Soviet Luna Missions Options

[PhilHorzempa]

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I thought that it was time to start up a discussion of what we know, or
would like to know, about the Soviet Luna Missions.

To start off, I have heard many a reference to the landing system utilized
by the early landers, such as Luna 9. However, I have yet to find a report,
or even a diagram, that shows the sequence of events, or such details as
the air bags. If such references do not exist, I hope that some of the UMSF
community have Russian contacts that could lead us to the source material
before it ends up in the dust bin of history.

In addition, I heard of an effort several years ago to obtain ALL of the imagery
from Lunakhods 1 and 2. Does anyone know if that effort was able to
secure that data?

Also, as far as Lunas 15, 18 and 23, the sample-return missions that didn't
quite make it home, are there any official reports "out there" that detail what
actually occurred to those missions? Or will we have to wait for the
high-resolution images from the LRO to determine their fates?


Another Phil

[Guest_DonPMitchell_*]

Beautiful work. If I ever can get my hands on the photographs or the signal, I will let you know!

I'm assuming that you're starting with the images published by Lipsky in the Atlas I and II, yes?

Does anyone have images of the Moon produced by the Soviet Luna 19 and Luna 22
lunar orbiters? Wikipedia has images of the vehicles themselves, but no images of the Moon.

Also, it appears that the Luna 19 and 22 orbiters were Lunakhod vehicles with
no wheels, still attached to their propulsion stage.

The Wikipedia entries are as follows.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_19

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_22
Another Phil

Yes, the "heavy luna orbiters" were built in Lunokhod shells, but the camera system was especially made for these missions, a fish-eye linear camera with a rotating prism scanner and photomulitplier tube. The quality of the images was not bad.

Phil Stooke can tell you more than anyone else about this. I know the Luna-22 orbiter was maneuvered into a circular orbit only 25 km above the surface, for sensitive measurements of mass concentrations. The Moon is very "lumpy". The cameras were used in part to get horizon lines during these orbits.

You can find some of the images in my catalog: Soviet Catalog. The Luna-22 panoramas are pieced together from films scanned by Phil Stooke.

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

Beautiful work. If I ever can get my hands on the photographs or the signal, I will let you know!


I know the Luna-22 orbiter was maneuvered into a circular orbit only 25 km above the surface, for sensitive measurements of mass concentrations. The Moon is very "lumpy". The cameras were used in part to get horizon lines during these orbits.

Interesting. One of the side revelations from that very informative Sept. 2000 "JBIS" article on the 1963-68 Soviet Luna missions is that the first evidence of the lunar mascons actually came from tracking of Luna 10, not Lunar Orbiter 1. (The article also claims that Luna 10's gamma-ray spectrometer, rather than Surveyor 5, provided the first evidence of the Moon's basaltic composition -- but I remember reading at the time that the Soviets' early conclusion was that it had shown the moon to be granitic instead. But then, I've always been highly suspicious of the accuracy of Soviet scientific instruments -- also including their initial interpretation of Venera 8's gamma-ray data as granite.)

[Guest_DonPMitchell_*]

Interesting. One of the side revelations from that very informative Sept. 2000 "JBIS" article on the 1963-68 Soviet Luna missions is that the first evidence of the lunar mascons actually came from tracking of Luna 10, not Lunar Orbiter 1. (The article also claims that Luna 10's gamma-ray spectrometer, rather than Surveyor 5, provided the first evidence of the Moon's basaltic composition -- but I remember reading at the time that the Soviets' early conclusion was that it had shown the moon to be granitic instead. But then, I've always been highly suspicious of the accuracy of Soviet scientific instruments -- also including their initial interpretation of Venera 8's gamma-ray data as granite.)

The conclusion from Luna-10 was that the Moon was basaltic. The instrument was a 32-channel analyzer connected to a sodium iodide scintillator. The crystal was enclosed in an anti-coincidence shield for the elimination of charged-particle counts. Spectra were obtained at many orbital positions, to compare the mare and "continental" lunar crust. A year earlier, an overall gamma spectrum of the Moon was measured from an Earth orbiting satellite, the stranded E-6 probe, Kosmos-60.

The gamma spectrometers on Venera-8 to Vega were identical instruments, so the unusual spectrum from the Venera-8 site is not assumed to be "incorrect". With so few places on the surface of Venus sampled, it is entirely possible that there is variation in the composition of its crust.

The energy spectrum measured by these devices includes the three signatures of Potassium, Uranium and Thorium, the only three naturally occuring radioactive elements. Background levels are measured before approaching the Moon or Venus, to eliminate the effect of braking x-rays caused by cosmic rays colliding with the hull of the spacecraft. They are also calibrated against samples of terrestrial rocks of course, where the ratios of K U Th are well known.

[ljk4-1]

The conclusion from Luna-10 was that the Moon was basaltic. The instrument was a 32-channel analyzer connected to a sodium iodide scintillator. The crystal was enclosed in an anti-coincidence shield for the elimination of charged-particle counts. Spectra were obtained at many orbital positions, to compare the mare and "continental" lunar crust. A year earlier, an overall gamma spectrum of the Moon was measured from an Earth orbiting satellite, the stranded E-6 probe, Kosmos-60.

The gamma spectrometers on Venera-8 to Vega were identical instruments, so the unusual spectrum from the Venera-8 site is not assumed to be "incorrect". With so few places on the surface of Venus sampled, it is entirely possible that there is variation in the composition of its crust.

The energy spectrum measured by these devices includes the three signatures of Potassium, Uranium and Thorium, the only three naturally occuring radioactive elements. Background levels are measured before approaching the Moon or Venus, to eliminate the effect of braking x-rays caused by cosmic rays colliding with the hull of the spacecraft. They are also calibrated against samples of terrestrial rocks of course, where the ratios of K U Th are well known.

According to JANE'S SOLAR SYSTEM LOG (Andrew Wilson, Jane's Publishing, Inc.,
New York, 1987), the surface around Venera 8's landing site at Navka Planitia could
be a rare form of basalt, one with high potassium levels.

I like the term "anti-coincidence shield". Has so many potential uses.

[Guest_DonPMitchell_*]

According to JANE'S SOLAR SYSTEM LOG (Andrew Wilson, Jane's Publishing, Inc.,
New York, 1987), the surface around Venera 8's landing site at Navka Planitia could
be a rare form of basalt, one with high potassium levels.

I like the term "anti-coincidence shield". Has so many potential uses.

Yes, and in fact sodium and potassium rich lavas melt easily, so they may be the cause of the long channels. Remember, material that are dissolved in the ocean on Earth (chlorides, alkali metals, etc) are just "rocks" on Venus. Or they are gasses (a lot of metal chorides boil well below Venusian surface temperature). What a place!

"Anti-Coincidence Shield" is a good one. My favorite not-made-up scientific term is "Quantum Nondemolition Oscillator", heard at a physics talk on gravity waves at Caltech.

When charged particles go through a detector, they leave a trail of ionization, like you see in a cloud chamber or bubble chamber photo. But photons, such as gamma rays, pass through material with no effect until they interact entirely with a single atom. So if you surround a detector with other detectors, you can filter out gamma-ray events, by picking only events that trigger the inner detector but not the surrounding ones. The first such device for Venus surface gamma-ray study was installed on the failed 1962 2MV lander.

This is also why you don't want to spend years in interplanetary space, charged-particle cosmic radiation is really really bad for you.