Luna 13

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Luna 13 (E-6M series) was an uncrewed space mission of the Luna program by Soviet Union. The Luna 13 spacecraft was launched toward the Moon onboard a Molniya-M and accomplished a soft landing on 24 December 1966, in the region of Oceanus Procellarum ("Ocean of Storms"). The petal encasement of the spacecraft was opened, antennas were erected, and radio transmissions to Earth began four minutes after the landing. On 25 and 26 December 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. Transmissions from the spacecraft ceased on 28 December 1966. Luna 13 became the third spacecraft to land successfully on the surface of the Moon (after Luna 9 and the American Surveyor 1). The probe landed in the Ocean of Storms at 18:01 UT on 24 December 1966, between the Krafft and Seleucus craters at 18°52' north latitude and 62°3' west longitude. Unlike its predecessor, the heavier Luna 13 lander (113 kilograms) carried a suite of scientific instruments in addition to the usual imaging system.