Monday, December 31, 2012

To The Moon in 2013 - stopping off at Mare Crisium



On the last post I asked where would you like to go on the Moon and Kendall suggested Mare Crisium.
See what you think.  Maybe you have a favorite we should also visit.
- LRK -

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I'd like to land on Mare Crisium. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mare_Crisium)

That Lunar surface feature has fascinated me since my childhood.

-Kendall
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Sea of crisis at 2:00 o'clock
- LRK -

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Lunar nearside with major maria and craters labelled.

 
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Mare Crisium (the "Sea of Crises") is a lunar mare located in the Moon's Crisium basin, just northeast of Mare Tranquillitatis. The basin is of thePre-Imbrian period, 4.55 to 3.85 billion years ago.
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Mare Crisium is just visible from Earth with the naked eye as a small dark spot on the edge of the Moon's face.
It is the site of the crash-landing of Soviet Luna 15 probe in 1969. A soil sample from Mare Crisium was successfully brought to Earth on 22 August 1976 by the Soviet lunar mission Luna 24.
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Now I will have to read again "The Moon is a Harsh Mistess" and "2001: A Space Odyssey" and learn more about the Russian missions to the Moon.
- LRK -

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Luna 15 (Ye-8-5 series) was an unmanned space mission of the Soviet Luna program, also called Lunik 15.
On July 21, 1969, while Apollo 11 astronauts finished the first human moonwalk, Luna 15, an unmanned Soviet spacecraft in lunar orbit at the time, began its descent to the lunar surface. Launched three days before the Apollo 11 mission, it was the third Soviet attempt toreturn lunar soil back to Earth. The Russian craft crashed into Mons Noodle on the moon at 15:50 UT, hours before the scheduled American lift off from the moon.[1]
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Luna 24 (Ye-8-5M series) was an unmanned space mission of the Soviet Union's Luna programme, also called Lunik 24. The last of the Luna series of spacecraft, the mission of the Luna 24 probe was the third Soviet mission to retrieve lunar soil samples from the Earth's moon (the first two sample return missions were Luna 16 and Luna 20). The spacecraft orbital dry mass was 4,800 kg (11,000 lb).
The probe landed in the area known as Mare Crisium (Sea of Crisis). The mission returned 170.1 grams of lunar samples to the Earth on 22 August 1976.
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The list of the Russian Luna Program to the Moon.
- LRK -

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The Luna Program was one of two lunar exploration programs conducted by the Soviet Union. This was a very long-running program, with the first mission flying in 1959 and the last flying in 1976. The Luna missions were designed to collect information about the Moon and its environment, not only for scientific purposes but also to be used in the planning of future lunar missions including manned missions to the Moon. The series included flyby, lunar-orbiting, and soft-landing missions. Selected Luna missions are noted in the following list.
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The above links require more reading in the New Year.
Want to come along? What would you like to see?
Thanks for looking up with me.
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -
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