K-Gray Engineering Pathway Digital Library - Engineering Education Wing of the NSDL

Soviet Lunar Missions

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Audience/Grade: College Freshman - Continuing Education
Discipline(s): Aerospace Engineering
Engineering Mechanics
History of Science and Technology
Mechanical Engineering
Learning Resource Type: Reference - Visuals
Media Type:

 Image
Author(s): Dave Williams
Organization: NASA
Department: Goddard Space Flight Center
Description: "The Soviet Lunar program had 20 successful missions to the Moon and achieved a number of notable lunar "firsts": first probe to impact the Moon, first flyby and image of the lunar farside, first soft landing, first lunar orbiter, and the first circumlunar probe to return to Earth. The two successful series of Soviet probes were the Luna (24 lunar missions) and the Zond (5 lunar missions). NSSDC currently holds data from the Luna 3, 9, 13, 21, and 22 and the Zond 3, 6, 7, and 8 missions. All this data is photographic in nature, except for the lunar libration data from the Luna 21 Orbiter. Lunar flyby missions (Luna 3, Zond 3, 6, 7, 8) obtained photographs of the lunar surface, particularly the limb and farside regions. The Zond 6, 7, and 8 missions circled the Moon and returned to Earth where they were recovered, Zond 6 and 7 in Siberia and Zond 8 in the Indian Ocean. The purpose of the photography experiments on the lunar landers (Luna 9, 13, 22) was to obtain closeup images of the surface of the Moon for use in lunar studies and determination of the feasibility of manned lunar landings. " Image caption: first image of the far side of the Moon, taken by the Luna 3 spacecraft in October, 1959.
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Related Resources
Keywords: lunar landing, space mission, space craft, Luna
Is Component of Lunar Exploration
   
Usage Tip
Use of Resource: Part of NASA's Lunar Exploration educational website.
Difficulty: Easy
Interactivity Level: Low

   
Version Info
Publication Date: 2008
Platform/Format: WWW
Cost: Free
Download URL: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/lunarussr.html
Metadata: IEEE LOM Record
Collection: NEEDS NEEDS