Daedalus (crater). Diameter: 93 km Depth: 3 km (NASA photo)

The moon has attracted the attention of people since ancient times. In the II century. BC e. Hipparchus studied the movement of the Moon across the starry sky, determining the inclination of the lunar orbit relative to the ecliptic, the size of the Moon and the distance from the Earth, and also identified a number of features of the movement.

The invention of telescopes made it possible to distinguish finer details of the lunar relief. One of the first lunar maps was compiled by Giovanni Riccioli in 1651, he also gave names to large dark areas, calling them “seas,” which we still use today. These toponyms reflected the long-standing idea that the weather on the Moon was similar to that on Earth, and the dark areas were supposedly filled with lunar water, and the light areas were considered land. However, in 1753, Croatian astronomer Ruđer Bošković proved that the Moon does not have an atmosphere. The fact is that when the stars are covered by the Moon, they disappear instantly. But if the Moon had an atmosphere, the stars would fade out gradually. This indicated that the satellite had no atmosphere. And in this case, there cannot be liquid water on the surface of the Moon, since it would instantly evaporate.

With the light hand of the same Giovanni Riccioli, craters began to be given the names of famous scientists: from Plato, Aristotle and Archimedes to Vernadsky, Tsiolkovsky and Pavlov.

A new stage in the study of the Moon was the use of photography in astronomical observations, starting in the mid-19th century. This made it possible to analyze the surface of the Moon in more detail using detailed photographs. Such photographs were taken, among others, by Warren de la Rue (1852) and Lewis Rutherford (1865). In 1881, Pierre Jansen compiled a detailed “Photographic Atlas of the Moon” [source not specified 1009 days].

Since the beginning of the space age, our knowledge of the Moon has increased significantly. The composition of the lunar soil became known, scientists received its samples, and a map of the reverse side was compiled.

The first glimpse of the far side of the Moon was possible in 1959, when the Soviet probe Luna 3 flew over it and photographed a part of its surface invisible from Earth.

In the early 1960s, it was obvious that the United States was lagging behind the USSR in space exploration. J. Kennedy said that a man would land on the Moon before 1970. To prepare for manned flight, NASA completed several space programs: Ranger (1961-1965) - surface photography, Surveyor (1966-1968) - soft landing and terrain surveys, and Lunar Orbiter (1966-1967) - detailed imaging surface of the Moon. Also in 1965-1966 there was a NASA project MOON-BLINK to study unusual phenomena (anomalies) on the surface of the Moon. Work was performed by Trident Engineering Associates (Annapolis, Maryland) under contract NAS 5-9613 dated June 1, 1965 from Goddard Space Flight Center (Greenbelt, Maryland).

The American manned mission to the Moon was called Apollo. The first landing occurred on July 20, 1969; the last one - in December 1972, the first person to set foot on the surface of the Moon was the American Neil Armstrong (July 21, 1969), the second was Edwin Aldrin. The third crew member, Michael Collins, remained in the orbital module. Thus, the Moon is the only celestial body visited by man, and the first celestial body whose samples were delivered to Earth (the USA delivered 380 kilograms, the USSR - 324 grams of lunar soil).

The USSR conducted research on the surface of the Moon using two radio-controlled self-propelled vehicles, Lunokhod-1, launched to the Moon in November 1970, and Lunokhod-2 in January 1973. Lunokhod-1 operated for 10.5 Earth months, “ Lunokhod-2" - 4.5 Earth months (that is, 5 lunar days and 4 lunar nights). Both devices collected and transmitted to Earth a large amount of data about the lunar soil and many photographs of details and panoramas of the lunar relief:26.

After the Soviet Luna-24 station delivered samples of lunar soil to Earth in August 1976, the next device, the Japanese Hiten satellite, flew to the Moon only in 1990. Then two American spacecraft were launched - Clementine in 1994 and Lunar Prospector in 1998.

On September 28, 2003, the European Space Agency launched its first automatic interplanetary station (AMS), Smart-1. On September 14, 2007, Japan launched its second lunar exploration station, Kaguya. And on October 24, 2007, the PRC also entered the lunar race - the first Chinese lunar satellite, Chang'e-1, was launched. With the help of this and the next stations, scientists are creating a three-dimensional map of the lunar surface, which in the future may contribute to an ambitious project of colonization of the Moon. On October 22, 2008, the first Indian satellite, Chandrayaan-1, was launched. In 2010, China launched the second AMS Chang'e-2.

Apollo 17 landing site. Visible are: the descent module, ALSEP research equipment, car wheel tracks and foot tracks of astronauts.

On June 18, 2009, NASA launched the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS). The satellites are designed to collect information about the lunar surface, search for water and suitable locations for future lunar expeditions. On the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 flight, the automatic interplanetary station LRO completed a special task - it photographed the landing areas of lunar modules of earthly expeditions. Between July 11 and July 15, LRO took and transmitted to Earth the first-ever detailed orbital images of the lunar modules themselves, landing sites, pieces of equipment left behind by expeditions on the surface, and even traces of the cart, rover, and earthlings themselves. During this time, 5 of the 6 landing sites were photographed: expeditions Apollo 11, 14, 15, 16, 17. Later, the LRO spacecraft took even more detailed photographs of the surface, where not only the landing modules and equipment with traces of the lunar vehicle are clearly visible, but also walking tracks of the astronauts themselves. On October 9, 2009, the LCROSS spacecraft and the Centaurus upper stage made a planned fall onto the lunar surface into the Cabeus crater, located approximately 100 km from the lunar south pole, and therefore constantly located in deep shadow. On November 13, NASA announced that water had been discovered on the Moon using this experiment.

Private companies are starting to explore the Moon. The global Google Lunar X PRIZE competition was announced to create a small lunar rover, in which several teams from different countries are participating, including the Russian Selenokhod. There are plans to organize space tourism with flights around the Moon on Russian ships - first on the modernized Soyuz, and then on the promising universal Perspective Manned Transport System being developed.

>> Exploration of the Moon

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Consider scientific space lunar exploration– Earth’s satellite: the first flight to the Moon and the first man, description of research by devices with photos, important dates.

The Moon is located closest to the Earth, therefore it has become the main object of space exploration and one of the goals of the race between the USA and the USSR. The first devices were launched in the 1950s. and these were primitive mechanisms. But technology did not stand still, which led to Neil Armstrong’s first step on the lunar surface.

In 1959, the Soviet Luna-1 spacecraft was sent to the satellite, flying past at a distance of 3,725 km. This mission is important because it showed that Earth's neighbor lacks a magnetic field.

First moon landing

That same year, Luna 2 was sent, which landed on the surface and recorded several craters. The first blurry photos of the Moon arrived with the third mission. In 1962, the first American probe, Ranger 4, arrived. But it was a suicide bomber. Scientists specifically sent it to the surface to get more data.

Ranger 7 departed 2 years later and transmitted 4,000 images before its death. In 1966, Luna 9 landed safely on the surface. Scientific instruments not only sent back better images, but also studied the features of the alien world.

Successful American missions were the Surveyor (1966-1968), which explored the soil and landscape. Also in 1966-1967. American probes were sent and settled in orbit. This way we managed to fix 99% of the surface. This was the period of exploration of the Moon by spacecraft. Having obtained a sufficient database, it was time to send the first man to the Moon.

Man on the Moon

On July 20, 1969, the first people arrived at the satellite - Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, after which American exploration of the Moon began. The Apollo 11 mission landed in the Sea of ​​Tranquility. Later, a lunar rover will arrive, which will allow us to move faster. Until 1972, 5 missions and 12 people managed to arrive. Conspiracy theorists are still trying to figure out whether Americans were on the moon by providing the latest research and scrutinizing videos. There is no exact refutation of the flight yet, so we will consider Neil Armstrong’s first step as a breakthrough in space research.

This breakthrough allowed us to focus on other objects. But in 1994, NASA returned to the lunar theme. The Clementine mission was able to image the surface layer at different wavelengths. Since 1999, Lunar Prospector has been searching for ice.

Today, interest in the celestial body is returning and new space exploration of the Moon is being prepared. In addition to America, India, China, Japan and Russia are also looking at the satellite. There is already talk of colonies, and people will be able to return to Earth's satellite in the 2020s. Below you can see a list of spacecraft sent to the Moon and significant dates.

Significant dates:

• 1609– Thomas Harriot became the first to point a telescope into the sky and image the Moon. Later he would create the first maps;
• 1610– Galileo issues a publication of observations of the satellite (Star Herald);
• 1959-1976– The US lunar program of 17 robotic missions reached the surface and returned samples three times;
• 1961-1968– American launches prepare the way for the launch of the first people to the Moon as part of the Apollo program;
• 1969– Neil Armstrong became the first person to set foot on the lunar surface;
• 1994-1999– Clementine and Lunar Reconnaissance transmit data about the possibility of water ice at the poles;
• 2003– SMART-1 from ESA produces data on the main lunar chemical constituents;
• 2007-2008– The Japanese Kaguya spacecraft and the Chinese Shanye-1 launch one-year orbital missions. They will be followed by the Indian Shandrayaan-1;
• 2008– The NASA Lunar Science Institute is formed to lead all lunar exploration missions;
• 2009– NASA's LRO and LCROSS launch together to recapture the satellite. In October, a second device was placed over the shadowed side near the south pole, which helped find water ice;
• 2011– Sending the CRAIL spacecraft to image the inner lunar part (from the crust to the core). NASA launches ARTEMIS, focused on surface composition;
• 2013– NASA's LADEE probe is being sent to collect information about the structure and composition of the thin lunar atmospheric layer. The mission ended in April 2014;
• December 14, 2013– China became the third country to lower the device onto the surface of the satellite – Utah;

Even before the start of the space age, people dreamed of flying to the Moon and the planets of the solar system. Many scientists created projects for spaceships, artists painted imaginary pictures of the first people landing on the Moon, science fiction writers proposed in their novels various ways to achieve their cherished goal. But no one could seriously assume that people would actually go to the Moon at a fairly early stage of space exploration. And this happened... But first things first.

FIRST FLIGHTS TO THE MOON.

On January 2, 1959, the Vostok-L launch vehicle was launched in the Soviet Union, which placed the AMS on a flight path to the Moon "Luna-1". The station also had names "Luna-1D" and, as the journalists called her, "Dream"(in fact, this is the fourth attempt to launch to the Moon, three previous ones: "Luna-1A"- September 23, 1958, "Luna-1B"- October 11, 1958, "Luna-1C"- December 4, 1958 ended in failure due to launch vehicle accidents). "Luna-1" passed at a distance of 6000 kilometers from the surface of the Moon and entered a heliocentric orbit. Despite the fact that the station did not hit the Moon, the AMS "Luna-1" became the world's first spacecraft to reach the second cosmic speed, overcome the Earth's gravity and become an artificial satellite of the Sun. A special device installed on the last stage of the launch vehicle ejected a sodium cloud at an altitude of about 100 thousand km. This artificial comet was visible from Earth.

On September 12, 1959, an automatic station launched to the satellite of our planet "Luna-2" ("Lunnik-2") . She reached the Moon and delivered to its surface a pennant depicting the coat of arms of the USSR. For the first time the Earth-Moon route was laid, for the first time the eternal peace of another celestial body was disturbed. , was a sphere made of aluminum-magnesium alloy with a diameter of 1.2 m. Three simple instruments were installed on it (magnetometer, scintillation counters and Geiger counters, micrometeorite detectors), two of which were mounted on remote rods. The 390 kg device was attached to the upper stage of the launch vehicle throughout its rapid flight to the Moon, and it pierced the lunar surface at a speed of over 3 km/s. Radio contact with him was lost near the edge of the Imbrium Sea, not far from the Archimedes crater.

Left and center: The first spacecraft to fall on the lunar surface was the Soviet Luna 2, attached to the last stage of the launch vehicle. This happened on September 13, 1959.
On right:"Luna-3", which accounted for another triumph of the USSR - the world's first photographs of the far side of the Moon.

The next triumph went to "Lune-3", launched in less than a month. This device weighing 278 kg had a length of 1.3 m and a diameter of 1.2 m. On its body first In the history of Soviet cosmonautics, solar panels were installed. Also first the automatic spacecraft was equipped with an orientation system. It included optical sensors that “saw” the Sun and the Moon, and orientation micromotors that maintained the station in a strictly defined position when the lens of the photo-television device was pointed at. The main device was a photo-television camera transmitting individual frames, which turned on on October 7 at a distance of 65,000 km from the Moon. Within 40 minutes, 29 frames were taken (according to some sources, only 17 were satisfactorily received on Earth), which mainly contained images of the far side of the Moon, which no one had seen before . The camera's process was that 35mm film was developed, fixed and dried on board, and then illuminated by a light beam and converted into an analog television image with a resolution of 1000 lines, which was transmitted to Earth.

For the first time in history, humanity has seen about 70 percent of the far side of the Moon. Of course, compared to modern image transmission methods, the signal quality was poor and noise levels were high. But despite this, the flight "Luna-3" was a remarkable achievement, marking an entire stage of the space age.

As a result of the very first flights to the Moon, it was established that it does not have a magnetic field or radiation belts. Measurements of the total flux of cosmic radiation carried out along the flight path and near the Moon provided new information about cosmic rays and particles, and about micrometeors in outer space.

The next significant achievement was Close-up shots of the Moon . July 31, 1964 apparatus "Ranger 7" weighing 366 kg, pierced the surface of the Sea of ​​Clouds at a speed of 9316 km/h after transmitting 4316 frames to Earth. The last image showed a mottled surface dotted with hundreds of small craters. The image quality was thousands of times higher than images from the best telescopes on Earth. After "Ranger 7" equally successful flights followed Rangers 8 and 9 . Devices "Ranger" were built on the same "Marinera 2" , a base above which a tower-like cone-shaped superstructure 1.5 m high rose. At its end was a television system of six cameras weighing a total of 173 kg. The images obtained using transmitting television tubes were directly broadcast to Earth.

Ranger 7, Luna 9 (model) and Surveyor 1

First soft landing on the Moon was carried out by the Soviet "Luna-9", although strictly speaking, it cannot be called soft. The Luna-9 descent capsule weighing 100 kg, inside which a television camera weighing 1.5 kg was installed, was docked with the last stage of the main apparatus throughout the entire flight to the Moon. On approach to the surface, the braking engine with a thrust of 4600 kg was switched on, reducing the descent speed. At an altitude of 5 meters above the surface, the capsule was fired from the main apparatus, landing at a vertical speed of 22 km/h. When the capsule stopped its movement on the surface of the Moon, its body opened like four petals of a flower, and the television camera began filming the lunar surface. Its speed was comparable to the image transmission speed of modern fax machines. The camera rotated, making one revolution in 1 hour 40 minutes, shooting a circular panorama with a resolution of 6000 lines and a perspective range of 1.5 km. On the dust-covered surface of the Moon lay many small stones of various sizes. This proved that lunar dust, at least in the Ocean of Storms, does not form a deep layer. Thus, "Luna-9" transmitted to Earth the first panoramic images of the lunar surface .

The first truly soft landing was the landing of the American "Surveyera 1" in June 1966 using a landing engine. In total, five people made a soft landing in different areas of the Moon. "Surveyers" . They transmitted valuable images to Earth that helped the program management "Apollo" select landing sites for manned descent vehicles. Their data was supplemented during surprisingly successful flights "Lunar orbiters" . But the USSR wanted to be the first in lunar orbit, so on March 31, 1966 it was launched "Luna-10" .

"Luna-10" became the world's first artificial lunar satellite. For the first time, data have been obtained on the general chemical composition of the Moon based on the nature of gamma radiation from its surface. 460 orbits around the Moon were made. Communication with the device ceased on May 30, 1966.

Forty years ago - July 20, 1969 - man set foot on the surface of the Moon for the first time. NASA's Apollo 11, with a crew of three astronauts (commander Neil Armstrong, lunar module pilot Edwin Aldrin and command module pilot Michael Collins), became the first to reach the Moon in the USSR-US space race.

Not being self-luminous, the Moon is visible only in the part where the sun's rays fall, either directly or reflected by the Earth. This explains the phases of the moon.

Every month, the Moon, moving in orbit, passes approximately between the Sun and the Earth and faces the Earth with its dark side, at which time the new moon occurs. One to two days after this, a narrow bright crescent of the “young” Moon appears in the western sky.

The rest of the lunar disk is at this time dimly illuminated by the Earth, which is turned toward the Moon with its daytime hemisphere; This is a faint glow of the Moon - the so-called ashen light of the Moon. After 7 days, the Moon moves away from the Sun by 90 degrees; the first quarter of the lunar cycle begins, when exactly half of the lunar disk is illuminated and the terminator, i.e., the dividing line between the light and dark sides, becomes straight - the diameter of the lunar disk. In the following days, the terminator becomes convex, the appearance of the Moon approaches a bright circle, and after 14-15 days the full moon occurs. Then the western edge of the Moon begins to decline; on the 22nd day the last quarter is observed, when the Moon is again visible in a semicircle, but this time with its convex face facing the east. The angular distance of the Moon from the Sun decreases, it again becomes a tapering crescent, and after 29.5 days the new moon occurs again.

The points of intersection of the orbit with the ecliptic are called the ascending and descending nodes, have an uneven retrograde motion and make a full revolution along the ecliptic in 6794 days (about 18.6 years), as a result of which the Moon returns to the same node after a time interval - the so-called draconic month - shorter than the sidereal month and on average equal to 27.21222 days; This month is associated with the frequency of solar and lunar eclipses.

The visual magnitude (a measure of illumination created by a celestial body) of the full Moon at an average distance is - 12.7; It sends 465,000 times less light to Earth during a full moon than the Sun.

Depending on what phase the Moon is in, the amount of light decreases much faster than the area of ​​the illuminated part of the Moon, so when the Moon is at quarter and we see half of its disk bright, it is sending to Earth not 50%, but only 8 % of light from the full moon.

The color index of moonlight is +1.2, i.e. it is noticeably redder than sunlight.

The Moon rotates relative to the Sun with a period equal to a synodic month, so a day on the Moon lasts almost 15 days and the night lasts the same amount.

Not being protected by the atmosphere, the surface of the Moon heats up to +110° C during the day and cools down to -120° C at night, however, as radio observations have shown, these huge temperature fluctuations penetrate only a few dm deep due to the extremely weak thermal conductivity of the surface layers. For the same reason, during total lunar eclipses, the heated surface quickly cools, although some places retain heat longer, probably due to high heat capacity (so-called “hot spots”).

Relief of the Moon

Even with the naked eye, irregular darkish extended spots are visible on the Moon, which were mistaken for seas: the name was preserved, although it was established that these formations have nothing in common with the seas of the Earth. Telescopic observations, which were started in 1610 by Galileo Galilei, made it possible to discover the mountainous structure of the lunar surface.

It turned out that the seas are plains of a darker shade than other areas, sometimes called continental (or mainland), replete with mountains, most of which are ring-shaped (craters).

Based on many years of observations, detailed maps of the Moon were compiled. The first such maps were published in 1647 by Jan Hevelius (German: Johannes Hevel, Polish: Jan Heweliusz) in Danzig (modern Gdansk, Poland). Retaining the term “seas,” he also assigned names to the main lunar ridges - after similar terrestrial formations: the Apennines, the Caucasus, the Alps.

Giovanni Batista Riccioli from Ferrara (Italy) in 1651 gave fantastic names to the vast dark lowlands: Ocean of Storms, Sea of ​​Crises, Sea of ​​Tranquility, Sea of ​​Rains and so on; he called smaller dark areas adjacent to the seas bays, for example , Rainbow Bay, and small irregular spots are swamps, such as the Swamp of Rot. He named individual mountains, mostly ring-shaped, after prominent scientists: Copernicus, Kepler, Tycho Brahe and others.

These names have been preserved on lunar maps to this day, and many new names of outstanding people and scientists of later times have been added. On maps of the far side of the Moon, compiled from observations made from space probes and artificial satellites of the Moon, the names of Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky, Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin and others appeared. Detailed and accurate maps of the Moon were compiled from telescopic observations in the 19th century by German astronomers Johann Heinrich Madler, Johann Schmidt and others.

The maps were compiled in an orthographic projection for the middle phase of libration, i.e. approximately as the Moon is visible from the Earth.

At the end of the 19th century, photographic observations of the Moon began. In 1896–1910, a large atlas of the Moon was published by French astronomers Morris Loewy and Pierre Henri Puiseux based on photographs taken at the Paris Observatory; later, a photographic album of the Moon was published by the Lick Observatory in the USA, and in the mid-20th century, the Dutch astronomer Gerard Copier compiled several detailed atlases of photographs of the Moon taken with large telescopes at various astronomical observatories. With the help of modern telescopes, craters measuring about 0.7 kilometers in size and cracks a few hundred meters wide can be seen on the Moon.

Craters on the lunar surface have different relative ages: from ancient, barely visible, highly reworked formations to very clear-cut young craters, sometimes surrounded by light “rays”. At the same time, young craters overlap older ones. In some cases, the craters are cut into the surface of the lunar maria, and in others, the rocks of the seas cover the craters. Tectonic ruptures either dissect craters and seas, or are themselves overlapped by younger formations. The absolute age of lunar formations is known so far only at a few points.

Scientists were able to establish that the age of the youngest large craters is tens and hundreds of millions of years, and the bulk of large craters arose in the “pre-marine” period, i.e. 3-4 billion years ago.

Both internal forces and external influences took part in the formation of lunar relief forms. Calculations of the thermal history of the Moon show that soon after its formation, the interior was heated by radioactive heat and was largely melted, which led to intense volcanism on the surface. As a result, giant lava fields and a number of volcanic craters were formed, as well as numerous cracks, ledges and more. At the same time, a huge number of meteorites and asteroids fell on the surface of the Moon in the early stages - the remnants of a protoplanetary cloud, the explosions of which created craters - from microscopic holes to ring structures with a diameter of several tens of meters to hundreds of kilometers. Due to the absence of an atmosphere and hydrosphere, a significant part of these craters has survived to this day.

Nowadays, meteorites fall on the Moon much less frequently; volcanism also largely ceased as the Moon used up a lot of thermal energy and radioactive elements were carried into the outer layers of the Moon. Residual volcanism is evidenced by the outflow of carbon-containing gases in lunar craters, spectrograms of which were first obtained by the Soviet astronomer Nikolai Aleksandrovich Kozyrev.

The study of the properties of the Moon and its environment began in 1966 - the Luna-9 station was launched, transmitting panoramic images of the lunar surface to Earth.

The stations “Luna-10” and “Luna-11” (1966) were involved in studies of cislunar space. Luna 10 became the first artificial satellite of the Moon.

At this time, the United States was also developing a lunar exploration program called The Apollo Program. It was the American astronauts who were the first to set foot on the surface of the planet. On July 21, 1969, as part of the Apollo 11 lunar mission, Neil Alden Armstrong and his partner Edwin Eugene Aldrin spent 2.5 hours on the Moon.

The next stage in lunar exploration was the sending of radio-controlled self-propelled vehicles to the planet. In November 1970, Lunokhod-1 was delivered to the Moon, which covered a distance of 10,540 m in 11 lunar days (or 10.5 months) and transmitted a large number of panoramas, individual photographs of the lunar surface and other scientific information. The French reflector installed on it made it possible to measure the distance to the Moon using a laser beam with an accuracy of a fraction of a meter.

In February 1972, the Luna 20 station delivered to Earth samples of lunar soil, taken for the first time in a remote area of ​​the Moon.

In February of the same year, the last manned flight to the Moon took place. The flight was carried out by the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft. In total, 12 people have visited the Moon.

In January 1973, Luna 21 delivered Lunokhod 2 to the Lemonier crater (Sea of ​​Clarity) for a comprehensive study of the transition zone between the marine and continental regions. Lunokhod-2 operated for 5 lunar days (4 months) and covered a distance of about 37 kilometers.

In August 1976, the Luna-24 station delivered samples of lunar soil to Earth from a depth of 120 centimeters (the samples were obtained by drilling).

Since that time, there has been virtually no study of the Earth's natural satellite.

Only two decades later, in 1990, Japan sent its artificial satellite Hiten to the Moon, becoming the third “lunar power”. Then there were two more American satellites - Clementine (1994) and Lunar Prospector (1998). At this point, flights to the Moon were suspended.

On September 27, 2003, the European Space Agency launched the SMART-1 probe from Kourou (Guiana, Africa). On September 3, 2006, the probe completed its mission and made a manned fall onto the lunar surface. Over the three years of operation, the device transmitted to Earth a lot of information about the lunar surface, and also carried out high-resolution cartography of the Moon.

Currently, the study of the Moon has received a new start. Programs for the development of the earth's satellite operate in Russia, the USA, Japan, China, and India.

According to the head of the Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), Anatoly Perminov, the concept for the development of Russian manned space exploration provides for a program for the exploration of the Moon in 2025-2030.

Legal issues of lunar exploration

Legal issues of lunar exploration are regulated by the “Outer Space Treaty” (full name “Treaty on the principles of the activities of states in the exploration and use of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies”). It was signed on January 27, 1967 in Moscow, Washington and London by the depositary states - the USSR, the USA and the UK. On the same day, other states began joining the treaty.

According to it, the exploration and use of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, is carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries, regardless of the degree of their economic and scientific development, and space and celestial bodies are open to all states without any discrimination on the basis of equality .

The Moon, in accordance with the provisions of the Outer Space Treaty, must be used “exclusively for peaceful purposes,” and any military activities on it are excluded. The list of activities prohibited on the Moon, given in Article IV of the Treaty, includes the deployment of nuclear weapons or any other types of weapons of mass destruction, the creation of military bases, structures and fortifications, the testing of any types of weapons and the conduct of military maneuvers.

Private property on the Moon

The sale of parts of the Earth's natural satellite began in 1980, when American Denis Hope discovered a California law from 1862, according to which no one's property passed into the possession of the one who first laid claim to it.

The Outer Space Treaty, signed in 1967, stated that “outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation,” but there was no clause stating that space objects could not be privately privatized, which and allowed Hope register ownership of the moon and all the planets of the solar system, excluding Earth.

Hope opened a Lunar Embassy in the United States and organized wholesale and retail trade in the lunar surface. He successfully runs his “lunar” business, selling plots on the Moon to those interested.

To become a citizen of the Moon, you need to purchase a plot of land, receive a notarized certificate of ownership, a lunar map with the designation of the plot, its description, and even the “Lunar Bill of Constitutional Rights.” You can obtain lunar citizenship for some money by purchasing a lunar passport.

Title is registered at the Lunar Embassy in Rio Vista, California, USA. The process of processing and receiving documents takes from two to four days.

At the moment, Mr. Hope is busy creating the Lunar Republic and promoting it to the UN. The still-failed republic has its own national holiday - Lunar Independence Day, which is celebrated on November 22.

Currently, a standard plot on the Moon has an area of ​​1 acre (just over 40 acres). Since 1980, about 1,300 thousand plots have been sold out of the approximately 5 million that were “cut” on the map of the illuminated side of the Moon.

It is known that among the owners of lunar plots are American presidents Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, members of six royal families and about 500 millionaires, mainly from among Hollywood stars - Tom Hanks, Nicole Kidman, Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Harrison Ford, George Lucas, Mick Jagger, Clint Eastwood, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dennis Hopper and others.

Lunar missions opened in Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus, and more than 10 thousand residents of the CIS became owners of lunar lands. Among them are Oleg Basilashvili, Semyon Altov, Alexander Rosenbaum, Yuri Shevchuk, Oleg Garkusha, Yuri Stoyanov, Ilya Oleynikov, Ilya Lagutenko, as well as cosmonaut Viktor Afanasyev and other famous figures.

The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources

Less than a year and a half passed from the launch of the first Earth satellite to the start of exploration of the Moon by spacecraft. And this is not surprising since the Moon is the closest object to the Earth and a very unusual object for the Solar System: the Earth/Moon mass ratio exceeds all other planetary satellites and is 81/1 - the closest such indicator is only 4226/1 for the Saturn cluster /Titanium.

Due to the fact that volcanic activity on the Moon quickly disappeared (due to its relatively small mass), its surface is very ancient and is estimated at almost 4.5 billion years, and the absence of an atmosphere leads to the accumulation on the surface of meteorites whose age and composition can reach and even exceed the age of the solar system itself. All this, in addition to the proximity of the Moon to us, aroused active scientific interest among people and a desire to explore it: the total number of spacecraft sent to study it (including failed missions) already exceeds 90 pieces. And it is about all their diversity that we will talk today.

First steps

Discussion of the failure of the Luna-8 station from the book “Korolev: Facts and Myths” by Y. K. Golovanov, a journalist who almost became an astronaut:

The first artificial satellite of the Earth (left), and the Luna-1 station (right)

The same spherical shape, the same four antennas... but in fact there was little in common between the two satellites: Sputnik 1 only had a radio transmitter, while Luna 1 already had several scientific instruments installed. With their help, it was first established that the Moon does not have a magnetic field and the solar wind was recorded for the first time. Also during its flight, an experiment was carried out to create an artificial comet: at a distance of about 120 thousand km from Earth, a cloud of sodium vapor weighing about 1 kg was released from the station, which was recorded as an object of 6th magnitude.

The Luna-1 station is assembled with block “E” - the third stage of the Vostok-L launch vehicle, with the help of which the Luna-2 and Luna-3 stations were also launched.

Film dedicated to the Luna-1 station

Initially, Luna-1 was supposed to be crashed onto its surface, but during the preparation of the flight the delay of the signal from the MCC to the device was not taken into account (at that time radio command control from the ground was used) and the engines fired a little later than necessary led to a miss of 6 thousand km - which Well, “rocket science” has never been a simple matter...

On March 3, 1959, the American apparatus Pioneer-4 was sent along the same flight path with a set of second cosmic speed. His goal was to study the Moon from the flyby trajectory, but a miss of as much as 60 thousand km led to the fact that the photoelectric sensor could not detect the Moon and photographing it failed, however, the Geiger counter established that the lunar environs did not differ in the level of radiation from the interplanetary medium.

Assembly of the Pioneer-3 apparatus - a complete analogue of the Pioneer-4

On September 12, 1959, the Luna-2 station was launched. In addition to hitting the Moon, she was given an additional task - to deliver the USSR pennant to the Moon. At that time, the orientation and orbit correction systems were not yet ready, so the impact was expected to be serious - with a speed of more than 3 km/s. The developers of the device used two technical tricks: 1) the pennants were placed on the surface of two balls with a diameter of about 10 and 15 cm:

When “touching” the Moon, the explosive charge inside these balls detonated, which allowed some of the pennants to reduce their speed relative to the Moon.

2) Another solution involved the use of aluminum tape 25 cm long on which inscriptions were applied. The tape itself was placed in a durable housing filled with liquid with a density similar to that of the tape, and this housing, in turn, was placed in a less durable one. At the moment of impact, the outer casing was crushed and absorbed the impact energy. The liquid served as an additional shock absorber and made it possible to be confident in the safety of the tape. This entire structure was placed on the third stage of the rocket, which put the station on a flight path to the Moon. The fact that the station and the last stage hit the Moon was recorded, but nothing is known about how well the pennants were preserved. Perhaps in the future an expedition of astronautics historians will be able to answer this question.

By October 7, 1959, the first photographs of the far side of the Moon were obtained using the Luna-3 station, which launched on October 4, like all other missions of the Luna program, from Baikonur. It weighed 287 kilograms and was already equipped with a full-fledged orientation system for the Sun and Moon, providing an accuracy of 0.5 degrees when shooting. The station used gravity assist for the first time:

The flight trajectory of the Luna-3 station - this trajectory was calculated under the leadership of Keldysh in order to ensure that the station would fly over the territory of the USSR when it returned to Earth. The next gravity assist maneuver will be performed only by Mariner 10, flying near Venus on February 5, 1974.

The method by which the shooting was carried out was interesting: first, the pictures were taken using photographic equipment, then the film was developed and digitized using a traveling beam camera, after which it was transmitted to Earth. To avoid the risk of the device breaking down before returning to Earth (the flight to the Moon and back took more than a week), two communication modes were provided: slow (when the device was near the Moon, far from the receiving station) and fast (for communication when the device was flying over over the USSR). The decision to duplicate the communication systems turned out to be absolutely correct - the station was able to transmit only 17 of the 29 pictures it took, after which the connection with it was interrupted and it was no longer possible to restore it.

The world's first photograph of the far side of the Moon. The photo was of mediocre quality due to signal transmission interference. But subsequent photos were much better:

As a result, using these 17 images, we were able to construct a fairly detailed map:

High-resolution photographs of the visible side of the Moon were taken by Ranger 7, launched on July 28, 1964. Since this was the only purpose of this device, as many as 6 television cameras were installed on board, which managed to transmit 4,300 images of the Moon in the last 17 minutes of flight before the collision .

The process of approaching the Moon (video accelerated)

The shooting was carried out right up to the collision, but due to the high speed of the station relative to the Moon, the last image was taken from a height of approximately 488 meters and was not fully transmitted:

Ranger 8 and Ranger 9 were launched for exactly the same purpose (February 17 and March 21, 1965, respectively).

Better images of the far side of the Moon were obtained by the Zond-3 station launched on July 18, 1965. Initially, this station was prepared together with Probe 2 for a flight to Mars, but due to problems, the launch window was missed and Probe 3 went around the Moon. To test the new communication system, photographs received by the station were transmitted to Earth several times.

Photo taken by Zond-3

Soft landing and soil delivery

Due to the fact that nothing was known about the surface of the Moon, the landing process was quite intricate:

The complexity of the landing system did not go unnoticed: from the landing station of 1.5 tons, there remained an ALS weighing only 100 kg, which on the surface looked something like this:

Since the illumination on the Moon changes extremely slowly (the Moon rotates only 1° relative to the Sun in 2 hours), it was decided to use an optical-mechanical imaging system that was much more reliable, lighter and consumed less energy. Its slow operating speed even turned out to be a positive factor - a slow communication channel was sufficient for data transmission, so the ALS could get by with omnidirectional antennas.

The first photograph of the lunar surface was a circular panorama with a resolution of 500 by 6000 pixels; it took 100 minutes to take one photograph. The television camera had a viewing angle of 29° vertically, in addition to which the design of the device provided for its inclination by 16° relative to the vertical of the area - so that it could capture both a distant panorama and nearby surface microrelief:

Click on the full panorama of the Moon. Additional photographs of the station's structure can be seen, and the camera itself filming looked like this:

At the moment, enthusiasts from NASA are going to look for the flight block and the remains of the station's inflatable shock absorber using photographs of LRO (the device itself is too small to be seen - in LRO photographs it should look like 2 * 2 pixels).

The Americans managed to land the Surveyor-1 lander by June 2 (4 months after our station). There were many sensors installed on it:

The device itself carried out landing from the flight trajectory, so instruments for this purpose were installed on it: the main engine (dropped at an altitude of 10 km), steering engines and an altimeter/speed sensor. The landing supports were made of aluminum honeycomb to soften the impact during landing. Among the target equipment of the devices were a television camera, a sensor for analyzing light reflected from the surface (to determine the chemical composition of the soil) and sensors for determining surface temperature. Starting from the third apparatus, a sampler was also installed with which trenches were made to determine the properties of the soil. Of the 7 Surveyors sent to the Moon before February 1968, two crashed while braking near the Moon, and the remaining 5 landed and completed their tasks to explore the Moon.

On March 31, 1966, the Luna-10 station was launched, which by April 3, for the first time in history, entered the orbit of our satellite. It had a gamma spectrometer, a magnetometer, a meteorite detector, and an instrument for studying the solar wind and infrared radiation of the Moon. Studies of gravitational anomalies of the Moon (mascons) were also carried out. The total duration of the mission was about 3 months. For the same purpose, the Luna-11 and Luna-12 stations were launched (August 24 and October 22, respectively).

General view of the station with the transfer stage and its design. This transfer stage was also used in stations from Luna-4 to Luna-9 inclusive.

Since August 10, 1966, five devices of the Lunar Orbiter series have been sent to the Moon. Like Soviet stations, they used photographic film for filming. Since they were launched already as part of the preparation of the Apollo program, cartography of the Moon primarily included photographs of future landing sites for the Lunar Modules. Their operation time was less than two weeks, the images had a resolution of up to 20 meters and covered 99% of the entire lunar surface, and images were taken for 36 potential landing sites with a resolution of 2 meters.

The device itself was quite large: with a total structure weight of only 385.6 kg, the span of the solar panels was 3.72 meters, and the directional antenna was 1.32 meters in diameter. The photographic equipment had two lenses for simultaneous wide-angle and high-resolution shots. This system was developed by Kodak based on the optical reconnaissance systems of the U-2 and SR-71 aircraft.

Additionally, they had micrometeorite detectors and a radio beacon to measure gravitational conditions near the Moon (with which mascons were also spotted). They threatened the safety of the astronauts, since a landing without taking them into account according to the calculations could lead to a deviation of 2 km instead of the standard 200 m. A painstaking study of the orbits of the devices made it possible to measure the influence of the mascons and increase the accuracy of the landing - Apollo 12 was already able to land with a deviation of only 163 meters from your goal.

On July 19, 1967, in parallel with the Surveyor and Lunar Orbiter programs, Explorer-35 was launched, which operated in lunar orbit for 6 years - until June 24, 1973. The device was intended to study the magnetic field, the composition of the surface layers of the Moon (based on the reflected electromagnetic signal), register ionizing particles, measure the characteristics of micrometeorites (by speed, direction and rotational moment) and also study the solar wind.

The next Soviet spacecraft aimed at the Moon was Zond 5, launched on September 15, 1968. The device was a Soyuz 7K-L1 spacecraft launched by a Proton launch vehicle and was intended to fly around the Moon. In addition to testing the ship itself, it also had a scientific purpose: it carried the first living creatures to fly around the Moon 3 months before Apollo 8 - these were two turtles, fruit flies, and several species of plants. After flying around the Moon, the descent module splashed down in the waters of the Indian Ocean:

Apart from problems with overloads during landing, the flight went well, so the next probe, Zond-6 (launched on November 10, 1968), landed not in the sea, but in the regular landing area on the territory of the USSR. Unfortunately, he suffered an accident during the parachute descent stage: they were shot at an altitude of about 5 km instead of the calculated moment right before touching the ground, and all biological objects on board (which were sent to fly around the Moon in this flight) died. However, film with black and white and color photographs of the Moon has been preserved.

Two more successful launches of this spacecraft were made: Zond 7 and Zond 8 (August 8, 1969 and October 20, 1970, respectively) with successful returns of the descent vehicles.

On July 13, 1969 (three days before the launch of Apollo 11), the Luna 15 station was launched, which was supposed to deliver samples of lunar soil to Earth before the Americans had time to do so. However, during the braking process, Luna lost contact with her. As a result, the first automatic station to deliver samples of lunar soil was Luna-16, launched on September 12, 1970:

On September 20, the 1,880-kilogram lander reached the lunar surface. The sample was obtained using a drill, which within 7 minutes reached 35 cm in depth and removed 101 grams of lunar soil. Then the return vehicle, weighing 512 kg, was launched from the Moon, and already on September 24, samples on a 35-kilogram descent vehicle landed on the territory of Kazakhstan.

Also, for the purpose of delivering lunar soil, the Luna-20 and Luna 24 stations were sent (launched on February 14, 1972 and August 9, 1976, delivering 30 and 170 grams of soil, respectively). Luna 24 managed to obtain soil samples from a depth of 1.6 m. A small portion of lunar soil was transferred to NASA in December 1976. The Luna-24 station became the last spacecraft for the next 37 years to perform a soft landing on the Moon - until the landing of the Chinese “Jade Hare”.

Lunokhods and the final stage of the first stage of research

During his work, he traveled more than 10 km, transmitted about 25 thousand photographs to the ground, 537 measurements were made of the physical and mechanical properties of lunar soil, and 25 times - chemical ones.

Lunokhod remote control

On January 8, 1973, Lunokhod-2 was launched, which had the same design. Despite the breakdown of the navigation system, he managed to travel more than 42 km, which was a record for planetary rovers until 2015, when this record was broken by the Opportunity rover. The flight of Lunokhod-3, planned for 1977, was unfortunately cancelled.

Photos of Lunokhod-3 in the museum of the NPO named after S. A. Lavochkin

On October 3, 1971, the automatic interplanetary station Luna-19 was launched into lunar orbit by the Proton-K rocket, which operated for 388 days. Its weight was 5.6 tons and it was built on the basis of the design of the previous Luna-17 station:

The scientific equipment included a dosimeter, a radiometric laboratory, a magnetometer mounted on a 2-meter rod, equipment for determining the density of meteorite matter, as well as cameras for photographing the lunar surface. One of the main tasks of the apparatus was the study of mascons. Due to the failure of the control system and entering an incorrect orbit, it was decided to abandon the task of cartography of the Moon. During the flight, additional data was obtained on the magnetic field of the Moon and it was found that the density of meteorite particles near the Moon does not differ from their concentration in the range of 0.8-1.2 au. from the sun.

On May 29, 1974, the Luna-22 station was launched with the same scientific program; the station operated for 521 days. These stations made it possible to clarify the gravitational fields of the Moon, and to simplify the landing of the Luna-20 and Luna-24 stations for soil sampling.