Luna 13 was an
unmanned space mission of the
Luna program, also called Lunik 13.
The Luna 13 spacecraft was launched toward the Moon from an earth-orbiting platform and accomplished a soft landing on December 24, 1966, in the region of
Oceanus Procellarum. The petal encasement of the spacecraft was opened, antennas were erected, and radio transmissions to Earth began four minutes after the landing. On December 25 and 26, 1966, the spacecraft television system transmitted panoramas of the nearby lunar landscape at different Sun angles. Each panorama required approximately 100 minutes to transmit. The spacecraft was equipped with a mechanical soil-measuring
penetrometer[?], a
dynamograph[?], and a
radiation densitometer[?] for obtaining data on the mechanical and physical properties and the
cosmic ray reflectivity of the lunar surface. It is believed that transmissions from the spacecraft ceased before the end of December 1966.
- Launch Date/Time: 1966-12-21 at 10:19:00 UTC
- On-orbit dry mass: 1700 kg
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