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The Luna programme
The Luna programme ("Luna" meaning "Moon"),
occasionally called Lunik or Lunnik, was a series of robotic
spacecraft missions sent to the Moon by the Soviet Union between
1959 and 1976. Fifteen were successful, each designed as either an
orbiter or lander, and accomplished many firsts in space
exploration. They also performed many experiments, studying the
Moon's chemical composition, gravity, temperature, and radiation.
Twenty-four spacecraft were formally given the Luna designation,
although more were launched. Those that failed to reach orbit were
not publicly acknowledged at the time, and not assigned a Luna
number. Those that failed in low Earth orbit were usually given
Cosmos designations. The estimated cost of Luna Program was about
$4.5 billion.
Luna 1 missed its intended impact with the Moon
and became the first spacecraft to fall into orbit around the
Sun.
In 1959, the Luna 2 mission successfully
impacted upon the lunar surface, becoming the first man-made object
to reach the Moon.
Luna 3 rounded the Moon later that year, and
returned the first photographs of its far side, which can never be
seen from Earth.
Luna 9 became the first probe to achieve a soft
landing on another planetary body (February 1966). It returned five
black and white stereoscopic circular panoramas, which were the
first close-up shots of the Lunar surface.
Later that year Luna 10 became the first
artificial satellite of the Moon.
Luna 17 and Luna 21 carried vehicles that roamed
around on the Moon's terrain (see Lunokhod programme).
Another major achievement of the Luna programme,
with the Luna 16, Luna 20 and Luna 24 spacecraft, was the ability
to collect samples of lunar soil and return them to Earth, by 1970.
The program returned 0.326 kg of lunar samples. The Luna missions
were the first space-exploration sample return missions to rely
solely on advanced robotics.
Luna 16
Luna 16 (Ye-8-5 series) was an unmanned space
mission, part of the Soviet Luna program.
Luna 16 was the first robotic probe to land on
the Moon and return a sample of lunar soil to Earth. It represented
the first lunar sample return mission by the Soviet Union, and was
the third lunar sample return mission overall, following the Apollo
11 and Apollo 12 missions.
The spacecraft consisted of two attached stages,
an ascent stage mounted on top of a descent stage. The descent
stage was a cylindrical body with four protruding landing legs,
fuel tanks, a landing radar, and a dual descent engine complex.
A main descent engine was used to slow the craft
until it reached a cutoff point which was determined by the onboard
computer based on altitude and velocity. After cutoff a bank of
lower thrust jets was used for the final landing. The descent stage
also acted as a launch pad for the ascent stage.
The ascent stage was a smaller cylinder with a
rounded top. It carried a cylindrical hermetically sealed soil
sample container inside a re-entry capsule.
The spacecraft descent stage was equipped with a
television camera, radiation and temperature monitors,
telecommunications equipment, and an extendable arm with a drilling
rig for the collection of a lunar soil sample.
The Luna 16 automatic station was launched
toward the Moon from a preliminary Earth orbit and after one
mid-course correction on 13 September it entered a circular 111 km
with 70° inclination lunar orbit on September 17, 1970.
The lunar gravity was studied from this orbit.
After two orbital adjustments were performed on 18 September and 19
September the perilune was decreased to 15.1 km, as well as the
inclination altered in preparation for landing. At perilune at
05:12 UT on 20 September, the main braking engine was fired,
initiating the descent to the lunar surface. Six minutes later at
05:18 UT, the spacecraft safely soft-landed in its target area at
0°41' south latitude and 56°18' east longitude, in the northeast
area of the Sea of Fertility, approximately 100 kilometers east of
Webb crater. This was the first landing made in the lunar night
side, as the Sun had set about 60 hours earlier. The main descent
engine cut off at an altitude of 20 m and the landing jets cut off
at 2 m height at a velocity less than 2.4 m/s, followed by vertical
free-fall. The mass of the spacecraft at landing was 1,880
kilograms. Less than an hour after landing, at 06:03 UT, an
automatic drill penetrated the lunar surface to collect a soil
sample. After drilling for 7 minutes, the drill reached a stop at
35 centimeters depth and then withdrew its sample and lifted it in
an arc to the top of the spacecraft, depositing the lunar material
in a small spherical capsule mounted on the main spacecraft bus.
The column of regolith in the drill tube was then transferred to
the soil sample container.
Finally, after 26 hours and 25 minutes on the
lunar surface at 07:43 UT on 21 September, the spacecraft’s
upper stage lifted off from the Moon. The lower stage of Luna 16
remained on the lunar surface and continued transmission of lunar
temperature and radiation data. Three days later on 24 September,
after a direct ascent traverse with no midcourse corrections, the
capsule, with its 101 grams of lunar soil, reentered Earth’s
atmosphere at a velocity of 11 kilometers per second. The capsule
parachuted down 80 kilometers southeast of the town of Jezkazgan in
Kazakhstan at 05:25 UT on 24 September 1970. Analysis of the dark
basalt material indicated a close resemblance to soil recovered by
the American Apollo 12 mission.
According to the Bochum Radio Space Observatory
in the Federal Republic of Germany, strong and good quality
television pictures were returned by the spacecraft.
Luna 16 was a landmark success for the Soviets
in their deep space exploration program; the mission accomplished
the first fully automatic recovery of soil samples from the surface
of an extraterrestrial body.
Launch Date/Time: 1970-09-12 at 13:25:53 UTC
On-orbit dry mass: 5600 kg
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