Picture this. You are standing on a rotating sphere that is revolving around another bigger sphere. You are then required to shoot an arrow at another smaller sphere, which is revolving around the sphere on which you are standing and is also rotating at its own pace. Given that both your platform and your target are moving, even the best of archers might find hitting the target a tad bit difficult.
Some of you would have figured that the rotating sphere in which you are standing is the Earth, the bigger sphere is the sun and the smaller one, our moon. We’ve not only landed humans on the moon, but have also reached other planets and their moons in the solar system with our crafts, some of which have even entered interstellar space. This wasn’t the case even three-fourths of a century ago, when humanity was still coming to terms with the damages inflicted during World War II. The scientific and technical advances made then, and in the decades that followed, ensured a steady growth in our space exploration. In fact, the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the U.S. was central to many of the firsts that were achieved in that period, including getting an object touched by humans to strike the surface of the moon. That’s akin to trying to reach Mumbai, only to find yourself in Tokyo, Japan instead. If the scientists and researchers of the time were just getting on top of the technology that helped them achieve these distant targets, tracking was also a work in progress.
And yet, we do this regularly these days, so much so that we don’t always pay a lot of attention to it when it happens. That first was achieved by Luna 2 on September 14, 1959. Luna 2 was the Soviet Union’s second mission to the moon that achieved some degree of success. There were at least three failures in 1958 in their attempts to reach the moon, owing to different problems with their R-7 rocket. Their first success came on January 2, 1959, when their first Cosmic Rocket (retroactively renamed Luna 1 in 1963) became the first object to escape the Earth’s gravitational pull by achieving speeds greater than the escape velocity. Nearly 34 hours after launch, however, Luna 1’s probe missed the moon by a distance of about 6,500 km. After another failed launch in June 1959, the Soviets had their second Cosmic Rocket (later renamed Luna 2) ready in September the same year.
The place of impact on the moon was between Mare Imbrium and Mare Serenitatis. Sunday evening in New York, both the news and its timing got the American reporters scrambling before their deadlines. In addition to talking about the science behind the mission — the signals received and the steps to prevent contamination among other things — there were secondary reports that also carried reactions and praise from scientists in the U.K.
As Luna 2 also lacked a propulsion system, it was left to the third stage of its SS-6 booster rocket to guide it. The two separated only shortly before Luna 2’s impact. Twelve years later, American astronauts would land just 250 km away during the Apollo 15 mission. Given that 2 minutes and 24 seconds after midnight in Moscow was 5:02:24 P.M. It made the front pages of their issues on September 14, with obvious comparisons with their own failed attempts.
“The time of impact was only 84 seconds later than Soviet scientists had predicted,” stated The New York Times in a front page report that also mentioned that “Soviet propaganda seized upon the event as being of special significance to the forthcoming Eisenhower-Khrushchev talks. In India, The Hindu carried a front page headline that read “RUSSIAN ROCKET LANDS ON MOON” on September 15.
