Luna 2 hit the Moon in 1959 on the Soviets' sixth try

The Soviet probe Luna 2 became the first human-made object to reach the Moon when it crashed between Mare Imbrium and Mare Serenitatis on 13 September 1959 by universal time, just after midnight on 14 September in Moscow, which is why sources give both dates. It hit at about 3 km per second, roughly 160 miles from where Apollo 15 would land 12 years later.

The misses before the hit

Luna 2 was the Soviets’ sixth attempt to reach the Moon:

• 1958: three launches fail because of problems with the R-7 rocket.
• 2 January 1959: Luna 1’s upper stage fires too long and the probe misses the Moon by about 4,000 miles, becoming the first spacecraft in orbit around the Sun instead.
• June 1959: another launch failure.
• 12 September 1959: Luna 2, virtually identical to Luna 1, lifts off on an intercept course.

The United States fared worse. Its Pioneer probes failed or fell short, and the best of them, Pioneer 4, passed 36,650 miles from the lunar surface in March 1959.

On the way out, Luna 2’s upper stage released a kilogram of sodium gas about 97,000 miles from Earth, making a glowing cloud that astronomers could photograph to track it. The spacecraft was sterilised before launch so it would not seed the Moon with terrestrial bacteria, an early act of planetary protection.

Its instruments sent data until impact and found no lunar magnetic field and no radiation belts. It also carried Soviet emblems, packed in two metal spheres, down to the surface. Days later, on his only visit to the United States, Nikita Khrushchev gave President Eisenhower a replica; it is now kept at the Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene, Kansas.