Kosmos 60
Template:Short description Template:Use British English Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox spaceflight
Kosmos 60 (Template:Langx meaning Cosmos 60) was an E-6 No.9 probe (Ye-6 series), launched by the Soviet Union. It was the sixth attempt at a lunar soft-landing mission, with a design similar to that of Luna 4.
Kosmos 60 was launched by a Molniya 8K78 rocket, serial number G15000-24, flying from Site 1/5 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The launch took place at 09:25:31 GMT. The spacecraft achieved a low Earth orbit, with a perigee of Template:Convert, an apogee of Template:Convert, an inclination of 64.7°, and an orbital period of 89.1 minutes, but failed to leave orbit for its journey to the Moon due to a failure when the Blok L upper stage failed to fire for the trans-lunar injection burn. Instead, the spacecraft remained stranded in Earth orbit. A later investigation indicated that there might have been a short circuit in the electric converter within the control system of the spacecraft (which also controlled the Blok L stage) preventing engine ignition. It had an on-orbit mass of Template:Convert. The satellite reentered the Earth's atmosphere on 17 March 1965.
Kosmos 60 carried two instruments: an imaging system and the SBM-10 radiation detector.<ref name=beyond/>