62 years ago, October 7, 1959, the Soviet automatic interplanetary station “Luna-3” handed over to Earth the first in the history of photographs of the reverse side of the moon. Specialists of the NII-885 (today – Russian Space Systems, RCS, is included in the state corporation “Roscosmos”) in the shortest possible time created for the space station the ground-based signal receiving-transmission equipment and the first on-board receiving transmitter for long-term space bond, which worked in an ultravironmental transmission range.
OKB-1 accepted by the head developer of the spacecraft (today – the RCC “Energy”. S.P. Queen, enters Roscosmos). The creation of the “Luna-3” also participated the teams of the All-Union “Nii of Television” (NII television), Krasnogorsk Mechanical Plant (Krasnogorsk Plant. S.A. Zvereva), NII-1 Minaviaprom (Research Center named after M.V. Keldysh), Mathematical Institute. V.A. Steklov and other enterprises.
Deputy Head of the Development of Prospective Navigation Equipment Rudolf Bakutko, RCC veteran and one of the developers of the on-board receiving transmitter: “To control the satellite control, we applied the innovative frequency maneuver method, allowing you to determine with limited capacities and potentials with an accuracy of several hundred meters to determine Space arrangement. “
In accordance with the chosen orbit of Luna-3 approached the distance of 6.5 thousand km to the surface of the moon and under the influence of its gravity changed the direction of movement. This made it possible to obtain a flight path, convenient for both photographing of the moon and for transferring information to the land. Thanks to this, the country made another breakthrough in the history of astronautics – for the first time in the world in practice, a gravitational maneuver was carried out. This allowed the station to perform photographing the invisible side of the moon and transfer pictures on the television channel to the ground.
Successful fulfillment of the mission “Luna-3” demonstrated the world’s capabilities of scientists and engineers to implement the most ambitious projects and gave a powerful impetus to the development of the domestic electronic industry.
In addition to photographing and transmission to the land of images of the reverse side of the moon, with the help of the spacecraft, scientific studies of cosmic radiation, the composition of the interplanetary gas, the corpuscular radiation of the Sun, the presence of heavy nuclei and the same-charged component in cosmic radiation, micrometeors were carried out.