Courtesy of NASA's National Space Science Data Center . Launch Date: 1970-09-12 . ... Luna 16 was launched toward the Moon from a preliminary earth orbit and entered a lunar orbit on September 17, 1970. On September 20, the spacecraft soft landed on the lunar surface in Mare Foecunditatis (the Sea of Fertility) as planned. According to the Bochum Radio Space Observatory in the Federal Republic of Germany, strong and good quality television pictures were returned by the spacecraft. ...

Cosmic Research, Vol. 42, No. 5, 2004, pp. 435­488. Translated from Kosmicheskie Issledovaniya, Vol. 42, No. 5, 2004, pp. 453­508. Original Russian Text Copyright © 2004 by Veselovsky, Panasyuk, Avdyushin, Bazilevskaya, Belov, Bogachev, Bogod, Bogomolov, Bothmer, Boyarchuk, Vashenyuk, Vlasov, Gnezdilov, Gorgutsa, Grechnev, Denisov, Dmitriev, Dryer, Yermolaev, Eroshenko, Zherebtsov, Zhitnik, Zhukov, Zastenker, Zelenyi, Zeldovich, Ivanov-Kholodnyi, Ignat'ev, Ishkov, Kolomiytsev, Krasheninnikov, Kudela,