Luna First

Shortly before Apollo 11 was launched in July 1969, Russian scientists sent an unmanned spaceship to the moon. Its probable mission was to land on the lunar surface, scoop up some soil and beat the Americans back to earth with the first samples of moon material. Luna 15 never achieved that ambitious goal. Several hours after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first mortals to step onto the moon, the Soviet spaceship dropped out of lunar orbit, apparently crashed and was never heard from again.

Last week, in a rerun of that abortive flight, the Soviets had far better luck. Their unmanned Luna 16 landed on the moon, gathered up a small sample of lunar soil, took off again and returned its cargo safely to earth. The entire mission was an impressive technological tour de force that gave the Russians a sorely needed boost in morale (a typical Muscovite-in-the-street comment: "See, we're not so far behind the Americans"). NASA's acting chief, George Low, sent his congratulations to Moscow, and called the first unmanned recovery of extraterrestrial material "a major engineering and scientific achievement."

Crucial Maneuver. It was indeed. In 1966, the Russians had made the initial soft landing on the moon, but their equipment at the time was relatively primitive--a simple sphere covered with balsa wood that was ejected just before its carrier rocket smashed into the lunar surface. After bouncing and rolling to a stop, the sphere unfolded its panels like petals of a flower, righted itself and exposed its TV camera and transmitter. Luna 16 was a far more sophisticated instrument. Although the Soviets revealed few details, Western space experts believe that the spacecraft that descended to the lunar surface weighed about a ton (compared with the Apollo LM's 8 tons); it was braked first by its main engine and then in the last few yards of descent by smaller thrusters. The landing operation on the Sea of Fertility, an unexplored portion of the moon about 200 miles east of Apollo 11 's landing site, was controlled entirely by a computer program fed from earth--not by the combination of computers and manual controls used in Apollo lunar modules.

Shortly after the successful touchdown, Soviet ground controllers performed a number of checks to determine the spacecraft's exact orientation and location on the moon--information vital for calculating Luna 16's correct homeward course. Then came the main business of the mission. On a signal from earth, an electric-powered drilling device, capable of moving horizontally and vertically, reached out like a mechanical hand; Western observers speculated that it was positioned by controllers watching it on TV. The drill then burrowed about 14 in. into the adjacent lunar soil and brought up a core sample, which was packed into a container, hermetically sealed--possibly with a small explosive charge--and then stowed safely away in the upper half of the spacecraft. The next maneuver was particularly critical. When the earth and moon were in proper alignment, Luna 16's upper-stage rocket was ignited, hurtling the 900-to-1,000-lb. package into an arcing trajectory back toward earth. The lower stage, a four-legged vehicle vaguely resembling the LM's descent stage, remained behind and continued to take temperature and radiation readings. What made the blast-off procedure so important was that Russian designers--probably because of severe weight restrictions made necessary by the limited thrust of their booster rocket--had apparently not built into the spacecraft any capability for mid-course corrections. Thus, had the returning spacecraft been on a course that brought it back into the earth's atmosphere at the wrong angle, the Russian controllers would not have been able to save it by changing course; it would have either been consumed by frictional heat or sent bouncing off the atmosphere and back into deep space.

Onto the Steppes. To the relief of the Russians, the trajectory was perfect and the terrestrial landing was as flawless as the lunar touchdown. As Luna 16 approached the earth, its shielded payload separated from the mother ship, slowed down in the thickening atmosphere, and released drogue parachutes for the final part of its descent. Twelve days after it had been sent aloft from the giant Baikonur space complex 125 miles away. the lunar package was recovered by helicopter from the bleak, sparsely settled Ap steppes of Kazakhstan in central Asia. While the Russians trumpeted news of their accomplishment, the lunar sample was quickly flown to Moscow, where it was turned over for analysis to investigators of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. The results, said the Soviet press, would be released to the world's scientific community.

Luna 16's flight should pay handsome scientific dividends. The Sea of Fertility is thought to be one of the oldest lunar maria, and the soil that was retrieved from below its surface could yield important clues to the early history of the moon. The successful mission also rekindled the old debate about relative merits of manned v. unmanned exploration of space. Although the two U.S. manned lunar landing missions brought back 130 Ibs. of moon rock and performed a number of other important scientific experiments, Soviet commentators asserted that unmanned spacecraft could be built to perform many of those tasks at 1/20 to 1/50 the cost and at no risk to human life. In fact, Luna 16's triumphant return makes it more probable that an unmanned craft will bring back samples of soil and rocks from Mars long before the first astronauts--or cosmonauts --land there.

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