soviet attempt to achieve a lunar soft landing, nearly succeeded. After a successful midcourse correction on 4 December, this spacecraft headed toward the Moon without any apparent problems. Just before the scheduled firing of its retrorocket, a command was sent to inflate cushioning air bags around the landing probe. However, a plastic mounting bracket apparently pierced one of the two air bags. The resulting ejection of the air put the spacecraft into a spin of about 12 degrees per second. The spacecraft momentarily regained its proper attitude, long enough for a nine-second-long retrorocket firing, but Luna 8 became unstable again. Without a retrorocket burn long enough to reduce its 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 .