Luna 5 was an unmanned space mission of the Luna program, also called Lunik 5. It was designed to continue investigations of a lunar soft landing. The retrorocket system failed, and the spacecraft impacted the lunar surface at the Sea of Clouds.

In May 1965, Luna 5 became the first Soviet probe to head for the Moon in two years. Following the midcourse correction on 10 May, the spacecraft began spinning around its main axis due to a problem in a flotation gyroscope in the I-100 guidance system unit. A subsequent attempt to fire the main engine failed because of ground control error, and the engine never fired. After loss of control as a result of the gyroscope problem, Luna 5 crashed. Landing coordinates were 31° south latitude and 8° west longitude. It was the second Soviet spacecraft to land on the Moon (following Luna 2 in 1959).

• Launch Date/Time: 1965-05-09 at 07:55:00 UTC
• On-orbit dry mass: 1474 kg

See also

• List of artificial objects on the Moon