Mission description

Of the six Ye-1 spacecraft launched, only two survived the process. A seventh was returned to the barn after its launcher failed to lift off. Aware from press reports that the Americans were to try for the Moon on August 17, Korolev managed with great effort to prepare a vehicle for the same day. There were a number of malfunctions during pre-launch preparations, but he knew that his flight path to the Moon was shorter than the Americans so he waited before risking a launch to see if the Florida launch succeeded. When the US rocket blew up after only 77 seconds of flight, he stood down in order to perform more careful preparations and additional testing. How ever, the launch on September 23 failed when the strap-on boosters of the first stage developed resonant longitudinal vibrations in the second minute of flight. The various stages separated at 93 seconds, fell back and exploded. Reacting to pressure to beat the US to the Moon, Korolev is said to have lost his temper and replied "Do you think only American rockets explode? ‘ Indeed not, and he could not know that the Soviet lunar program w ould be plagued w ith rocket failures for years to come.

The second American attempt at the Moon was scheduled for October 11, amid a flurry of press coverage. Korolev w’as again ready that same day. The wdiole world w as aware of events in Florida, but only a few in the USSR were aw are of Korolev with his linger on the launch button at Baikonur, ready to beat the Americans to the Moon using a faster trajectory. News of the US launch was relayed to Korolev. But the third stage failed, preventing Pioneer 1 from reaching the Moon. Sitting now in the catbird seat, Korolev proceeded with his launch. Later the same day, the second Luna 8K72 launcher blew up 104 seconds into its flight due to the same vibrations wiiich had destroyed the first vehicle.

The two failures in row w’ere demoralizing. It w’as discovered from analyzing the w reckage that the additional mass of the third stage was creating resonant vibration in the basic R-7 booster wThich had not been present before. The problem was solved with minor design changes, but it would take two months and Korolev had to watch over his shoulders as America made a third attempt on November 8. but this too fell short.

The third launch on December 4 failed yet again, this time caused by a different problem. The rocket sailed through the period wdien vibrations broke up the previous two rockets, but after 4 minutes of flight the thrust of the second stage engine began to diminish and then the engine shut dow n due to a gear box failure in the hydrogen peroxide turbine pump. Frustrated, but relieved by the fourth American failure two days later on December 6, Korolev prepared for another

attempt. The fourth launch was a success and on January 2, 1959, put Ye-1 No.4 on a trajectory to the Moon. The spent third stage released a 1 kg cloud of sodium gas on January 3, some 113,000 km from Earth, producing a glowing orange trail visible over the Indian Ocean with the brightness of a sixth-magnitude star. The experiment provided data on the behavior of ionized gas in near-Earth space, and was used for tracking. Luna 1 (as the probe was later named) missed its target and passed within 5,965 km of the lunar surface on January 4 after 34 hours of flight. The miss was caused by a late second-stage shutdown command from the ground radio guidance. Nevertheless, Luna 1 holds three cosmic ‘firsts’, being the first spacecraft to achieve escape velocity, the first spacecraft to fly close by the Moon, and the first spacecraft to enter an independent heliocentric orbit. Contact was lost on January 5, after 62 hours of flight, possibly when its battery drained.

Luna 1 was a major success and feather in the cap of Soviet space exploration, but it failed to impact the Moon as planned and the program goal was not yet fulfilled. After further problems with the R-7 in the beginning of 1959, another spacecraft was readied that incorporated modifications to the magnetometer, Geiger counters and micrometeoroid detectors resulting from the successful m-flight measurements of both Luna 1 in January 1959 and the American Pioneer 4 lunar flyby in March. The modifications earned it a new Ye-IA designation. The first attempt to launch a fifth spacecraft, Yc-IA No.5, was aborted on June 16, 1959, when it was discovered that the third stage tank had been filled with the standard kerosene instead of the higher density type required for this mission. The tanks were emptied, refilled with the proper fuel, and a second launch attempt made two days later. All went awry when the launch vehicle deviated from the planned trajectory after 153 seconds. One of the gyroscopes in the inertial guidance system had failed, and the launcher was destroyed by ground command.

An aborted launch of a sixth spacecraft occurred on September 9, 1959, when the core sustainer engine failed to reach full thrust upon ignition. ‘Hie launcher remained on its mount, and all the engines were shut down after 20 seconds. The rocket was replaced by a backup. The spacecraft on the aborted rocket was probably the Ye-1A Ко.6 model. Three days later Luna 2 (Ye-IA Ко.7) was successfully launched on a lunar trajectory. On 13 September, at a distance of 156,000 km, the spent third stage released its sodium cloud. Luna 2 impacted the Moon at 23:02:23 UT September 14. after 33.5 hours of flight, near the Autolycus crater in the Marsh of Decay region at about 29. Г N 0.0 E. Some 30 minutes later, the third stage of the Luna launcher also impacted the Moon.

Luna 2 was the first spacecraft to impact another celestial body. The Soviets had announced their transmission frequencies and Jodrcll Bank in hngland tracked the spacecraft through its the final plunge to silence. There had been some claims in the West that Luna 1 was a fraud, but Sir Bernard Lovell’s tracking and radio recordings provided all the proof needed that Luna 2 had hit the Moon. Nikita Khrushchev celebrated the achievement by presenting President Eisenhower with duplicates of the Soviet emblems that had been carried to the Moon at a United Nations meeting in Kew York on September 15, 1959.

Results:

Luna 1 was the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Moon. The measurements obtained provided new data on the Earth’s radiation belt, and discovered the solar wind – a thin, energetic ioni/cd plasma flowing outward from the Sun past the Earth and Moon. It established that the micrometeoroid flux between Earth and Moon was small, and placed an upper limit on the strength of any magnetic field that the Moon may possess at no more than 1/10.000th that of Earth.

Luna 2 was the first spacecraft to impact on the Moon. It verified at much closer distance that the Moon had no appreciable magnetic field, and found no evidence of radiation belts around the Moon.