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Luna 15

1969 Soviet space probe

Field	Value
name	Luna 15
image	The Soviet Union 1970 CPA 3951 stamp (Luna 16 in Flight (1970.09.12)).jpg
image_caption	Soviet postage stamp depicting the Luna 16 spacecraft, similar to Luna 15
mission_type	Lunar sample return
operator	Soviet space program
COSPAR_ID	1969-058A
SATCAT	4036
mission_duration	8 days achieved
spacecraft_bus	Ye-8-5
manufacturer	GSMZ Lavochkin
dry_mass	2718 kg
launch_mass	5667 kg
launch_date	UTC
launch_rocket	Proton-K/D
launch_site	Baikonur 81/24
destroyed	UTC
orbit_reference	Selenocentric
apsis	selene
instruments	{{Plainlist
interplanetary	{{Infobox spaceflight/IP
type	orbiter
object	Lunar
arrival_date	17 July 1969, 10:00 UTC
type	lander_impact
object	Lunar
arrival_date	21 July 1969, 15:51 UTC
location
programme	Luna programme
previous_mission	Luna 1969C
next_mission	Kosmos 300

Stereo imaging system
Remote arm for sample collection
Radiation detector

Luna 15 was a robotic space mission of the Soviet Luna programme that was in lunar orbit at the same time as the Apollo 11 spacecraft.

On 21 July 1969, while Apollo 11 astronauts finished the first human moonwalk, Luna 15, a robotic Soviet spacecraft in lunar orbit at the time, began its descent to the lunar surface. Launched three days before the Apollo 11 mission, it was the second Soviet attempt to bring lunar soil back to Earth, with the goal of beating the US in achieving the first sample return in the Moon race. The previous mission, designated E-8-5-402, launched on 14 June 1969, did not achieve Earth orbit because the third stage of its launch vehicle failed to ignite. The Luna 15 lander crashed into the Moon at 15:50 UT, hours before the scheduled American launch from the lunar surface.

Mission

Luna 15 was designed to study space around the Moon, the lunar gravitational field, and the chemical composition of lunar rocks. It could also photograph the lunar surface. It was placed in an intermediate Earth orbit after launch and was then sent toward the Moon. After a mid-course correction the day after launch, the spacecraft entered lunar orbit at 10:00 UT on 17 July 1969. It remained in lunar orbit for two days, while controllers checked its systems, and performed two orbital manoeuvres.

After completing 86 communications sessions and 52 orbits of the Moon at various inclinations and altitudes, it began its descent. Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had already set foot on the Moon when Luna 15 fired its main retrorocket engine to initiate descent to the surface at 15:47 UT on 21 July 1969. Transmissions ceased four minutes after de-orbit, at a calculated altitude of 3 km. The spacecraft had probably crashed into the side of a mountain.

Impact coordinates were 17° north latitude and 60° east longitude, in Mare Crisium. Luna's impact site is some 554 km north-northeast of the Apollo 11 landing site, on a bearing of 328 degrees. An audio recording of the minutes in which British technicians at the radio telescope facility in Jodrell Bank observed Luna 15's descent was first made available to the public on 3 July 2009.

Implications

The simultaneous missions became one of the first instances of Soviet–American space-related communication: the Soviet Union released Luna 15's flight plan to ensure it would not collide with Apollo 11, although its exact mission was not publicized.

In a race to reach the Moon and return to Earth, the parallel missions of Luna 15 and Apollo 11 represented, in some ways, the culmination of the Space Race between the space programmes of the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1960s.

“I say, this has really been drama of the highest order,”

References

"NASA Space Science Coordinated Archive: Luna 15".
(2018). "Beyond Earth: A Chronicle of Deep Space Exploration, 1958–2016". NASA History Program Office.
(4 July 2009). "Russian spacecraft landed on Moon hours before Americans". [[The Daily Telegraph]].
Brown, Jonathan. (3 July 2009). "Recording tracks Russia's Moon gatecrash attempt". [[The Independent]].
"Missions: Luna 15".
Horton, Alex. (2019-07-19). "The Soviets crashed a spacecraft onto the moon". Washington Post.
"Luna 15". NASA: Solar System Exploration: Missions to the Moon.

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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