Luna 16

"Lunik 16"
NSSDC ID: 1970-072A

Description:
Luna 16 was the first robotic probe to land on the Moon and return
a sample to Earth and represented the first lunar sample return
mission by the Soviet Union and the third overall, following the
Apollo 11 and 12 missions. The spacecraft consisted of two
attached stages, an ascent stage mounted on top of a descent
stage. The descent stage was a cylindrical body with four pro-
truding landing legs, fuel tanks, a landing radar, and a dual descent
engine complex. A main descent engine was used to slow the
craft until it reached a cutoff point which was determined by the
onboard computer based on altitude and velocity. After cutoff a
bank of lower thrust jets was used for the final landing. The
descent stage also acted as a launch pad for the ascent stage.
The ascent stage was a smaller cylinder with a rounded top.
It carried a cylindrical hermetically sealed soil sample container
inside a re-entry capsule. The spacecraft descent stage was
equipped with a television camera, radiation and temperature
monitors, telecommunications equipment, and an extendable
arm with a drilling rig for the collection of a lunar soil sample. 

The Luna 16 automatic station was launched toward the Moon
from a preliminary Earth orbit and after one mid-course correction
on 13 September it entered a circular 111 km lunar orbit on 17