STORY OF MAN ON MOON |മനുഷ്യൻ ചന്ദ്രനിൽ ഇറങ്ങിയ കഥ കളളമോ ? |ബി എസ് ചന്ദ്രമോഹന്
STORY OF MAN ON MOON
After the unsuccessful attempt by Luna 1 to land on the Moon in 1959, the Soviet Union performed the first hard Moon landing - "hard" meaning that the spacecraft intentionally crashes into the Moon – later that same year with the Luna 2 spacecraft, a feat the U.S. duplicated in 1962 with Ranger 4. Since then, twelve Soviet and U.S. spacecraft have used braking rockets (retrorockets) to make soft landings and perform scientific operations on the lunar surface, between 1966 and 1976.
In 1966 the USSR accomplished the first soft landings and took the first pictures from the lunar surface during the Luna 9 and Luna 13 missions. The U.S. followed with five uncrewed Surveyor soft landings.
A total of twelve men have landed on the Moon. This was accomplished with two US pilot-astronauts flying a Lunar Module on each of six NASA missions across a 41-month period starting 20 July 1969 UTC, with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on Apollo 11, and ending on 14 December 1972 UTC with Gene Cernan and Jack Schmitt on Apollo 17. Cernan was the last to step off the lunar surface.
All Apollo lunar missions had a third crew member who remained on board the Command Module. The last three missions included a drivable lunar rover, the Lunar Roving Vehicle, for increased mobility.