On the heels of the successful Luna 3 mission, which returned the first images of the Far Side of the Moon, the Soviet Union turned its attention to learning more about the lunar surface and whether it was solid enough to land and build structures upon.

To this end, on 10 December 1959, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev signed a resolution of the Central Committee and Council of Ministers for the creation of a lunar soft lander equipped with scientific instrumentation and a television.

This task was assigned to a group led by Nikolay Beresnev, working in the section of Mikhail Tikhonravov's department at OKB-1 run by Gleb Maksimov.

The Ye-6 instead would be launched on the 8K78 booster which allowed a larger payload and provided the ability to put the probe in a parking orbit rather than the inaccurate direct ascent of the first generation Luna probes, although of the first ten 8K78 launch attempts, only two (Mars 1 and Venera 1) succeeded, the rest failing to reach orbit or being unable to leave LEO.

[3]: 381 The Ye-6 spacecraft consisted of a stack of three cylindrical modules, with a height of 2.7 m (8 ft 10 in) and a launch mass of 1,422 kg (3,135 lb).

The second module was a hermetically sealed pressurized compartment that held the propellant and oxygen and contained communication, attitude orientation, an altimeter, and the onboard control system ("I-100").

The 105 kg (231 lb) sphere had a hermetically sealed compartment that held communications apparatus, batteries, thermal control systems, a timer, and the science experiments.

The top of the sphere had four petals, which would open up on landing, allowing deployment of four 75 cm (30 in) whip antennas and the lander camera turret.

[3]: 385  After reaching an initial parking orbit of 167 by 182 kilometres (104 by 113 mi), the rocket's upper stage restarted to place Luna 4 onto a translunar trajectory.

[6] This irritated Chertok and his team, who felt the secrecy "belittle[d] the real signicance of the space program and generate[d] doubt among the public as to its practicality.

A 2.6 metres (8 ft 6 in) telescope in Russia photographed Luna 4 early in its flight when it appeared as a 14th magnitude object.

Because Luna 4, unlike its predecessors, was launched during the least active part of the solar 11 year cycle, it was conjectured that, rather than being caused by sporadic solar outbursts, that the more gentle variations detected by Luna 4 might instead be caused by changes in local magnetic field effects—normally undetectable in more active times.