Luna 1
Lunik 1 (Russian Луна -1, Luna -1, Metschta ), was the first lunar probe in the world and the first spacecraft ever. The proposed aim of the mission, the impact on the Moon, but was not reached. Instead, she was unintentionally on January 4, 1959 first flyby probe.
The series designation Lunik arose immediately after the start of Lunik 1 and only in the Western media, in reference to the Russian Sputnik name for the first artificial satellites. There they supplanted the original name Metschta (Russian Мечта for dream). In the official Soviet media was called Lunik 1 Cosmic rocket. The series of three Lunik probes was often later attributed the following Luna series and Lunik 1 called Luna 1.
Construction
The spherical probe had a mass of 361.3 kg and a diameter of 1.45 m. The hermetically sealed container device comprised of an aluminum -magnesium alloy, and was filled with nitrogen. The gas helped maintain the necessary operating temperature for the electronic devices. On the outer surface of the container, the sensors for the measuring devices, a rod beam was mounted with a magnetometer and four rod antennas. The instruments were designed for the study of radiation and magnetic fields in the environment of the Earth and Moon, as well as for determining the density of the interplanetary gas. Among the internal devices, there was also a Geiger counter and a scintillation counter. Furthermore, led Lunik 1 massive metal balls with it, which would have survived the impact on the moon and contained Soviet emblems such as the hammer and sickle. A camera for pictures of the moon's surface was not on board. The supply of electricity was through batteries. The probe had no possibility of a course correction.
History of the flight
After the false starts of three predecessors in 1958 and just 15 months after the launch of Sputnik 1 Lunik 1 lifted on January 2, 1959 at 16:41:21 UTC from Baikonur cosmodrome in from the moon. Your carrier rocket from the early Vostok - type 8K72 - called Luna - was extended for the flight to the moon to a third stage R- 7, which came into use talking about the three preliminary experiments.
On January 3 at 00:56 UTC, far before reaching the moon, a sodium vapor cloud was ejected in a Erdentfernung of 113,000 km from the last stage rocket separated mitfliegenden. The amount of 1 kg of sodium used was a cloud that was stimulated by the solar wind to the orange lights and could be photographed as " artificial comet " the visible mark of the orbital position of observation stations. As was recognized then that the probe will miss the moon and must leave the Earth-Moon system was to change its name in Metschta, in reference to the dream of mankind to move into the deeper space.
Due to a high speed Lunik 1 missed the surface of the moon on January 4 at 2:59 UTC after 34 hours by almost 6000 km and flew at a speed of 2.5 km / s past him. This unplanned swing-by she hit an orbit around the Sun between the orbits of Earth and Mars, which was given a numerical eccentricity of 0.14767, with a perihelion at 0.9766 AE and an aphelion at 1.315 AU, and an orbital inclination of 0.01 ° and an orbital period of 450 days.
The last radio signals from the probe could still be received up to the exhaustion of their batteries on January 5, 1959 at 7:00 UTC at a distance of about 600,000 km.
Results
Although Lunik 1 missed its final aim, sent as planned but a lot of information to Earth, recorded by their highly sensitive measuring devices. It provided measurements of the Van Allen radiation belt of the earth, confirmed the existence of the solar wind and measured at him a speed of 400 km / s Furthermore, they discovered that the moon has no magnetic field.
The very similar successor probe Lunik 2 reached the surface of the moon in the same year.