CCCP Lunar Program - Luna-9 badge.
Feb. 1, 2021
55 years ago, with the help of the Luna-9 automatic station, one of the most important tasks of cosmonautics was solved - performing a soft landing on another celestial body. After the launches of the first stations created under the leadership of Sergey Pavlovich Korolev, OKB-1 (now the SP Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia, part of the State Corporation Roscosmos) developed the E6 project, which provided for a soft landing an automatic station on the moon and conducting scientific research on its surface.
In the period from 1963 to 1965, 11 launches of stations of this type were carried out in the USSR. Only five of them reached a given flight path, however, the soft landing problem was not solved. Experts of OKB-1, on the basis of the experience gained, constantly improved the design and systems of automatic interplanetary stations.
The modification was named "E6M". From the middle of 1965, the Design Bureau named after S.A. Lavochkin. Together, a number of station systems were finalized and the cyclogram of the equipment operation at lunar landing was revised. In May 1965, the documentation, ready-made blocks and assemblies of the lunar station were transferred for assembly to the Machine-Building Plant. S.A. Lavochkin (today - Research and Production Association named after S. A. Lavochkin, part of the perimeter of the State Corporation "Roscosmos").
The interplanetary station consisted of two parts: a flight unit and an automatic lunar station. On board - a radio system, a program-time device, a battery, a thermal control system and scientific instruments. Four lobe and four whip antennas were responsible for communication, automatically deploying after landing. A soft landing was provided by two inflatable shock absorbers.
Launch of the Molniya carrier rocket with the first space station assembled at the S.A. Lavochkin was made on January 31, 1966. The choice of the date was timed to coincide with the onset of a lunar morning in the region of the Ocean of Storms. During the lunar morning, the temperature conditions are most favorable for the operation of the automatic station. The weight of the spacecraft after launching into the flight trajectory was 1583 kg, the weight of the lunar station itself was 100 kg. The flight to the Moon lasted 3.5 days.
During the flight:
- The location of the Earth's outer radiation belt was clarified;
- The absence of a noticeable magnetic field of the Moon and lunar radiation belts was established.
(Click on the image for enlarge)
On February 3, 1966, for the first time in the world, the Luna-9 station made a soft landing on the lunar surface in the Ocean of Storms region west of the Reiner and Mari craters. Over the next two days, seven radio communication sessions with a total duration of over 8 hours were conducted with the station to transmit scientific information. The world's first television images of the lunar surface were transmitted over 4 sessions under various lighting conditions. Panoramas of the lunar surface made it possible to study the microrelief of the lunar soil, determine the size and shape of depressions and stones. A spectrophotometric study of the lunar surface in the ultraviolet and infrared regions of the spectrum was carried out.
The duration of the active existence of the station on the lunar surface was 46 hours 58 minutes. 30 sec. This flight opened the era of the contact study of the celestial bodies of the solar system.
ROSCOSMOS Press Release: https://www.roscosmos.ru/29869/
Images, Text, Credits: ROSCOSMOS/Orbiter.ch Aerospace/Roland Berga.
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