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31.01.2001
16:03 |
35 Years Since the First Soft Landing on the 
January 31, 1966 was the beginning of the history of successful space
flights to the Moon and, at the same time, an outstanding milestone in
the Space exploration. The Automatic Interplanetary Station LUNA-9 was
launched at space-vehicle launching site Baikonur on that day. Before
this launch there were 11 attempts to reach the Moon that failed. Most
of them the Soviet government tried to keep in secret. Only 30 years
later Russia admitted that a number of mysterious objects appearing,
from time to time, at near-earth orbits were, in fact, the failed
launchings of spacecrafts directed toward the Venus, the Mars, and the
Moon. Two stations achieved the Moon's surface but crashed while landing.
Only station No.13 succeeded in making a soft landing in the Ocean of
Storm on February 3, 1966. During the successive 2 days 7 series of
connection with the apparatus landed were carried out which resulted in
obtaining the very first panoramas of the Moon's surface.
The 1st successful landing of LUNA-9 was followed by 17 Russian and
American missions, 6 of them being piloted spaceships effected according
to the APOLLON project. The last landing on the MOON was dated back to
January, 1976. Now no one can say for certain about how and when any other
attempts might be undertaken.
Translated by Nataliya Lipunova
Alexandr Zhgeleznyakov
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