The Soviet spacecraft that first photographed the far side of the Moon was Luna 3.
Luna 3 flew past the Moon in October 1959 and photographed the hemisphere that always faces away from Earth because the Moon is tidally locked. Its camera captured 29 images on October 7, covering roughly 70 percent of the far side. Although technical limitations meant that only a portion of the photographs was successfully transmitted, the mission revealed lunar terrain no human had ever seen.
The spacecraft used onboard film processing and scanned the developed images into radio signals. Its trajectory also used a lunar gravity-assist maneuver, redirecting Luna 3 back toward Earth so ground stations could receive the pictures. The images showed that the far side had far fewer dark maria than the familiar near side.
Luna 3 is sometimes confused with Luna 1 or Luna 2. Luna 1 flew past the Moon, while Luna 2 became the first human-made object to strike it. Neither photographed the far side before Luna 3.