2 January 1959

Luna 1 was launched from Tyuratam at 16:41:21 UTC, 2 January 1959. (Sovfoto/UIG)

2 January 1959: First Cosmic Ship (which was later known as Мечта (Mechta, “Dream”) and today is called Luna 1) was launched from the Scientific-Research Test Range No. 5 at Tyuratam, Kazakhstan (later named the Baikonur Cosmodrome) at 16:41:21 UTC aboard a Vostok-L 8K72 three-stage launch vehicle.

Mechta was the fourth in a series of lunar probes, and was intended to impact the surface of the Moon.  It was spherical with a diameter of 0.9 meters (35.4 inches) and had several antennas. The probe weighed 361.3 kilograms (796.5 pounds). The probe carried a magnetometer, Geiger counter, scintillation detector and micrometeorite detector. It was powered by batteries. Radio telemetry equipment relayed the data to Earth.

Luna I probe installed in upper stage. (Don P. Mitchell)

Data received from the space probe revealed that The Moon has no magnetic field, and the existence of a “solar wind”, an ionized plasma coming from The Sun.

It was intended that the spacecraft would impact the lunar surface, but an error in programming the third stage burn time caused a near miss. After 34 hours of flight, at 02:59 4 January 1959 (UTC), the probe passed within 5,995 kilometers (3,725 miles) of the lunar surface at approximately 8,900 kilometers per hour (5,530 miles per hour). It then entered a solar (heliocentric) orbit between Earth and Mars, where it remains today, circling the Sun every 450.0 days.

Replica of Luna 1 on display at the Kosmos Pavilion of the Exhibition of Achievements of National Economy of the USSR. (RIA Novosti Archive)
Vostok-L 8K72 (RKK Energia)

The Vostok-L 8K72 was a modified R-7A Semyorka intercontinental ballistic missile. The R-7 rocket was designed by Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, known as The Chief Designer.

The 8K72 version consisted of two core stages with four external boosters. The first stage and each of the boosters were powered by a four-nozzle RD-107 rocket engine burning kerosene and liquid oxygen. Total thrust was approximately 1,100,775 pounds of thrust (4,896.49 kilonewtons). The second stage used a RD-0105 engine, producing 11,015 pounds of thrust (48.997 kilonewtons). The Luna 1 was propelled by a third stage which remained attached during the translunar coast phase of flight.

The first two stages were 30.84 meters (101.18 feet) high and weighed 277,000 kilograms (610,680 pounds). The Luna 1 third stage weighed 1,472 kilograms (3,245 pounds), empty. It was 5.2 meters (17.06 feet) long with a diameter of 2.4 meters (7.87 feet).

The 8K72 rocket was capable of launching a 4,000 kilogram (8,818.5 pound) payload into Low Earth Orbit. The last launch of an 8K72 was in 1960, but the current Soyuz launchers are based on this early rocket.

Luna 1 was the first space vehicle to reach escape velocity and leave Earth’s gravitational field; the first to reach the vicinity of the Moon, and the first man-made device to orbit the Sun.

The Chief Designer, Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, photographed in 1938. (The Russian State Archive of Scientific and Technical Documents)

© 2019, Bryan R. Swopes

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One thought on “2 January 1959

  1. Space Race, my favourite subject. Korolev was the soviet mastermind in the first ten years, but then his ego got in his way. First he fired all of the german rocket scientists (K. was quite a racist and chauvinist), and then he actively severed ties to almost everybody important in administration and industry (“Let´s make a compromise – make it like i tell you!”). His succesor was Mishin, his number two, a pale dud with no competence. The rest is history.

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