In February 1972 a Soviet spacecraft soft-landed here & then returned rock samples to the Earth
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Luna - Encyclopedia Astronautica  Ye-8 lunar sample return spacecraft - detail of drill and re-entry vehicle ... soft land on the moon; to retrieve and return lunar surface samples to the earth; ... Korolev / Lavochkin E-6M spacecraft as flown on Luna 9 first soft landing on the moon. ..... Additional Details: here. ..... It landed in the Soviet Union on 25 February 1972.
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Sample return mission - Revolvy  A sample return mission is a spacecraft mission with the goal of collecting and returning ... Samples of Moon rock from Earth's Moon were collected both from ... easier than a sample return mission, the scientific tools available here on Earth to ...... RVSN Luna 20 RVSN Lunar Lunar sample return February 25, 1972 (Earth)...
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Luna 20 - Wikipedia  Luna 20 was the second of three successful Soviet lunar sample return missions. It was flown as part of the Luna program as a robotic competitor to the six successful Apollo lunar sample return missions. Luna 20 was placed in an intermediate Earth parking orbit and from this orbit ... On February 21, 1972, Luna 20 soft landed on the Moon in a mountainous...
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Exploration of the Moon - Wikipedia  The physical exploration of the Moon began when Luna 2, a space probe launched by the ... The first landing took place in 1969, when astronauts placed scientific .... Moon rock samples were brought back to Earth by three Luna missions ... Chang'e 3 is the first spacecraft to soft-land on lunar surface since Luna 24 in 1976.
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Missions to the Moon | The Planetary Society  Returned to Earth: February 25, 1972. Luna 20 soft landed in the Apollonius highlands near the Sea of Fertility. The spacecraft collected samples and then lifted...
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Sputnik 1 - Wikipedia  Sputnik 1 was the first artificial Earth satellite. The Soviet Union launched it into an elliptical low Earth orbit on 4 October 1957. It was a 58 cm (23 in) diameter polished metal sphere, with four external radio antennae to broadcast radio pulses. It was visible all around the Earth and its radio pulses were detectable. .... Fearing the U.S. would launch a satellite before the USSR, OKB-1 suggested...
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Sputnik launched - Oct 04, 1957 - HISTORY.com  This Day in History: 10/04/1957 - Sputnik Launched. On this day in 1957, the Soviet Union inaugurates the "Space Age" with its launch of Sputnik, the world's first artificial satellite.
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Moon landing - Wikipedia  A Moon landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon. This includes both ... Following the failure at launch in 1969 of the first Lunokhod, Luna E-8 ... The Soviets first achieved the milestone of a hard lunar landing with a ... wrote in 1957 that a rocket to the Moon "could be built later this year if somebody can...
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Salyut 7 - Wikipedia  Salyut 7 (aka DOS-6) was a space station in low Earth orbit from April 1982 to February 1991. It was first manned in May 1982 with two crew via Soyuz T-5, and last visited ... It had two docking ports, one on either end of the station, to allow docking with ... All Soviet and Russian space stations were equipped with automatic...
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Sputnik - NASA History Homepage  History changed on October 4, 1957, when the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I. The world's first artificial satellite was about the size of a beach ball (58 cm.or 22.8 inches in diameter), weighed only 83.6 kg. or 183.9 pounds, and took about 98 minutes to orbit the Earth on its elliptical path.
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Soviet Venus Images - Don P. Mitchell  Venera-9 was the first lander to photograph the surface of Venus, on October 20, 1975. An optical-mechanical camera, scanning back and forth, returned almost two ... are calibration and synchronization sent during the return stroke of the scanner. ... The descent module of Venera-13 landed on Venus on March 1, 1982.
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NASA - Lunar Exploration: Past and Future  Aug 6, 2008 ... We've known for centuries about the effects on tides and biological cycles from a ... the Apollo 17 exploration of the Taurus-Littrow landing site in December 1972. ... and was made up of common rock types, similar to those found on Earth. ... Top right, soil fragments from the Sea of Tranquility (Apollo 11).
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Missions to Mars | The Planetary Society  After a 2-(Earth)-year trek from its landing site, it is now entering the foothills of .... Contact lost: March 22, 2010 ... After numerous failed attempts to contact the rover, the mission officially .... going to study the Red Planet and take close-up images of its moon Phobos. ... Successful Mars orbiter and failed descent craft (USSR).
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Sputnik 1 - Wikipedia  Sputnik 1. ... Sputnik 1 (/sptnk/; Russian: -1 [sputnk] "Satellite-1", or -1 ["PS-1", i.e., Russian:  -1 "Elementary Satellite 1"]) was the first artificial Earth satellite. The Soviet Union launched it into an elliptical low Earth orbit on 4 October 1957.
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Venera 9 - Wikipedia  Venera 9 manufacturer's designation: 4V-1 No. 660, was a Soviet unmanned space mission to Venus. It consisted of an orbiter and a lander. It was launched on June 8, 1975, at 02:38:00 UTC and had a mass of 4,936 ... It was the first spacecraft to return an image from the surface of another planet. A system of circulating...
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Luna programme - Wikipedia  The Luna programme occasionally called Lunik or Lunnik by western media, was a series of robotic spacecraft missions sent to the Moon by the Soviet Union between 1959 and 1976. Fifteen were successful, each designed as either an orbiter or lander, and accomplished many firsts in space exploration. ... Luna 9 (February 1966) became the first probe to achieve a soft landing on...
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Sputnik 1 - Wikipedia  Sputnik 1 was the first artificial Earth satellite. The Soviet Union launched it into an elliptical low ... This satellite, named Object D, was planned to be completed in 195758; it would have a mass of 1,000 to 1,400 kg (2,200 to 3,100 lb) and ..... On Friday, 4 October 1957, the Soviets had orbited the world's first artificial satellite.
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Today in science: Launch of Sputnik | Space | EarthSky  Oct 4, 2016 ... October 4, 1957. On this date, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth. According to many space...
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Fallen Satellites & Spacecraft - TRUTHER.ORG: Exposing False ...  Title: Soviet Spy Satellite Falls Into Mid-Indian Ocean ... Date: August 10, 1987 ... 1, possibly by an SL-16 booster, into a polar orbit favored for spy satellites. .... Over the years, the Soviet military has put 33 nuclear-powered satellites into ..... Nearly all of the 5,000-pound spacecraft burned up in the atmosphere, but a few...
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Failure of Phobos 2 Craft Could Be Blow to Soviet Space Efforts ...  Mar 31, 1989 ... Failure of Phobos 2 Craft Could Be Blow to Soviet Space Efforts ... was poised for an encounter with a Martian moon is probably a total loss, a disaster ... struggle within the Soviet Union's scientific community over the future of their ... much scientific data on the planet before losing contact, but the landing of...
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2 - Science - How Stuff Works  2, 1959, the Soviet Luna 1 spacecraft made the first lunar flyby at a distance of ... and sent back more than 4,000 photos before it hit the surface of the moon. ... The final stage in the dress rehearsal came on May 18, 1969, with the launch of ... pilot Eugene Cernan lowered the Lunar Module to within 50,000 feet (15,240...