Luna 1
Luna 1, built and operated by the USSR, is the first spacecraft to reach the Moon. Fitted with five antennas but no propulsion system, Luna 1 launched on January 2, 1959. They were hoping to intentionally crash the spacecraft onto the Moon, but it instead passed to within 3,725 miles (5,995 km) of the lunar surface and entered into an orbit around the Sun, also known as a heliocentric orbit, somewhere between the orbits of Earth and Mars. The subsequent mission, Luna 2, successfully crashed onto the Moon, becoming the first human-made object to reach the surface of another celestial body.
