Launched on 31 January 1966, Luna 9 reached the Moon three days later and became the first human-made object to land softly on another celestial body. After a string of failed Soviet attempts, the success was a major victory in the space race. Its photographs showed a surface firm enough to bear weight, settling a real fear among engineers that landers, and astronauts, might sink into deep lunar dust. The result cleared the way for crewed landings later in the decade.
Luna 9 touched down on 3 February 1966 on the Ocean of Storms. Once it had landed, the probe threw off a small capsule that rolled upright and opened four spring-loaded petals, like a flower, to steady itself. Then it began scanning the ground around it and radioing the images back to Earth.
Those pictures answered a question that had worried spacecraft designers for years. Some scientists had argued that the Moon might be covered in a deep layer of fine dust that would swallow anything that landed on it. Luna 9 sat on the surface without sinking, which showed that the ground could support a spacecraft, and in time the people who would ride one.
The world did not first see the pictures through Moscow. At Jodrell Bank Observatory in England, astronomers were listening in on the probe's signals. They realised the transmissions used a standard newspaper facsimile format, borrowed a machine from a British paper, and printed the images themselves. The first photographs taken on the Moon ran in the British press before the Soviet Union released its own.
Key people: Sergei Korolev, Georgy Babakin