Moving on to Luna 18 now... this was another sample return mission like Luna 16. The area accessible to these sampling missions was very limited and within it was Mare Fecunditatis, sampled by Luna 16, and a highland region north of it which was another obvious target. NSSDCA has a description of the mission here:
https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraft/display.action?id=1971-073A
Things were going wrong during the flight and Luna 18 failed at some point during the landing attempt. Can we find it? #moon #luna18
