A brief history of lunar exploration

From NASA's Ranger probes and USSR's Luna missions to the Apollo moon landings and now India's Chandrayaan, human efforts to conquer the moon have continued.
Since the dawn of time, the moon has fascinated humans
Poems and songs have been written about its beauty, spectacle and mystery in every language and culture



In the fifth century B.C, Greek philosopher Anaxagoras suggested the moon was a rocky body and reflected the sun's light. This resulted in Anaxagoras’ arrest and exile as people believed that the moon and sun were Gods. In his honor a crater at the moon’s north pole is named Anaxagoras.



In India, Aryabhata mentions in his book Aryabhatiya in the fifth century AD that the moon’s light is reflected sunlight



Persian astronomer Habash al-Hasib al-Marwazi, conducted various observations at the Al-Shammisiyyah observatory in Baghdad and estimated the Moon's diameter and its distance from the Earth. His measurements cine close to the measurements we have today. The moon is 384,400 km away from Earth and has a radius of 1738.1 km.



The advent of telescopes helped get a better view our cosmic neighbour and in 1609 Galileo Galilei made one of the first drawings of the Moon.



But it was during the Cold War era that the Moon became the focus of a "space race" between the Soviet Union and the United States of America.



In 1959, Russia’s Luna 2 became the first spacecraft to land on the moon's surface. To compete with the Soviet successes in space, U.S. President John F. Kennedy proposed a manned Moon landing.
“ I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth....But in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon—if we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there....I believe we should go to the moon” (not in voiceover)



Between 1961 and 1965, nine NASA Ranger spacecraft got a few close-up pictures of the moon’s surface.



The Ranger 7 lunar lander which approached the moon on July 31, 1964 is considered the first true success in the United States' early quest to explore the moon. Ranger 7 transmitted 4,308 images in the 15 minutes before it impacted the lunar surface.



In 1966, Russia’s Luna 9 became the first vehicle to soft-land safely on the moon’s surface.



Luna 10 launched in the same year became the first spacecraft to successfully orbit the moon.



But the U.S. scored the biggest win with its Apollo programme.

On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin became the first people to walk on the moon.



“That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”



From 1970-73, Apollo missions 12 to 17 helped collect several kilograms of lunar samples and helped us understand the moon’s geology.



In 1990 Japan joined the race and placed its Hiten spacecraft in an orbit around the Moon



On November 14, 2008, Chandrayaan 1 landed on the moon and showed the presence of water molecules on the moon



China joined the list of countries to soft land on the Moon when its Yutu rover touched down in 2013.



Its Chang`e-4 landed on the far side of the moon in January 2019 and became the first spacecraft to ever land there.



On February 21, Israel’s lunar lander Beresheet was launched but after a month it was reported to have crash-landed on the Moon.



With Chandrayaan 2 India is set to become the fourth country to soft land on the moon after Russia, U.S and China.

And NASA too is planning to return to the moon in 2024, as a preparatory step to launch missions to Mars and other deep space destinations

Видео A brief history of lunar exploration канала The Hindu