Luna 9 landing

Luna 9 · 1966 CE · The Moon

Luna 9 landing — Luna 9 · 1966 CE · The Moon — Recorded expedition route · schematic map

Land softly on the Moon and send pictures from its surface, after eleven failed Soviet attempts.

Historical context

Between January 1963 and December 1965 the Soviet Union launched eleven Ye-6 landers, and none landed intact. In 1965 Korolev handed the work to Georgy Babakin's Lavochkin design bureau, whose first lander, Luna 9, came down in the Ocean of Storms on 3 February 1966. Its pictures showed that a lander would not sink into dust, and Jodrell Bank in England printed them before Moscow released them.

The voyage, step by step

  1. The twelfth attempt

    31 January 1966

    At 11:41 UTC on 31 January 1966, 14:41 Moscow time, a Molniya-M rocket lifts a Ye-6M lander off the Tyuratam range; once the probe is on its way to the Moon, the Soviet press names it Luna 9.

  2. Descent to the surface

    3 February 1966

    On 3 February 1966, 75 kilometres above the Ocean of Storms, the radar altimeter lights the braking engine and inflates two airbags around the landing capsule; a few metres above the ground the capsule is thrown clear.

  3. Babakin's bureau

    1966 CE

    Luna 9 comes from a new house: the Lavochkin design bureau at Khimki, near Moscow, led since 1965 by its chief designer, Georgy Babakin.

  4. Down in the Ocean of Storms

    3 February 1966

    At 18:45 UTC on 3 February 1966, 21:45 Moscow time, the capsule comes to rest west of the craters Reiner and Marius; about four minutes later its four petals open and steady it on the ground.

  5. A view from ground level

    4 February 1966

    From 01:50 to 03:30 UTC on 4 February, with the Sun seven degrees above the horizon, its rotating mirror sweeps the first full panorama: stones, small craters and a horizon about 1.4 kilometres away.

  6. Scooped from England

    4 February 1966

    At Jodrell Bank, Bernard Lovell's observatory near Manchester, the signal is recognised as facsimile; on 4 February a receiver borrowed from the Daily Express prints the pictures, and the newspaper runs them the next morning.

Outcome

Landed in the Ocean of Storms at 18:45 UTC on 3 February 1966 and sent panoramas over seven radio sessions until its batteries ran out on 6 February; NASA's archive counts it the first soft landing on the Moon, four months before Surveyor 1.

Luna 9

Soviet probe whose capsule landed in the Ocean of Storms in February 1966 and sent the first pictures from the lunar surface; NASA's archive counts it the first soft landing on the Moon.

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