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LUNA-9 |
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Date-wise Events |
- February 03, 1966: Luna 9
was an unmanned space mission to moon of the Soviet Union's
Luna program. On this day, the Luna 9 was the first
spacecraft to achieve a soft landing on the Moon, or any
planetary body other than Earth, and to transmit
photographic data to Earth.
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Description |
- The automatic lunar station that achieved the landing
weighed 99 kilograms and it used a landing bag to survive
the impact speed of 22 kilometres per hour (14 mph).
- The Luna 9 payload was carried to Earth orbit by a
3-stage Molniya rocket, and then sent toward the Moon by the
fourth stage.
- With this mission, the Soviets accomplished another
first in the Space Race: the first survivable landing of a
man-made object on another celestial body.
- All operations prior to landing occurred without fault.
- Approximately five minutes after touchdown, Luna 9 began
transmitting data to Earth, and after seven hours (after the
Sun had climbed to 7° elevation) before the probe began
sending the first of nine images including five panoramas of
the surface of the Moon.
- These were the first images sent from the surface of
another planetary body.
- Perhaps the most important discovery of the
mission was determining that a foreign object would not
simply sink into the lunar dust, that is, that the ground
could support a heavy lander.
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