On Aug. 9, 1976, the Soviet area program launched its final moon mission.
Luna 24 was a robotic pattern return mission and the third of its form. It lifted off on a Proton-K rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and safely landed on the lunar floor 9 days later.
The probe landed in a darkish plain of the moon often called Mare Crisium, or the “Sea of Crises” and picked up 6 ounces (170.1 grams) of soil samples, which it introduced again to Earth on Aug. 22, 1976. Scientists then discovered that the samples from Luna 24 contained tiny traces of water — about 0.1% by mass.
Why it mattered
The Soviet Union misplaced the Space Race to land the primary people on the moon, however its Luna program of robotic probes was prolific. The nation’s Luna 2 was the primary spacecraft ever to land on the moon (it slammed into the lunar floor in 1959), with the extra superior Luna 9 making the first-ever soft-landing on the moon in February 1966, beating NASA’s Surveyor 1 by about 4 months.
By 1976, 12 NASA astronauts had walked on the moon, the final two on Apollo 17 in 1973 and the House Race was over. However the Soviet moon program was not, with Luna probes and Lunakhod rovers.
The Luna pattern return missions consisted of a lander outfitted with a descent stage, ascent stage and Earth return capsule. The probes may acquire samples of the moon, place them within the return capsule on the ascent stage, then rocket it from the moon for the journey again to Earth. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has captured pictures of the descent levels of Luna 16, Luna 20 and Luna 24 nonetheless on the moon.
The Luna 23 spacecraft remained on the moon completely, because it was broken throughout touchdown and wasn’t in a position to return a pattern. NASA’s LRO photographs later revealed Luna 23 likely fell on its side. However Luna 24, the final of the sequence, labored as deliberate, touchdown on Mare Crisium on Aug. 16, 1976, accumulating a pattern of the lunar regolith and launching again into area lower than 24 hours later.
Whereas Luna 24 was the final Soviet moon pattern return mission, it was not the final for Russia.
In August 2023, Russia’s Roscosmos area company launched the Luna 25 mission, its first in 47 years, towards the lunar south pole.
Luna 25 was deliberate to be the primary in a brand new fleet of moon probes, however ultimately crashed into the moon after an orbital maneuver went unsuitable.
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