Luna 1 (and 2)

Hey everyone,

The Luna 1 was the first cosmic ship to exit our atmosphere completely on a course for the moon. The spacecraft, itself, weighed 361.3kgs, and the tools that it contained included radio equipment, a tracking transmitter, a telemetry system, and five devices for studying the space between the Earth and the moon. It was launched by the Soviets on January 2, 1959, and it reached the moon on January 4th. The spacecraft found that the moon has no magnetic field, but it also took readings of solar wind and ionized plasma that came from the Sun on its journey. Upon reaching Earth's only satellite, the craft was supposed to crash into it, but there was a malfunction which caused the craft to miss by 5,900km. However, Luna 2 would succeed in this task. After missing the moon, the spacecraft went into orbit around the Sun and remains there today. When this first happened, the Soviets renamed it the Mechta which means dream and called it a new planet. Its orbit is between Earth and Mars with a period of approximately 450 days. While it did not strike the moon, it is still quite an achievement.