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| Luna-20 landed on the Moon on February 21, 1972. Like Luna-16, it was a robotic mission that returned lunar soil to the Earth. It carried a stereo pair of optical-mechanical cycloramic cameras, working at 4 lines per second and 300 pixels per line. Angled at 50° from the vertical, these cameras returned 360° panoramas, including the lunar surface and portions of the spacecraft and sky. It also scanned the drilling site before and after sampling. |
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| Luna-20 returned 55 grams of lunar material taken from the ancient Lunar highlands. It was the second attempt to land in a dangerous rugged terrain, about a mile from the crash site of its sister ship Luna-18. The anorthosite composition of the soil was again found during Apollo 16 and 17 landing in highland locations later that year. |
