The Explorers' Club, № MCXXXIX

Operation AXIOM: Destination Moon—The 60th Anniversary of Luna 9
31 January-6 February 1966: The Luna 9 probe lifted off from the Kazakh S.S.R.'s Baikonur Cosmo- drome atop a Molniya-M rocket; the Automatic Lunar Station (A.L.S.) lander was released & made the first soft landing on the Moon (3 February), via landing airbags; the A.L.S. transmitted the first photo panoramas & television images from the surface of the Moon & measured radiation levels.

Commentary: Luna 9's images were decoded by the U.K.'s Jodrell Bank Observatory & published throughout the West, long before the secretive Soviet space program intended to release anything.

Ex Luna, scientia.