On September 14, 1959 at 2 A.M. Moscow time, the Luna 2 probe became the first man-made earth object to land on a celestial body. “Land,” in this case, is a generous rendition; “collide,” or perhaps even “careen into” would be more appropriate to describe what happened that day on the lunar surface. And while the Luna 2 disintegrated upon its rapid impact on the moon’s grey rocks, scattering its payload and instrumentation across the lunar plains, it successfully completed its mission.
The Luna 2 looked exactly like a 1950’s Soviet space probe should. Spherical with protruding antennae and a glistening chrome surface, the Luna 2 seemed to have come right off the page of a comic book. While they contributed to its very futuristic look, the antennae and other adornments were really there to facilitate the scientific research at the heart of the Luna program. The Luna 2 carried a magnetometer, a geiger counter, micrometeorite detection equipment, as well as radio transmitters. It also carried two Soviet pennants, a term that usually refers to flag ornamentation aboard seafaring ships, but in the case of the Luna 2 the pennants were two stainless steel spheres with etched inscriptions indicating their Soviet origins. It may have been a scientific mission, but every rocket and every achievement had deep meaning in the space race.
As it was still early days in space travel, the Soviets relied on some rudimentary technologies to track their probe. The main method utilized the Luna 2’s radio transmitter, which beamed signals back to earth that were triangulated to determine the position of the craft. For confirmation, and perhaps in case the radio methodology failed, Soviet scientists also tracked the probe with telescopes. In order to make it easier to find this tiny chrome ball in the great expanse of space, it had been equipped with a thermite explosive charge and a couple pounds of pure sodium. The thermite ignited and expelled the sodium as a cloud behind the craft as it zoomed towards the moon. Sodium had been chosen because in its vaporous state it would reflect and shine in the radiation of sunlight, basically turning it into the tail of a man-made comet.
The mission was a resounding success. Luna 2 confirmed there wasn’t any significant radiation or magnetic field surrounding the moon. Ideologically, by impacting the moon, Luna 2 represented the second major achievement for the Soviets in the space race, following their successful launch of the Sputnik satellite two years earlier. At this point they were far ahead of the Americans who had only completed a single flyby mission to the moon and wouldn’t impact its surface until 1962. The Soviets continued to lead the race to the stars by sending Yuri Gagarin into orbit in 1961, making him the first human in space. While the Americans ultimately won the space race by walking on the moon in 1969, for a good many years at the outset the Soviets were very much leading the charge to the cosmos.
