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| .....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
protruding 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. |
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