Luna 17

  1970-095A

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The second Lunokhod mission, E-8 No. 203, was not launched until Nov 1970 following the first successful E-8-5 mission, Luna-16. The new flight was named Luna-17 and it landed on 1970 Nov 17, successfully deploying Lunokhod-1.

Details of the Luna-17 launch profile, given below, were revealed in Novosti Kosmonavtiki in 1995. The Proton separated on a suborbital trajectory. The first Blok D burn lasted less than 370s (NK implies 370s but I believe there was a coast period before the burn started; 200s or less would be more reasonable given known properties of the Blok D), and the second one 400s.

Luna-17
Date	Time	Event	Orbit
1970 Nov 10	1444:01	Launch by Proton-K	KB
		T+2:05 Stage 1 sep
		T+3:20 Fairing
		T+6:15 St 2 sep
	1453:49	T+9:48 Stage 3 sep
	1454?	T+10:48? Blok D adapter sep
	1456:39	T+12:38? Blok D MES-1
	1459:59	T+15:58 Blok D MECO-1	190? x 250? x 51.5
		T+35:00 E-8 oriented for TLI burn
	1554	Blok D MES-2 6:40
	1557	Blok D MECO-2
	1557	Blok D sep (MECO+12s)
1970 Nov 12		TCM
1970 Nov 14		TCM
1970 Nov 15		Lunar orbit insertion	116.5 83 x 88 x 141.5
1970 Nov 16	0200?	Lower perigee	113.8 21 x 94 x 141.1
1970 Nov 17		Aux tanks sep
1970 Nov 17	0341:18	Retro
	0345:41	Retro-1 off
	0346:29	Retro-2
	0346:52	Retro-2 off
	0346:52	Landed 38 17 N 35 W
1970 Nov 17	0628	Lunokhod 1 rollout
1970 Nov 17		Luna-17 end of transmission

Lunokhod-1
Date	Time	Event	Orbit
1970 Nov		Launch by Proton aboard Luna-17
1970 Nov 17		Luna-17 landed on Moon
	0628	Lunokhod-1 rollout to surface
		Begin operations
1970 Nov 24		Park for lunar night
1970 Dec 9		Resume operations
1970 Dec 14		Park for lunar noon
1970 Dec 17		Resume operations
1970 Dec 23		Park for lunar night
1971 Jan 8		Resume operations
1971 Jan 12		Park for lunar noon
1971 Jan 16		Resume operations
1971 Jan 18		Return to Luna-17 vicinity
1971 Oct		End of operations

Payload:

• TV

• Telephotometers

• RTG

• Soil mechanics test

• Laser retroreflectors

• RIFMA XR spectrometer