NASA's APOLLO 11 and Russia's Luna 15 Orbited the MOON Together

2 months ago
32
Science USSR Soviet space race

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What was Luna 15 and why did it crash on the Moon?

Luna 15 was a robotic space mission of the Soviet Luna programme, that was in lunar orbit together with the Apollo 11Command module Columbia. It was launched three days before the Apollo 11 mission with the goal to outstrip the US in achieving a sample return in the Moon race. The spacecraft was capable of studying circumlunar space, the lunar gravitational field, and the chemical composition of lunar rocks, as well as providing lunar surface photography.

The mission began with Luna 15 placed in an intermediate Earth orbit after launch and then sent toward the Moon. After a mid-course correction, it entered lunar orbit at 10:00 UT on 17 July 1969. The spacecraft remained in lunar orbit for two days while controllers checked all on-board systems and performed two orbital maneuvers. After completing 86 communications sessions and 52 orbits of the Moon at various inclinations and altitudes, it began its descent to the lunar surface at 15:47 UT on 21 July 1969. Transmissions ceased four minutes after de-orbit, at a calculated altitude of 3 kilometres (1.9 mi). The spacecraft had probably crashed into the side of a mountain at 17° north latitude and 60° east longitude, in Mare Crisium, which is some 554 kilometres (344 mi) NNE of the Apollo 11 LZ, in a direction of 328 degrees.

The simultaneous missions of Luna 15 and Apollo 11 represented one of the first instances of Soviet–American space communication: the Soviet Union released Luna 15’s flight plan to ensure it would not collide with Apollo 11

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