The Explorers' Club, № MCLXXXVIII

Operation AXIOM: Destination Moon—The 60th Anniversary of Luna 12
22 October 1966-19 January 1967: The Luna 12 probe (A.K.A. Lunik 12) lifted off from the Kazakh S.S.R.'s Baikonur Cosmodrome atop a Molniya-M rocket; Luna 12 entered lunar orbit (25 October) & transmitted its first high-resolution photographs home (27 October); an unknown number of photos were sent via 302 radio transmissions; radio communications were terminated after 602 orbits.

Commentary: The Soviets took steps to prevent the U.K.'s Jodrell Bank Observatory from intercepting & pubishing their transmitted photos, as had happened with the Luna 9 lander's images in February. The Soviets only ever released a handful of photos of the Mare Imbrium & the Aristarchus Crater.

Ex Luna, scientia.

The Explorers' Club, № MCLXXV

Operation AXIOM: Destination Moon—The 60th Anniversary of Luna 11
24 August-1 October 1966: The Luna 11 probe (A.K.A. Lunik 11) lifted off from the Kazakh S.S.R.'s Baikonur Cosmodrome atop a Molniya-M rocket; Luna 11 entered lunar orbit (27 August), but an attitude-control problem prevented achieving the orientation necessary to photograph the Moon & no photos were returned; radio communications were terminated after 277 orbits (1 October).

Commentary: Luna 11's non-visual sensors worked & transmitted data until the batteries were exhausted on 1 October.

Between the secrecy of the Soviet space program, the failure of Luna 11 to return any images, & internet search engines' tendency to cough up Apollo 11 images in response to any query that involves the Moon & the number eleven, I had to rob Peter to pay Paul: the images above are search results for Luna 12, which was of the same design as Luna 11 (type E-6LF). I'll have to pay the piper when the sixtieth aniversary of Luna 12 comes around in the fall.

Ex Luna, scientia.

The Explorers' Club, № MCLXXIV

Operation AXIOM: Destination Moon—The 50th Anniversary of Luna 24
9-22 August 1976: The Luna 24 probe lifted off from the Kazakh S.S.R.'s Baikonur Cosmodrome atop a Proton-K rocket; the probe landed on the Mare Crisium, collected regolith samples, & sealed those samples inside an ascent stage, which lifted off from the Moon & landed back in the Kazakh S.S.R.; Luna 24 was the third & final Soviet lunar sample-return mission, & the final Luna program mission*.

Commentary: Luna 24 returned one hundred seventy point one grams (170.1 g) of lunar regolith to Earth, more than Luna 16 & Luna 20 combined. The three landers returned approximately three hundred grams (300 g) of samples. By way of contrast, the six manned Apollo landings returned approximately three hundred eighty-two kilograms (382 kg; or, 382,000 g) of lunar samples.

*The final Luna program mission of the Soviet Union; the Russian Federation has a latter-day Moon exploration program, Luna-Glob ("Lunar sphere," compare lunar globe), that claims continuity with the old Soviet propgram. In August 2023, the Luna 25 lander failed, crashing into the Lunar surface.

The Waykback Machine Tour of Soviet Lunar Sample-return Missions
"The Explorers' Club," № DCCCXLII: The 51st Anniversary of Luna 16 (1970)
"The Explorers' Club," № CMXXXII: The 51st Anniversary of Luna 20 (1972)

Ex Luna, scientia.

The Explorers' Club, № MCXLVIII

Operation AXIOM: Destination Moon—The 60th Anniversary of Luna 10
31 March-30 May 1966: The Luna 10 probe (A.K.A. Lunik 10) lifted off from the Kazakh S.S.R.'s Baikonur Cosmodrome atop a Molniya-M rocket; Luna 10 entered lunar orbit (3 April), the first artificial satellite of the Moon & the first probe to encounter mass concentrations & the resultant gravity anomalies that perturbed its orbit; radio communications was terminated after 460 orbits (30 May).

Commentary: It is unknown precisely when Luna 10's orbit decayed & it crashed into the Moon, nor where.

Ex Luna, scientia.

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.

The Explorers' Club, № CMXXXIII

Operation AXIOM: Destination Moon—The 54th Anniversary of the N1-3L Debacle
21 February 1969: N1-3L lifted off from from the Kazakh S.S.R.'s Baikonur Cosmodrome, the first test flight of an N1 rocket, carrying a Zond L1S-1 spacecraft; within seconds of liftoff, several of the thirty engines in the first stage malfunctioned; pogo oscillation ruptured fuel lines, starting a fire; the engine control system shut down the remaining first stage engines & the entire rocket crashed to earth.

Commentary: Pray pardon me for the delay in circling back to the first of the four failed flights of the N1. The Soviet Moonshot was doomed due to the late start of N1 development (October 1965), the early death of chief engineer Sergei Korolev (January 1966), & the petty rivalries between different Soviet design centers. After the cancellation of the Soviet lunar program in May 1974, the official U.S.S.R. line denied they had ever worked on a Moon landing program, not admitting the truth 'til the glasnost era (1990).

Before the end of 1969, the Soviets would suffer another N1 failure, N1-5L, which destroyed its own launch pad. Meanwhile, the Americans would have four triumphant Saturn V launches—Apollo 9, Apollo 10, Apollo 11, & Apollo 12—including three flights to & from lunar orbit, two Moon landings, & four Moonwalkers, definitively winning the Space Race.

Bonus! Destination Moon Song o' the Day: The N1-3L Debacle
Dennis McCarthy, "Out of Control / The Crash" from Star Trek Generations (Space Cadet Mike Papa Whiskey)

The Wayback Machine Tour of the N1 Rocket
№ DCCLVII: The 51st Anniversary of the N1-5L Debacle
№ DCCCXXVI: The 50th Anniversary of the N1-6L Debacle
№ CMXVII: The 50th Anniversary of the N1-7L Debacle

Semper exploro.

The Explorers' Club, № CMXXXII

Operation AXIOM: Destination Moon—The 51st Anniversary of Luna 20
14-25 February 1972: The Luna 20 probe lifted off from the Kazakh S.S.R.'s Baikonur Cosmodrome atop a Proton-K rocket; the probe landed on the Mare Fecunditatis—120 kilometers from Luna 16—collected soil samples, & sealed those samples inside an ascent stage, which lifted off from the Moon & landed back in the Kazakh S.S.R.; Luna 20 was the second Soviet lunar sample-return mission.

Commentary: Luna 20 returned thirty grams (30 g) of lunar soil samples, less than one-third of the mass of samples returned by Luna 16 in 1970. By contrast, Apollo 16, two months later in April 1972, returned almost ninety-six kilograms (95.7 kg, that's 95,700 g) of lunar samples.

Semper exploro.

The Explorers' Club, № CMXXXI

Destination Moon
The LK spacecraft—The Lunniy korabyl ("Lunar Craft") was designed like the Apollo Lunar Module, with discrete descent & ascent stages, to land a single Soviet cosmonaut on the Moon & return him to lunar orbit; three uncrewed LKs flew test flights in low Earth orbit (Kosmos 379 in 1970 & Kosmos 398 & Kosmos 434 in 1971) & two boilerplate LKs were destroyed in the N1-6L & N1-7L launch failures.

Commentary: Welcome to "The Explorers' Club's" Soviet Lunar Program Week, episode I of III.

Semper exploro.

The Explorers' Club, № CMXXVII

Operation AXIOM: Destination Moon—The 50th Anniversary of Luna 21 & Lunokhod 2
15 January 1973: The Luna 21 probe landed on the Moon & just after midnight deployed the rover Lunokhod 2 ("Moonwalker 2"); the probes lifted off from the Kazakh S.S.R.'s Baikonur Cosmodrome atop a Proton-K/D rocket on 8 January & entered lunar orbit on 12 January; Lunokhod 2 was the second remotely-controlled rover & traversed thirty-nine kilometers 'til 11 May 1973, five lunar days.

Commentary: Lunokhod 2 traversed as far in its first lunar day as Lunokhod 1 had in its eleven lunar days. Lunokhod 2 traversed farther than the Apollo 17 Lunar Roving Vehicle, remote controlled over four months verses human piloted over three days. The rover's controllers on Earth benefitted from the gift of N.A.S.A. lunar survey photographs taken to scout the Apollo 17 landing site, part of the growing American-Soviet cooperation in the run up to 1975's Apollo-Soyuz joint manned mission.

Semper exploro.

The Explorers' Club, № CMXVII

Operation AXIOM: Destination Moon—The 50th Anniversary of the N1-7L Debacle
23 November 1972: N1-7L lifted off from from the Kazakh S.S.R.'s Baikonur Cosmodrome, carrying a Soyuz 7K-LOK spacecraft & dummy LK lander; the hydraulic shock from throttling down the six central engines prior to staging ruptured fuel lines, resulting in a fire, an engine explosion, & the disintegration & crash of the rocket; the launch escape system carried the Soyuz safely away.

Commentary: This was the fourth launch attempt of an N1 rocket & the fourth failure of an N1 rocket. These doomed test flights of the N1 coincided closely with the operational Moonshots of the Saturn V launch vehicle: the N1-3L test flight failed ten days before the successful launch of Apollo 9, the third operational flight of the Apollo Command & Service Module (in that case, the Gumdrop); N1-5L failed thirteen days before the successful launch of Apollo 11, the first Moon landing; N1-6L failed one month before the successful launch of Apollo 15, the fourth Moon landing; & today's N1-7L failed fourteen days before the successful launch of Apollo 17, the sixth & final Moon landing.

A fifth test flight was scheduled for August 1974, but was cancelled when the whole Soviet Moon program was shuttered in May 1974.

Bonus! Destination Moon Song o' the Day: N1-7L
Blues Traveler, "Crash & Burn" from Four (Space Cadet Mike Papa Whiskey)

Semper exploro.

The Explorers' Club, № DCCCXLII

Operation AXIOM: Destination Moon—The 51st Anniversary of Luna 16
12-24 September 1970: The Luna 16 probe lifted off from the Kazakh S.S.R.'s Baikonur Cosmodrome atop a Proton-K rocket; the probe landed on the Mare Fecunditatis, collected soil samples, & sealed those samples inside an ascent stage, which lifted off from the Moon & landed back in the Kazakh S.S.R.; this was Mankind's third lunar sample-return mission, the Soviets' first, & the first robotic one.

Commentary: Luna 16 returned one hundred one grams (101 g) of lunar soil samples. By contrast, Apollo 11 returned in excess of twenty-one kilograms (21.55 kg) & Apollo 12 returned in excess of thirty-four kilograms (34.35 kg) of lunar samples. That's almost fifty six kilograms (55.9 kg) versus one hundred one grams (101 g), giving crewed missions a massive advantage over robotic probes.

Semper exploro.

The Explorers' Club, № DCCCXXVI

Operation AXIOM: The Space Race—The 50th Anniversary of the N1-6L Debacle
26 June 1971: Almost two years after N1-5L had fallen back onto its launch pad & exploded, N1-6L lifted off from from the Kazakh S.S.R.'s Baikonur Cosmodrome, carrying a Soyuz 7K-L1E spacecraft & dummy LK lander; the rocket entered an unrecoverable roll & was torn apart by excessive structural loads; debris landed from four to nine miles downrange, blasting at least one fifty-foot-deep crater.

Commentary: The Soyuz 11 crew aboard the Salyut 1 space station were tasked to obseve the N1-6L launch, but due to a postponement of the countdown they were not in the right part of their orbit when the massive rocket lifted off & shortly thereafter disintegrated.

Bonus! Destination Moon Song o' the Day: N1-6L
Hans Zimmer, "Hummel Gets the Rockets" from The Rock (Space Cadet Mike Papa Whiskey)

Semper exploro.

The Explorers' Club, № DCCLXXXIV

Operation AXIOM: Destination Moon—The 50th Anniversary of Luna 17 & Lunokhod 1
17 November 1970: The Luna 17 probe landed on the Moon & deployed the rover Lunokhod 1 ("Moonwalker 1"); the probes lifted off from the Kazakh S.S.R.'s Baikonur Cosmodrome atop a Proton 8K82K rocket on 10 November & entered lunar orbit on 15 November; Lunokhod 1 was the first remotely-controlled rover & traversed over ten kilometers 'til 14 September 1971, eleven lunar days.

Commentary: A lunar day is approximately twenty-nine & a half Earth days (29:12:44:13); the Moon is tidally locked to the Earth, meaning it completes one rotation on its axis & one revolution around the Earth in the same period. Lunokhod 1 was originally planned for a three lunar-day mission, but much like the 21st century twin Spirit & Opportunity Mars Exploration Rovers, endured long past its original mission.

Semper exploro.