Goals: This spacecraft was designed to orbit the Moon and study the lunar environment.

Accomplishments: Luna 10 was the first spacecraft to orbit the Moon. It achieved 460 orbits over 56 days before its batteries were depleted and it stopped transmitting. During that time, tracking data showed that the spacecraft's orbit was being distorted by strong irregularities in the Moon's gravity field, providing the first evidence that the Moon's internal composition wasn't uniform. It also provided data on the Moon's weak-to-nonexistent magnetic field, radiation belts, and atmosphere; its surface composition; and the region's cosmic radiation and micrometeoroid density.