mink@cfa.harvard.EDU (Doug Mink) (03/29/89)
In article <47974@philabs.Philips.Com>, rfc@briar.philips.com (Robert Casey) writes: > I seem to remember that the Russians flew a photo mission in '59 to take a > picture of the farside of the Moon, and that the picture came out very fuzzy. > I don't know of any immediate retries of this mission to get better pictures. > Anyone know why? Maybe they didn't have more launch vehicles to use for such > a mission? Or the results they did get were the best they could do back in > '59? (maybe they couldn't aim the camera too accurately back then, so they > took a picture of a large field of view, which the Moon occupies a small area > of, to be sure of getting the Moon at all. Then the picture we did get to > see was edited to throw out the large area of black sky? This would make for > poor resolution of the Moon.)? There were attempts at followup missions, a list of which follows. There weren't any successes by either the US or the USSR for years, however. I tabulated known attempts by both countries from the "TRW Space Log 1957-1987" "*" indicates a successful mission. "?" means it didn't look like a success to me. I've never seen a table like this, and it is interesting to note parallels and differences between the two programs. It sure looks like Luna 3 was a lucky fluke in the failure-prone first five years of lunar probes. The next glimpses of the far side didn't occur for almost seven years. After compiling these tables, I have more appreciation of the Soviet Union's serious competition in the race for the moon, and note the fact that there has yet to be a complete, multi-spectral survey of the moon by either country. Table I. USSR Unmanned Lunar Probes Luna 1 Jan. 2, 1959 Missed moon by 3728 miles Luna 2 Sep. 12, 1959 Impacted on moon *Luna 3 Oct. 4, 1959 Photographed lunar far side for 40 minutes None Jan. 4, 1963 Never left parking orbit; decayed Jan. 5, 1963 Luna 4 Apr. 2, 1963 Failed soft lander; missed moon by 5282 miles Luna 5 May 9, 1965 Impacted on moon; soft landing failed Luna 6 June 8, 1965 Failed soft lander; missed moon by 100,000 miles Luna 7 Oct. 4, 1965 Impacted on moon; soft landing failed Luna 8 Dec. 3, 1965 Impacted on moon; soft landing failed *Luna 9 Jan. 31, 1966 Soft-landed on moon; returned photos for 3 days Kosmos 111 Mar. 1, 1966 Suspected lunar probe failure; decayed *Luna 10 Mar. 31, 1966 Lunar orbiter; returned data for 54 days *Luna 11 Aug. 24, 1966 Lunar orbiter; returned data for 38 days *Luna 12 Oct. 22, 1966 Lunar orbiter; photographed moon from stable orbit *Luna 13 Dec. 21, 1966 Soft-landed on moon; returned photos and soil data Zond 4 Mar. 2, 1968 Failed lunar mission? ?Luna 14 Dec. 21, 1966 Lunar orbiter; passive gravity experiments *Zond 5 Sep. 15, 1968 Lunar fly-around with return to earth; ocean recovery *Zond 6 Nov. 10, 1968 Lunar fly-around with return to earth; land recovery *Luna 15 Jul. 13, 1969 Lunar orbiter; orbit altered twice *Zond 7 Aug. 8, 1969 Lunar fly-around with return to earth; land recovery *Luna 16 Sep. 12, 1970 Lunar sample return Zond 8 Oct. 20, 1970 Missed moon *Luna 17 Nov. 10, 1970 Unmanned lunar rover ?Luna 18 Sep. 2, 1971 Orbited moon for 54 orbits *Luna 19 Sep. 28, 1971 Lunar orbiter; photographed moon *Luna 20 Feb. 14, 1972 Lunar sample return *Luna 21 Jan. 8, 1973 Unmanned lunar rover *Luna 22 May 29, 1974 Lunar orbiter Luna 23 Oct. 28, 1974 Crashed on moon None Oct. 16, 1975 Lunar probe; failed to orbit *Luna 24 Aug. 9, 1976 Lunar sample return Table II. USA Unmanned Lunar Probes None Aug. 17, 1958 Lunar probe; first stage failed Pioneer 1 Oct. 11, 1958 Failed to reach moon; decayed Oct. 12, 1958 Pioneer 2 Nov. 8, 1958 Lunar probe; third stage ignition unsuccessful Pioneer 3 Dec. 6, 1958 Failed to reach moon; decayed Dec. 7, 1958 Pioneer 4 Dec. 6, 1958 Lunar probe; missed moon by 37,300 miles Ranger 1 Aug. 23, 1961 Never left earth orbit; decayed Aug. 30, 1961 Ranger 2 Nov. 18, 1961 Never left earth orbit; decayed Nov. 20, 1961 Ranger 3 Jan. 26, 1962 Lunar probe; missed moon by 22,862 miles Ranger 4 Apr. 23, 1962 Impacted on moon; experiments failed to work Ranger 5 Oct. 18, 1962 Lunar probe; missed moon by 450 miles Ranger 6 Jan. 30, 1964 Impacted on Moon; television system malfunctioned *Ranger 7 Jan. 30, 1964 Impacted on Moon; returned 4308 photos *Ranger 8 Feb. 17, 1965 Impacted on Moon; returned 7137 photos *Ranger 9 Mar. 21, 1965 Impacted on Moon; returned 5814 photos *Surveyor 1 May 30, 1966 Soft-landed on moon; returned photos for 44 days *Lunar Orbiter 1 Aug. 10, 1966 Lunar orbiter; returned data for 19 days Surveyor 2 Sep. 20, 1966 Crashed on moon *Lunar Orbiter 2 Nov. 6, 1966 Lunar orbiter; returned 205 frames *Lunar Orbiter 3 Feb. 4, 1967 Lunar orbiter; returned 182 frames *Surveyor 3 Apr. 17, 1967 Soft-landed on moon; returned photos and soil data *Lunar Orbiter 4 May 4, 1967 Lunar orbiter; returned 163 frames *Lunar Orbiter 5 Aug. 1, 1967 Lunar orbiter; orbited for 6 months *Surveyor 4 Apr. 17, 1967 Soft-landed on moon; returned photos and soil data *Surveyor 5 Sep. 8, 1967 Soft-landed on moon; returned photos and soil data *Surveyor 6 Nov. 7, 1967 Soft-landed on moon; first rocket takeoff from moon *Surveyor 7 Jan. 7, 1968 Soft-landed on moon; returned photos and soil data (and just for some comparison dates: *Apollo 11 Jul. 16, 1969 First manned landing on moon and return . . . *Apollo 17 Dec. 7, 1972 Last manned landing on moon and return) Doug Mink Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Cambridge, Massachusetts Internet: mink@cfa.harvard.edu Bitnet: mink@cfa SPAN: cfa::mink Phone: (617)495-7408