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One of two successful series of Soviet unpiloted lunar missions. There were 24 missions to the Moon in the Luna series launched from 1959 to 1976. (The other series, Zond, had 5 lunar missions launched in 1965 to 1970. ) The first image of the farside of the Moon was taken by the Luna 3 spacecraft in October, 1959. Three Luna landers (Luna 16, 20, and 24) collected a total of approximately 300 grams of lunar samples and returned them to Earth.