Failed Missions
While the programme was active, it was Soviet practice not to release any details of missions which had failed to achieve orbit. This resulted in Western observers assigning their own designations to the missions, for example Luna E-1 No.1, the first failure of 1958 which NASA believed was associated with the Luna programme was known as Luna 1958A.
NASA identified a spacecraft which it referred to as Luna 1966A as having launched on 30 April 1966, a spacecraft which it referred to as Luna 1969B as having launched on 15 April 1969, and a spacecraft which it referred to as Luna 1970B as having launched on 19 February 1970. When details of Soviet launches were later disclosed, no launches of Luna spacecraft were found to have occurred on those dates.
Read more about this topic: Luna Programme
Famous quotes containing the words failed and/or missions:
“He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great. Failure is the true test of greatness. And if it be said, that continual success is a proof that a man wisely knows his powers,—it is only to be added, that, in that case, he knows them to be small.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind.... Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to.”
—Joseph Heller (b. 1923)