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| A cover featuring Luna 1 Moscow K-9 special postmarks in black and red. |
The first successful lunar spacecraft was the Soviet Union's Luna 1 (also known as Mechta), which was launched on January 2, 1959, and intended for a fly-by trajectory. Although Luna 1 missed the moon and entered a solar orbit instead, it did yield valuable scientific data by releasing a sodium vapor cloud 70,000 miles from Earth, enabling scientists to study interplanetary gases.
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| Photo: An image depicting Luna 1 in orbit. |
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| A cover featuring Luna 1 Moscow K-9 special postmark, signed by Alexei Leonov, the Voskhod 2 cosmonaut and the first man to walk in space. |
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| A cover featuring Luna 1 Moscow special postmark. |
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| A First Day Cover for the Luna 1 stamps. |
(Reference from
Luna 1)
