Phil StookeI am now going to look at the history of Soviet moon missions. I will not include the large number of failures during launch and flight, just those we can say something interesting about. Luna 1 was the first to get a 'Luna' designation, though not right away. It was called the Cosmic Rocket, and later the First Cosmic Rocket. It was also called Mechta - 'dream'. It missed the Moon and passed into a heliocentric orbit. Luna 2 was not far behind and this one hit the Moon. #moon #Luna2
A detailed analysis could be done, but not by me. Maybe someone more capable could try it. I can only make a rough estimate. This is my approach... if the upper stage follows the same vector in space as the probe itself, it hits the Moon displaced from the Luna 2 site by the motion of the Moon in its orbit over 30 minutes. VERY approximately that would put it about where this map shows it. There should be a big circle around that point showing the uncertainty. #maps #Moon #Luna2
I promised a mystery about Luna 2. I don't know why more isn't made of this but I have not found anyone else who has ever mentioned it. All contemporary sources say that the upper stage pf the launch vehicle hit the Moon 30 minutes after Luna 2. It's on Don Mitchell's page: "...followed by the impact of Block-E about 30 minutes later." But where did it hit the Moon? The second thing ever to reach the Moon - where is it? Can we figure it out? #Moon #Luna2
Moore and Wilkins saw their events about 90 seconds after the impact, and their location does not match the other constraints. They published their observations in letters to Nature on 15 August 1959. But a Hungarian team at Konkoly sketched an evolving dust cloud in Palus Putredinis near the Apollo 15 site (see Sky and Telescope, November 1960). It fits the other constraints and might be real but observations like this are not universally accepted. #maps #Moon #luna2
Jodrell Bank radio telescope data suggested it lay in a circle around the middle of the disk. But telescopic observers looked and might have seen something. Two well-known British astronomers, Patrick Moore and H.P. (Percy) Wilkins, reported seeing something near the Shneckenberg, Moore a flash, Wilkins apparently a dust cloud. Shneckenberg is a 19th Century name, no longer in use, for a hill north of Hyginus with a vaguely spiral appearance - the name means Snail Mountain. #maps #Moon #luna2
I linked to Don Mitchell's Luna 2 site, but in a reply Nick Stevens gave a link to his substack, and it's very useful, that post and earlier ones (I really like the space propaganda posters). Well worth a look.
Back to Luna 2 - where did it hit the Moon? Don Mitchell mapped the location constraints, and my map here is only a redrawing of that. Basically there was a target, and tracking suggested the impact was northwest of it, a square on the map... #maps #moon #luna2
At this stage in lunar exploration the target is just the middle of the lunar disk as seen during approach, basically a bit north and east of the sub-Earth point. The exact point varies with the declination of the Moon (its celestial 'latitude' in Earth's sky), moving south for a more northerly declination, north for the opposite. That website also shows a map of the estimates of impact location. Tomorrow we will look at that in more detail. #moon #Luna2
A very good site for Luna 2 is this by Don Mitchell:
http://mentallandscape.com/L_Luna2.htm
So, we have a spherical shell with several antennae and a magnetometer on a boom. See the trajectory diagram - the trajectory is a plane inclined to the Moon's orbit plane - it's not perpendicular to the orbit plane. Luna 2 and other attempts to do the same thing always approached the Moon from a position north of the orbit and a bit to the right of the Moon's prime meridian. #moon #Luna2
koukypa 🐧2/01/1959. Sebbene fallì l’obiettivo di impattare il suolo lunare, #Luna1 fu il primo oggetto immesso dall’uomo in un’orbita eliocentrica. Dotata di un piccolo dispositivo per il rilascio di #gas, fu la prima #cometa artificiale della #storia e rilevò per prima il vento solare. Aveva a bordo un "pallone" d'acciaio che, una volta al suolo, avrebbe liberato degli "spicchi" con il simbolo dell' #Urss e la scritta "gennaio 1959". Questa missione fu compiuta da #luna2 nel settembre successivo. #urss
Cristian 