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'Luna 1' (E-1 series) was the first of a number of spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Moon and the first of the Luna programme of Soviet automatic interplanetary stations successfully launched in the direction of the Moon. While traveling through the outer Van Allen radiation belt, the spacecraft's scintillator made observations indicating that there exist a small number of high energy particles in the outer belt. The measurements obtained during this mission provided new data on the Earth's radiation belt and outer space. It was discovered that the Moon had no detectable magnetic field. First ever direct observations and measurements of the solar wind, a strong flow of ionized plasma emanating from the Sun and streaming through interplanetary space, were performed. That ionized plasma concentration was measured to be some 700 particles per cm³ at altitudes 20-25 thousand km and 300 to 400 particles per cm³ at altitudes 100-150 thousand km.^[1]
The spacecraft is spherical. Five antennae extend from one hemisphere. Instrument ports also protrude from the surface of the sphere. There are no propulsion systems on the Luna 1 spacecraft itself. Because of its high velocity and its announced package of various metallic emblems with the Soviet coat of arms, it was concluded that Luna 1 was intended to crash into the Moon.
On January 2, 1959 Luna 1 became the first ever man-made object to reach the escape velocity of the Earth, when it separated from its 1472 kg third stage. The third stage, 5.2 m long and 2.4 m in diameter, travelled along with Luna 1. On 3 January, 3:56:20 Moscow Time, at a distance of 119,500 km from Earth, a large (1 kg) cloud of sodium gas was released by the spacecraft, thus making this probe also the first artificial comet. This glowing orange trail of gas, visible over the Indian Ocean with the brightness of a sixth-magnitude star for a few minutes, was photographed by Mstislav Gnevyshev at the Mountain Station of the Main Astronomical Observatory of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR near Kislovodsk. It served as an experiment on the behaviour of gas in outer space. Luna 1 passed within 5995 km of the Moon's surface on 4 January after 34 hours of flight. It went into orbit around the Sun, between the orbits of Earth and Mars.
The spacecraft contained radio equipment, a tracking transmitter, and telemetry system, five different sets of scientific devices for studying interplanetary space, including a magnetometer, Geiger counter, scintillation counter, and micrometeorite detector, and other equipment.

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References

External links

References

1. Yearbook of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, , , , Sovetskaya Enciklopediya, 1959,

External links

★ Zarya - Luna 1 chronology

★ NASA NSSDC Luna 1 webpage