Researchers Uncover Old Soviet Moon Landing Attempt Tapes

While researching archive materials for the 40th celebration of the Moon landing, astronomers at the University of Manchester Jodrell Bank Center for Astrophysics came across some documents that really blew their minds – recordings of a Soviet attempt at landing and returning a craft on the Moon, at the same time with the American Apollo 11 mission. The recordings, dating back to 1969, and never before heard of, were collected by astronomers listening to the lunar landing with space telescopes.

Not many people know that the Soviet Union came very close to landing the first mission on the Moon, a spacecraft designed to collect rock samples, and return back to Earth with them, for study. The Luna 15 vehicle could have been the accomplishment of that objective, but it failed short of the task, crashing into the surface of our satellite on July 20th, a day after the manned Apollo mission had already descended, and Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made history.

The tapes that were recently found were recorded at the Jodrell Bank Observatory, which was used on the occasion for picking up the transmissions between the astronauts and the NASA control center. The radio telescope was employed by astronomer Sir Bernard Lovell and colleagues, who also listened to the events unfolding with Luna 15. Over the recordings, which span the two days from July 19th to July 21st, Lovell narrates all the discovery his team makes with the telescope.

He depicts how the Luna 15 spacecraft drastically changed its orbit after the Russians got news that Apollo 11 had landed. In the first two minutes of the tape, Lovell says that the probe drastically changed its course and altitude, in an attempt to get closer to Apollo 11's landing site. But the entries for July 21st are the most exciting. Lovell shares a “rumor from a well-informed source in Moscow that this Luna is going to land this evening.”

As the proceedings unfold, documented every step of the way, it becomes clear that the Russians lost control of their spacecraft. The last words said by the astronomers in the telescope's control room are, “It’s landing,” and “It’s going down much too fast!.” Later evidence has shown that the probe smacked into the side of a mountain, 17° North latitude and 60° East longitude, in a formation known as Mare Crisium, Wired informs.