Editing Luna 8 (section)

== Mission ==
[[File:Moon map Luna 17 Luna 2 Apollo 15 Surveyor 6 Surveyor 4 Luna 7 Luna 8 Luna 11.png|thumbnail|left|Map showing the location of ''Luna 8'' near the lower left, in relation to other Moon missions.]]
It was launched in on 3 December 1965 with the objective of achieving a [[soft landing (rocketry)|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 [[Degree (angle)|degree]]s 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 {{Lunar coords and quad cat|9.1|N|63.3|W}}.<ref name=NSSDC/>