Russia will land probe on Moon for the first time in 46 years

[Ray Allan]

Luna-25 is scheduled to launch in September 2022, barring any further delays and land on the Moon's South Pole region where it will collect and analyze lunar soil samples and search for water ice believed to exist in abundance in shadowed craters of the polar area where future human-occupied bases are planned. This is the first time since 1976, when Luna-24, launched by the then-Soviet Union, that Russia has sent a lander to the Moon's surface. The USSR was the first country to successfully land a probe on the Moon with Luna-9 in February 1966.

«Луна-25» завершает и�пытани�

«Луна-25» завершает и�пытани�

[Major Sharpe]

Originally Posted by Ray Allan

The USSR was the first country to successfully land a probe on the Moon with Luna-9 in February 1966.

• USSR first country to land a probe (Luna 9) on the Moon - 1966
• USSR first country to land a probe (Mars 3) on Mars - 1971
• USSR first country to land a probe (Venera 8) on Venus - 1972

First photo ever taken from lunar surface:




First photo ever taken from Martian surface:



First photo ever taken from the Venusian surface:



As demonstrated by these three "firsts" there was every reason to believe that the USSR had more than a fighting chance of beating the US to the Moon first with a manned mission.

[Nikola Bijeliti]

Originally Posted by Major Sharpe

First photo ever taken from Martian surface:

I was aware of the Venusian image but not the Martian one. According to a Wikipedia article,

It failed 110 seconds after landing, having transmitted only a gray image with no details.

While visiting the Ames Research Center a couple of decades ago, I noticed a display claiming that the Viking spacecraft had returned the first ever images from the surface of another planet. I told one of the employees there that a Russian probe had returned the first photos from the surface of Venus a year earlier. He said he would look into that.

[Ray Allan]

Mars-3 did not transmit an image showing any surface features of Mars. The one the probe did send before it failed was nothing but 79 television scan lines of electronic snow. There was much debate about it, but most everyone in the Soviet space program at the time and afterward agreed the image showed nothing. A huge disappointment to make it all the way to Mars, touch down successfully, then have the lander fail after 110 seconds in the middle of a Martian dust storm.

https://www.rferl.org/a/soviet-mars-.../30759023.html

[Major Sharpe]

I don't write the history of space missions so all I can do is report what I find online.

Originally Posted by Nikola Bijeliti

I was aware of the Venusian image but not the Martian one. According to a Wikipedia article:"It failed 110 seconds after landing, having transmitted only a gray image with no details."

In other words, Russia's Mars 3 probe successfully reached the Martian surface (without crashing) and survived for almost 2 minutes before it went silent during one of the worst sandstorms ever recorded on the Red Planet. But successfully reach the surface it did, and winning a horse race, even by a nose, is still winning the race. So the Russians reached Mars first.

As for the image transmitted by Mars 3, it is still disputed whether it was a photo or merely radio interference lines:

"Observers are divided over exactly what -- if anything -- the Mars 3 lander's TV camera captured on December 2, 1971. It is not hard to see why. Soviet scientists themselves concluded at the time that it had no information whatsoever in its 79 scan lines of imagery and, rather than keeping it secret simply believed it was of no value. Some people still argue that rather than just radio "noise," its successfully transmitted portion shows the Martian horizon in a dust storm." LINK

Black & White image transmitted by Russia's Mars 3 probe: ................................................................Colorized version of the Mars 3 image transmitted by Russian probe Mars 3:

[Ray Allan]

I hope Luna-25 is successful. Russia has had great success with the Moon and Venus, but the so-called "Great Galactic Ghoul" lurking near Mars has struck several times with their Mars probes. And thanks to the Ejew/ESA withdrawing cooperation with Roskosmos on the Exo-Mars lander and rover over the Ukraine war, that mission will be delayed or canceled completely.

I hope in the future, humans will find Mars-3, the Viking landers, and other hardware on Mars and the Moon and put them in museums or designate their landing sites as historic monuments.

[Major Sharpe]

Originally Posted by Ray Allan

I hope in the future, humans will find Mars-3, the Viking landers, and other hardware on Mars and the Moon and put them in museums or designate their landing sites as historic monuments.