My Science School

          We now know that reaching the Moon is not impossible. But it is not as easy as you may think. For a lunar probe to reach the Moon, it has to first escape Earth’s gravity. For this, the probe has to move at a great speed that can be achieved only by rockets.

         If the lunar probe is to land on the Moon safely, it has to slow down very much. Or else the probe will end up crash landing. In addition to that, returning to the Earth safely is another challenge. Rockets have to be used again to leave the Moon and the original spacecraft has to return to the atmosphere in such a way that it does not catch fire.

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          The Moon did not offer any favourable conditions for Man to stay there even for a minute. It did not have air to breathe or water to drink. Neither did it have an atmosphere to block the harmful radiations. Moreover, the Moon had extreme climatic conditions. Despite these adverse conditions, NASA aimed to send Man to the Moon.

          This project was named Apollo. Project Apollo was designed to land humans on the Moon and bring them back safely. They first had to aim for a precise point in space, or else the Moon would be missed altogether. The spacecraft had to travel 3,84,400 kilometres to reach the Moon.

          The Apollo programme consisted of a large number of unmanned test missions and eleven manned missions. Out of the manned missions, two were Earth orbiting missions. It had two lunar orbiting missions, one lunar swing-by and the others were moon landing missions.

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          For a long time, America had been dreaming about humans in space. Between 1958 and 1963, they carried out their first human spaceflight programme- Project Mercury. It aimed to put a man in the Earth’s orbit and bring him back safe. Project Mercury was taken over from the US Air Force and carried out by NASA.

          NASA conducted both developmental flights and flights by astronauts. Some of the flights made use of animals as well. Project Mercury managed to send six people to space.

          Project Mercury was followed by Project Gemini, NASA’s second spaceflight programme that began in 1961. This programme aimed at the development of the techniques of space travel that would come handy in the execution of the Apollo mission. The Gemini spacecraft had a two-astronaut crew. There were ten Gemini crews in total and all were successful.

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          In the late 1950s, the Soviet Union and the US were engaged in a war - not by the means of guns and bombs, but rather a war of science and technology. They competed with each other to see which was the more powerful and technologically advanced nation. The Space Race was a major event in this competition.

          Both the Soviet Union and the US competed to achieve several milestones in spaceflight capability. The space race led to many landmark achievements including the first space flight, the launch of artificial satellites and moon landing. The launch of Sputnik I by the Soviet Union in 1957 accelerated the Space Race. This was followed by unmanned satellites and later, the first dog into space.

          America went a step further by sending monkeys and bringing them back safe.

          The Soviet Union then sent the first man to space in 1961. His name was Yuri Gagarin. Eight years later, America sent the first man to the Moon.

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         NASA began the Surveyor program in 1966 to learn about the possibilities of soft landing on the surface of the Moon.

          In a span of less than two years, NASA sent seven robotic spacecraft to the Moon that carried cameras and a variety of instruments to determine surface physical properties for landings, and the physical and chemical analyses of lunar soils.

          The Surveyor program was carried out when the US was actively involved in the Space Race with the Soviet Union. Out of the seven, five achieved soft landing; these were the first American spacecraft to achieve soft landing on an extraterrestrial body. The Surveyor program was carried out by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in preparation of the Apollo program. All the seven were designed to stay on the Moon; the mission did not envisage their return to Earth.

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          The Lunar Orbiter program was a series of five lunar orbiter missions that were launched by the US between 1966 and 1967. All the five were unmanned and were planned to select landing sites for the Apollo mission by mapping the Moon’s surface.

          They were designed to acquire high resolution images. All the five missions were successful and the orbiter images supplanted all previous lunar maps and photo atlases. The Lunar Orbiters managed to map almost 99 per cent of the surface of the Moon. They provided close-up views with 10 to 100 times higher resolution than the best telescopic images. These images were also used for detailed lunar geology investigations from the late 1960s.

          The first three missions photographed 20 potential Apollo landing sites while the Lunar Orbiters 4 and 5 were sent to the far side of the Moon.

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         The Soviet Union and USA are pioneers in lunar explorations. However, America’s early missions to reach the Moon either failed or met with little success though they had strong scientific objectives.

           After a series of embarrassing failures, the last three spacecraft of the Ranger series - Ranger 7, Ranger 8 and Ranger 9— worked out as planned. All the three returned with high resolution photographs of the Moon. The quality of the photographs increased as the spacecraft moved closer to the Moon. The images showed craters, with the last images displaying craters less than a metre across. These were evidences of the impact origin of the lunar craters. There was no way that volcanism could produce similar craters of all sizes, hundreds of kilometres away from each other.

            The US launched five Lunar orbiters that were designed to acquire high resolution images of potential Apollo landing sites after the Ranger Mission. It looked for the views of special craters, rills and mountains, and 100 mm resolution images of much of the entire Moon. This was followed by Lunar Surveyors and the grand Apollo Mission.

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          While playing darts, you aim your dart to an exact point on the dart board. Or else, you will probably miss the target. But this won’t work for a spacecraft if it is to land on the Moon. Wonder why?

          Your dart board is a stationary object while the Moon is always in motion. In addition to that, a spacecraft always travels in a curve. Therefore the scientists always aim for a point in space. But they do not choose a random point. They calculate the time that the Moon would take to reach the exact point.

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          Luna 16, Luna 20 and Luna 24 had something in common- their ability to collect lunar soil and bring it back to the Earth for further analysis.

          Luna 16 was Soviet Union’s first robotic probe to collect samples of lunar soil from Mare Fecunditatis and return to the Earth. It was a huge success for the Soviet Union; Luna 16 marked the first fully automatic recovery of soil sample from the surface of a celestial body. Luna 20 was sent to the Moon in 1972, two years after the success of Luna 16. It returned soil samples from a mountainous area known as Terra Apollonius. It obtained lunar soil with the help of a drilling apparatus.

          Luna 24 was the last spacecraft that belonged to the Soviet Union’s Luna Programme. This probe was sent in 1976 and landed in Mare Crisium. The scientists of the Soviet Union claimed the presence of water in the lunar soil samples returned by Luna 24.

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          Landing on the Moon was Man’s eternal dream. But before that, a lot of things about the Moon had to be known. This was to reduce the risks an astronaut has to face when he landed on the Moon. Lunar probes were sent to the Moon to gather as much information as possible and to ensure the safety and success of a manned mission.

          Lunar probes were unmanned, computer controlled spacecraft. Much of what we know about the lunar environment comes from the studies conducted using these lunar probes. They confirmed that the surface of the Moon is firm enough for a spaceship to land.

          Some probes were put into an orbit around the Moon. These probes took a lot of pictures of our satellite from different angles that helped in finding a suitable site for landing a manned mission.

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          Luna 10 was the first spacecraft to not only orbit the Moon, but the first to orbit any celestial body other than the Earth. A probe sent to study the lunar environment; it confirmed the Moon’s lack of atmosphere. It also made the first measurements of the lunar soil composition.

          Luna 10 was a predecessor to astronaut orbital missions. It was 1.5 metres tall and the base was 75 centimetres in diameter. It contained seven instruments including devices for measuring infrared emissions from the Moon, low energy X-ray detectors, and a bank of charged particle detectors. A radio system was installed in Luna 10 for gravitational and radio occultation studies.

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          In earlier days, most often, when a probe hit the surface of the Moon, it was either damaged or destroyed completely. When the probe lands smoothly on the surface without damaging the vehicle or anything on board, it is said to have a soft landing.

          After a dozen failed attempts, Luna 9 made the first successful soft landing on the Moon. Luna 9 landed in Oceanus Procellarum, showing a rough surface free of deep dust. It also sent back the first close-up images of the Moon. This unmanned space mission was carried out by the Soviet Union in 1966.

          It was developed and designed under the guidance of Sergei Korolev. The spacecraft weighed 99 kilograms and it used a landing bag to reduce the impact of landing. But, it bounced several times before coming to rest.

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          The Soviet Union’s Moon mission advanced with each lunar probe. Luna 3 was another feather in the Soviet Union’s hat; it took the first ever photographs of the far side, the side of the Moon that can never be seen from the Earth.

          Luna 3 was the third space probe to be sent to the vicinity of the Moon. Though the pictures that it captured were of poor quality, Luna 3 did manage to create a lot of excitement when they were published. These photographs showed mountainous terrains that were very different from the near side.

          Luna 3 had a cylindrical shape with hemispherical ends, and both the ends held protruded antennas. The upper hemisphere held the cameras with temperature and radiation resistant films.

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          On 12 September 1959, the Soviet Union launched Luna 2. It became the first spacecraft to reach the surface of the Moon. Also, it was the first man-made object that made contact with another celestial body.

          It was the sixth spacecraft of the Soviet Union’s Luna Programme and was nicknamed Lunik 2. The other missions that either failed to launch or did not show good results were left unnamed. Luna 2 had a design similar to that of Luna 1. The spacecraft was spherical in shape and had antennas that projected outwards. The mission was not only a success; it also challenged the spacecraft technology of the Americans.

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          Between 1959 and 1976, the Soviet Union carried out a series of robotic spacecraft missions to the Moon known as the Luna Programme. Some of them were orbiters- designed to orbit the Moon- while others were landers-designed to land on the surface of the Moon.

          Out of the twenty-four spacecraft that were sent to the Moon, fifteen were successful. They performed several experiments to study various aspects of the Moon like chemical make-up, gravity, radiation and temperature.

          The failed missions were not given Luna numbers initially. The programme is credited with many notable ‘lunar firsts’ like the first image of the lunar far side, and the first lunar orbiter.

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