Luna 3
- id: PRB-001
- launch_year: 1959
- launch_date: 1959-10-04
- operated_by: Soviet space program
- visited: The Moon
- people: Sergei Korolev
- status: completed
- confidence: believed-correct
- sources: NASA NSSDCA Master Catalog
Luna 3 launched on 4 October 1959 — two years to the day after Sputnik 1 — and days later photographed what no one had ever seen: the far side of the Moon. The spacecraft developed its film on board, scanned the frames, and radioed the images back to Earth. Grainy as they were, they revealed a surprise: the far side looks quite different from the near side, with far fewer of the dark plains (maria) that pattern the face we see.
The mission was flown by the Soviet space program under the direction of chief designer Sergei Korolev's design bureau. Many features of the lunar far side still carry names from the Soviet maps drawn from Luna 3's photographs.