Moon Race
Luna 15 was a Soviet probe designed to collect lunar soil and return it to Earth and study circumlunar space and the lunar gravitational field, which could have given the Soviets more Moon glory. The mission along with Apollo 11 played an important role in the culmination of the Space Race. Luna 15 was launched 3 days before Apollo 11 and reached lunar orbit before Apollo 11. During descent, a malfunction caused Luna 15 to crash on the Mare Crisium of the Moon, just after Armstrong and Aldrin completed their moon walk.
The parallel missions of Luna 15 and Apollo 11 were the climax of the Space Race that underlay the space programs of both the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1960s. The simultaneous missions became one of the first instances of Soviet/American space cooperation as the USSR released Luna 15's flight plan to ensure it would not collide with Apollo 11, though its exact mission was unknown. The Jodrell Bank radio telescope was later discovered to have recorded transmissions from Luna 15 during its descent and this was published in July 2009 as to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11.
Read more about this topic: Apollo 11
Famous quotes containing the words moon and/or race:
“War talk by men who have been in a war is always interesting; whereas moon talk by a poet who has not been in the moon is likely to be dull.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars—on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)