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''Luna 2'' (), originally named the Second Soviet Cosmic Rocket and nicknamed Lunik 2 in contemporaneous media, was the sixth of the
Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
's
Luna programme The Luna programme (from the Russian word "Moon, Luna" meaning "Moon"), occasionally called ''Lunik'' by western media, was a series of robotic spacecraft missions sent to the Moon by the Soviet Union between 1959 and 1976. The programme acc ...
spacecraft launched to the
Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It Orbit of the Moon, orbits around Earth at Lunar distance, an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth diameter, Earth's diameter). The Moon rotation, rotates, with a rotation period (lunar ...
, E-1 No.7. It was the first spacecraft to touch the surface of the Moon, and the first human-made object to make contact with another celestial body. The spacecraft was launched on 12 September 1959 by the Luna 8K72 s/n I1-7B rocket. It followed a direct path to the Moon. In addition to the radio transmitters sending
telemetry Telemetry is the in situ collection of measurements or other data at remote points and their automatic transmission to receiving equipment (telecommunication) for monitoring. The word is derived from the Greek roots ''tele'', 'far off', an ...
information back to Earth, the spacecraft released a
sodium Sodium is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Na (from Neo-Latin ) and atomic number 11. It is a soft, silvery-white, highly reactive metal. Sodium is an alkali metal, being in group 1 element, group 1 of the peri ...
vapour cloud so the spacecraft's movement could be visually observed. On 13 September 1959, it impacted the Moon's surface east of
Mare Imbrium Mare Imbrium (Latin ''imbrium'', the "Sea of Showers" or "Sea of Rains") is a vast lunar mare, lava plain within the Imbrium Basin on the Moon and is one of the larger craters in the Solar System. The Imbrium Basin formed from the collision ...
near the craters Aristides,
Archimedes Archimedes of Syracuse ( ; ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek Greek mathematics, mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and Invention, inventor from the ancient city of Syracuse, Sicily, Syracuse in History of Greek and Hellenis ...
, and
Autolycus In Greek mythology, Autolycus (; ) was a robber who had the power to metamorphose or make invisible the things he stole. He had his residence on Mount Parnassus and was renowned among men for his cunning and oaths. Family There are a number of d ...
. Prior to impact, two sphere-shaped pennants with USSR and the launch date engraved in Cyrillic were detonated, sending pentagonal shields in all directions. ''Luna 2'' did not detect radiation or magnetic belts around the Moon.


Background

''
Luna 1 ''Luna 1'', also known as ''Mechta'' ( , ''Literal translation, lit.'': ''Dream''), ''E-1 No.4'' and ''First Lunar Rover'', was the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of Earth's Moon, the first spacecraft to leave Earth's orbit, and the fi ...
'' and the three spacecraft of
Luna programme The Luna programme (from the Russian word "Moon, Luna" meaning "Moon"), occasionally called ''Lunik'' by western media, was a series of robotic spacecraft missions sent to the Moon by the Soviet Union between 1959 and 1976. The programme acc ...
before it were part of the Ye-1 series of spacecraft with a mass of . Luna missions that failed to successfully launch or achieve good results remained unnamed and were not publicly acknowledged. The first unnamed probe exploded on launch on 23 September 1958. Two more launches were unsuccessfully attempted on 11 October 1958 and 4 December 1958. ''Luna 1'' was the fourth launch attempt and the first partial success of the program. It launched on 2 January 1959 and missed the Moon by . One mission separated ''Luna 1'' and ''Luna 2'', a launch failure that occurred with an unnamed probe on 18 June 1959. ''Luna 2'' would be the Soviet Union's sixth attempt to impact the Moon. It was the second of the Ye-1a series, modified to carry a heavier payload of and had a combined mass of . ''Luna 2'' was similar in design to ''Luna 1'', a spherical
space probe Uncrewed spacecraft or robotic spacecraft are spacecraft without people on board. Uncrewed spacecraft may have varying levels of autonomy from human input, such as remote control, or remote guidance. They may also be autonomous, in which th ...
with protruding antennas and
instrumentation Instrumentation is a collective term for measuring instruments, used for indicating, measuring, and recording physical quantities. It is also a field of study about the art and science about making measurement instruments, involving the related ...
. The instrumentation was also similar to ''Luna 1'', which included a triaxial fluxgate magnetometer, a piezoelectric detector, a
scintillation counter A scintillation counter is an instrument for detecting and measuring ionizing radiation by using the Electron excitation, excitation effect of incident radiation on a Scintillation (physics), scintillating material, and detecting the resultant li ...
,
ion trap An ion trap is a combination of electric field, electric and/or magnetic fields used to capture charged particles — known as ions — often in a system isolated from an external environment. Atomic and molecular ion traps have a number of a ...
s and two gas-discharge counters, while the ''Luna 2'' included six gas-discharge counters. There were no propulsion systems on ''Luna 2'' itself.


Payload

''Luna 2'' carried five different types of instruments to conduct various tests while it was on its way to the
Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It Orbit of the Moon, orbits around Earth at Lunar distance, an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth diameter, Earth's diameter). The Moon rotation, rotates, with a rotation period (lunar ...
. The scintillation counters were used to measure any ionizing radiation and the Cherenkov radiation detectors to measure electromagnetic radiation caused by charged particles. The primary scientific purpose of the Geiger Counter carried on ''Luna 2'' was to determine the electron spectrum of the
Van Allen radiation belt The Van Allen radiation belt is a zone of energetic charged particles, most of which originate from the solar wind, that are captured by and held around a planet by that planet's magnetosphere. Earth has two such belts, and sometimes others ma ...
. It consisted of three STS-5 gas-discharge counters mounted on the outside of an airtight container. The last instrument on ''Luna 2'' was a three component fluxgate magnetometer. It was similar to that used on ''Luna 1'' but its dynamic range was reduced by a factor of 4 to ±750
gamma Gamma (; uppercase , lowercase ; ) is the third letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 3. In Ancient Greek, the letter gamma represented a voiced velar stop . In Modern Greek, this letter normally repr ...
s (nT) so that the quantisation uncertainty was ±12 gammas. The probe's instrumentation was powered by silver-zinc and mercury-oxide batteries. The spacecraft also carried Soviet pennants which were located on the probe and on the ''Luna 2'' rocket. The two sphere-shaped pennants in the probe had surfaces covered by 72
pentagon In geometry, a pentagon () is any five-sided polygon or 5-gon. The sum of the internal angles in a simple polygon, simple pentagon is 540°. A pentagon may be simple or list of self-intersecting polygons, self-intersecting. A self-intersecting ...
al elements in a pattern similar to that later used by association footballs. In the centre was an explosive charge designed to shatter the sphere, sending the pentagonal shields in all directions. Each pentagonal element was made of
titanium alloy Titanium alloys are alloys that contain a mixture of titanium and other chemical elements. Such alloys have very high tensile strength and toughness (even at extreme temperatures). They are light in weight, have extraordinary corrosion resistance ...
; the centre
regular Regular may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * "Regular" (Badfinger song) * Regular tunings of stringed instruments, tunings with equal intervals between the paired notes of successive open strings Other uses * Regular character, ...
pentagon had the
State Emblem of the Soviet Union The State Emblem of the Soviet Union was the official symbol of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics adopted in 1923 and used until the Dissolution of the Soviet Union, dissolution of the state in 1991. Although it technically is an emblem ...
with the
Cyrillic The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Ea ...
letters ''СССР'' ("USSR") engraved below and was surrounded by five non-regular pentagons which were each engraved with ''СССР СЕНТЯБРЬ 1959'' ("USSR SEPTEMBER 1959"). The third pennant was similar engravings on aluminium strips which were embossed on the last stage of the ''Luna 2'' rocket. The scientists took extra, unspecified precautions in preventing biological contamination of the Moon.


Mission


Launch and trajectory

There was difficulty getting Luna 2 ready for launch. The first attempt on September 6 failed due to a loose electrical connection. A second attempt two days later also went awry when the core stage LOX tank failed to pressurize properly due to ice formation in a pressure sensing line. The ice plug was broken but the launch had to be called off again. By this point the RP-1 had been sitting in the propellant tanks for almost four days and there was the risk that it could start to paraffin-ize. The next attempt was made on September 9. Core and strap-on ignition began but the engines only reached 75% thrust. The launch was aborted and the RP-1 finally drained from the tanks. The DP-2 electrical switch had failed to send the command to open the engine valves to full throttle.The booster was removed from the pad and replaced with a different one, which was launched 12 September 1959, and ''Luna 2'' lifted off at 06:39:42 GMT. Later in the month, Soviet premier
Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and the Premier of the Soviet Union, Chai ...
was visiting the United States. The US space program had had several recent setbacks including an on-pad explosion of an Atlas-Able rocket and a
Jupiter missile The PGM-19 Jupiter was the first nuclear weapon, nuclear armed, medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) of the United States Air Force (USAF). It was a liquid-propellant rocket using RP-1 fuel and Liquid oxygen, LOX oxidizer, with a single Rocketd ...
that exploded just after launch and killed several mice it was intended to fly on a biological mission. US President
Dwight Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was the 34th president of the United States, serving from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionar ...
, while meeting with Khrushchev, remarked that there had been a few failures of American rockets lately and asked if there had been similar problems in the Soviet space programme. Alluding to the abortive Luna 2 attempt two weeks earlier, Khrushchev replied that "We had a rocket we were going to launch, but it did not work correctly so they had to take it down and replace it with a different one." Once the vehicle reached Earth's
escape velocity In celestial mechanics, escape velocity or escape speed is the minimum speed needed for an object to escape from contact with or orbit of a primary body, assuming: * Ballistic trajectory – no other forces are acting on the object, such as ...
, the upper stage was detached, allowing the probe to travel on its path to the Moon. ''Luna 2'' pirouetted slowly, making a full rotation every 14 minutes, while sending radio signals at 183.6, 19.993 and 39.986
MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in terms of SI base u ...
. The probe started transmitting information back to Earth using three different transmitters. These transmitters provided precise information on its course, allowing scientists to calculate that ''Luna 2'' would hit its mark on the Moon around 00:05 on 14 September (
Moscow Time Moscow Time (MSK; ) is the time zone for the city of Moscow, Russia, and most of western Russia, including Saint Petersburg. It is the second-westernmost of the eleven time zones of Russia, after the non-continguous Kaliningrad enclave. It h ...
), which was announced on
Radio Moscow Radio Moscow (), also known as Radio Moscow World Service, was the official international broadcasting station of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics until 1993, when it was reorganized into Voice of Russia, which was subsequently reorga ...
. Because of claims that information received from ''Luna 1'' was fake, the Russian scientists sent a
telex Telex is a telecommunication Telecommunication, often used in its plural form or abbreviated as telecom, is the transmission of information over a distance using electronic means, typically through cables, radio waves, or other communica ...
to astronomer
Bernard Lovell Sir Alfred Charles Bernard Lovell ( ; 31 August 19136 August 2012) was an English physicist and radio astronomer. He was the first director of Jodrell Bank Observatory, from 1945 to 1980. Early life and education Lovell was born at Oldland Co ...
at
Jodrell Bank Observatory Jodrell Bank Observatory ( ) in Cheshire, England hosts a number of radio telescopes as part of the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester. The observatory was established in 1945 by Bernard Lovell, a radio as ...
at the
University of Manchester The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The University of Manchester is c ...
. Having received the intended time of impact, and the transmission and trajectory details, it was Bernard Lovell who confirmed the mission's success to outside observers. However, the American media were still skeptical of the data until Lovell was able to prove that the radio signal was coming from ''Luna 2'' by showing the
Doppler shift The Doppler effect (also Doppler shift) is the change in the frequency of a wave in relation to an observer who is moving relative to the source of the wave. The ''Doppler effect'' is named after the physicist Christian Doppler, who described t ...
from its transmissions.


Lunar impact

''Luna 2'' took a direct path to the Moon, starting with an initial velocity from Earth of and impacting the Moon at about . It hit the Moon about 0° west and 29.1° north of the centre of the visible disk at 00:02:24 (Moscow Time) on 14 September 1959. The probe became the first human-made object to hit another celestial body. To provide a display visible from Earth, on 13 September the spacecraft released a vapour cloud that expanded to a diameter of that was seen by observatories in
Alma Ata Almaty, formerly Alma-Ata, is the largest city in Kazakhstan, with a population exceeding two million residents within its metropolitan area. Located in the foothills of the Trans-Ili Alatau mountains in southern Kazakhstan, near the border wi ...
in Kazakhstan,
Byurakan Byurakan () is a village in the Ashtarak Municipality of the Aragatsotn Province of Armenia, located on the slope of Mount Aragats. The village is home to several historical sites including the 7th-century Artavazik Church, the 10th-century bas ...
in Armenia,
Abastumani Abastumani ( ka, აბასთუმანი) is a small town ('' daba'') and climatic spa in Adigeni Municipality, Samtskhe-Javakheti, Georgia. It is located on the southern slopes of the Meskheti Range (Lesser Caucasus), in the small river ...
and
Tbilisi Tbilisi ( ; ka, თბილისი, ), in some languages still known by its pre-1936 name Tiflis ( ), ( ka, ტფილისი, tr ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Georgia (country), largest city of Georgia ( ...
in Georgia, and Stalinabad in Tajikistan. This cloud also acted as an experiment to see how the sodium gas would act in a vacuum and zero gravity. The last stage of the rocket that propelled ''Luna 2'' also hit the Moon's surface about 30 minutes after the spacecraft, but there was uncertainty about where it landed. Bernard Lovell began tracking the probe about five hours before it struck the Moon and also recorded the transmission from the probe, which ended abruptly. He played the recording during a phone call to reporters in New York to finally convince most media observers of the mission's authenticity.


Results

The radiation detectors and magnetometer were searching for lunar magnetic and radiation fields similar to the
Van Allen radiation belt The Van Allen radiation belt is a zone of energetic charged particles, most of which originate from the solar wind, that are captured by and held around a planet by that planet's magnetosphere. Earth has two such belts, and sometimes others ma ...
around Earth, sending information about once every minute until its last transmission which came about away from the lunar surface. Although it did prove previous measurements of the Van Allen radiation belts that were taken from ''Luna 1'' around the Earth, it was not able to detect any type of radiation belts around the Moon at or beyond the limits of its magnetometer's sensitivity (2–3x10−4 G). ''Luna 2'' showed time variations in the electron flux and
energy spectrum In the physical sciences, the term ''spectrum'' was introduced first into optics by Isaac Newton in the 17th century, referring to the range of colors observed when white light was dispersed through a prism. Soon the term referred to a plot o ...
in the Van Allen radiation belt. Using
ion trap An ion trap is a combination of electric field, electric and/or magnetic fields used to capture charged particles — known as ions — often in a system isolated from an external environment. Atomic and molecular ion traps have a number of a ...
s on board, the satellite made the first direct measurement of
solar wind The solar wind is a stream of charged particles released from the Sun's outermost atmospheric layer, the Stellar corona, corona. This Plasma (physics), plasma mostly consists of electrons, protons and alpha particles with kinetic energy betwee ...
flux from outside the Earth's
magnetosphere In astronomy and planetary science, a magnetosphere is a region of space surrounding an astronomical object in which charged particles are affected by that object's magnetic field. It is created by a celestial body with an active interior Dynamo ...
. On its approach to the lunar surface, the probe did not detect any notable
magnetic field A magnetic field (sometimes called B-field) is a physical field that describes the magnetic influence on moving electric charges, electric currents, and magnetic materials. A moving charge in a magnetic field experiences a force perpendicular ...
to within from the Moon. It also did not detect a radiation belt around the Moon, but the four ion traps measured an increase in the ion particle flux at an altitude of , which suggested the presence of an ionosphere. The probe generated scientific data that was printed on of
teletype A teleprinter (teletypewriter, teletype or TTY) is an electromechanical device that can be used to send and receive typed messages through various communications channels, in both point-to-point and point-to-multipoint configurations. Init ...
, which were analysed and published in the spring of 1960.


Cultural significance

According to Donald William Cox,
Americans Americans are the Citizenship of the United States, citizens and United States nationality law, nationals of the United States, United States of America.; ; Law of the United States, U.S. federal law does not equate nationality with Race (hu ...
were starting to believe that they were making progress in the
Space Race The Space Race (, ) was a 20th-century competition between the Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, to achieve superior spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race between t ...
and that although the Soviet Union might have had larger rockets, the United States had better guidance systems, but these beliefs were questioned when the Soviets were able to impact ''Luna 2'' on the Moon. At that time the closest Americans had come to the Moon was about with
Pioneer 4 Pioneer 4 was an American spin-stabilized uncrewed spacecraft launched as part of the Pioneer program on a lunar flyby trajectory and into a heliocentric orbit making it the first probe of the United States to escape from the Earth's gravity. ...
. Soviet Premier
Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and the Premier of the Soviet Union, Chai ...
, on his only visit to the United States, gave President
Dwight D. Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was the 34th president of the United States, serving from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionar ...
a replica of the Soviet pennants that ''Luna 2'' had just placed onto the lunar surface.


U.S. espionage

In 1959, a Soviet exhibit of its economic achievements toured several countries. This exhibit included displays of Luna 2.
CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...
conducted a covert operation to access it to gain information. A team of CIA officers gained unrestricted access to the display for 24 hours, which turned out to be a fully-operational system comparable to the original and not a replica as expected. The team disassembled the object, photographed the parts without removing it from its crate and then put back in place, gaining intelligence regarding its design and capabilities. The Soviets did not find out, the CIA report being declassified in 2019, 24 years after the dissolution of the USSR.


Legacy

''Luna 2'' was a success for the Soviets, and was the first in a series of missions (lunar impactors) that were intentionally crashed on the Moon. The later U.S.-made Ranger missions ended in similar impacts. Such controlled crashes have remained useful even after the technique of
soft landing A soft landing is any type of aircraft, rocket or spacecraft landing that does not result in significant damage to or destruction of the vehicle or its payload, as opposed to a hard landing. The average vertical speed in a soft landing should b ...
was mastered.
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...
used hard spacecraft impacts to test whether shadowed Moon craters contain ice by analyzing the debris that was created on impact. The pennant presented to Eisenhower is kept at the Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum in
Abilene, Kansas Abilene (pronounced ) is a city in and the county seat of Dickinson County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population of the city was 6,460. It is home of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Libra ...
, U.S. A copy of the spherical pennant is located at the Kansas Cosmosphere in
Hutchinson, Kansas Hutchinson is the largest city in and the county seat of Reno County, Kansas, Reno County, Kansas, United States. The city is located on the Arkansas River. It has been home to salt mines since 1887 (thus its nickname of "Salt City") but locals ...
. On 1 November 1959, the Soviet Union released two stamps commemorating the spacecraft. They depict the trajectory of the mission.


See also

*
Soviet space program The Soviet space program () was the state space program of the Soviet Union, active from 1951 until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Contrary to its competitors (NASA in the United States, the European Space Agency in Western Euro ...
* Sinus Lunicus *
List of artificial objects on the Moon This is a partial list of artificial materials left on the Moon, many during the missions of the Apollo program. The table below does not include lesser Apollo mission artificial objects, such as a hammer and other tools, Laser Ranging Retroflect ...
*
List of missions to the Moon Missions to the Moon have been numerous and include some of the earliest space missions, conducting exploration of the Moon since 1959. The first partially successful lunar mission was Luna 1 (January 1959), the first probe to leave Earth ...


References


Notes


Citations


Sources

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External links

{{Moon spacecraft Luna programme Spacecraft launched in 1959 1959 in the Soviet Union Spacecraft that impacted the Moon Impactor spacecraft 1959 on the Moon Successful space missions