Editing Luna 15 (section)

==Implications==
The simultaneous missions became one of the first instances of Soviet–American space communication: the Soviet Union released Luna 15's flight plan to ensure it would not collide with Apollo 11, although its exact mission was not publicized.<ref name="audio">{{cite news| url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/recording-tracks-russias-moon-gatecrash-attempt-1730851.html| title=Recording tracks Russia's Moon gatecrash attempt| date=3 July 2009| newspaper=[[The Independent]]| location=London| last=Brown| first=Jonathan}}</ref>

In a race to reach the Moon and return to Earth, the parallel missions of Luna 15 and Apollo 11 represented, in many ways, the culmination of the [[Space Race]] between the space programs of the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1960s.<ref>{{cite web| url=https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/luna-15/in-depth| title=Missions: Luna 15| website=Solar System Exploration: NASA Science| access-date=18 March 2019| archive-date=10 April 2019| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190410114541/https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/luna-15/in-depth| url-status=dead}}</ref>

{{Quote|“I say, this has really been drama of the highest order,”|A British astronomer monitoring Luna 15 from [[Jodrell Bank]], as it was prematurely deorbited and impacted at 15:50 UTC, two hours before Apollo 11's return ascent<ref name="a357">{{cite news | last=Horton | first=Alex | title=The Soviets crashed a spacecraft onto the moon | newspaper=Washington Post | date=2019-07-19 | url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/07/19/soviets-tried-beat-apollo-they-crashed-spacecraft-moon-instead/ | access-date=2024-07-17}}</ref>}}