Luna 15

Luna 15 (Ye-8-5 series) was an unmanned space mission of the Soviet Luna program, also called Lunik 15.

On July 21, 1969, while Apollo 11 astronauts finished the first human moonwalk, Luna 15, an unmanned Soviet spacecraft in lunar orbit at the time, began its descent to the lunar surface. Launched three days before the Apollo 11 mission, it was the third Soviet attempt to return lunar soil back to Earth. The Russian craft crashed on the moon at 15:50 UT, hours before the scheduled American lift off from the moon.