Thirty-five years ago today — August 9, 1976 — Luna-24 launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on a Proton-K rocket.
(Graphic of the lunar sample return portion of the Luna-24 mission. Image from the National Space Science Data Center.)
Luna-24 was the third Soviet mission to retrieve and return lunar ground samples, and the last mission for their Luna spacecraft series.
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