UMSF space history photo of the month Options

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

Maybe we could make this a monthly item, in which we could look back at the history of Unmanned Space missions.
For January 2008 I've chosen an image showing the coverage of the Sun by early Pioneer 5-8 spacecraft.
Pioneer 5 to 8, or Pioneer V to VIII using the system of Roman numerals in vogue during the early 1960s for spacecraft designations, were directed towards the Sun along the earth's orbit to monitor solar activity. Pioneer V was launched on 11th March 1960 and provided the very first space weather report 4 to 8 hours before a solar storm hit the Earth.
Some of this Pioneer quartet, Pioneer 6-7-8 even provided updates on our Sun's activity during the early Apollo Moon landings in order to check the damaging potential of solar flares to affect the astronauts.

[Phil Stooke]

"After Luna 2 (January 1959), which was renamed Mechta after it flew by the Moon instead of impacting on it, "

Luna 1 was Mechta, which means 'dream'. The first Soviet maps of the farside made by Luna 3 named a dark area near our Mare Ingenii 'More Mechta', "Sea of Mechta" to commemorate it. This is sometimes translated 'Sea of Dreams' but I think that is not really the correct interpretation. That name is still used on Russian maps today, rather than the Latin 'Mare Ingenii' or a Russian translation of that.

Phil