-----Original Message-----
From: Hartley Saunders
Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2004 15:55
To: 'Fam. F. de Graaff'
Subject: RE: Luna
"Lunar probe; passed within 5.995 km of moon but did not hit it as planned due to a failure of the launch vehicle control system. Went into solar orbit. First manmade object to attain of escape velocity. Also known as Mechta ("Dream"), popularly called Lunik I. Because of its high velocity and its announced package of various metallic emblems with the Soviet coat of arms, it was concluded that Luna 1 was intended to impact the Moon. After reaching escape velocity, Luna 1 separated from its 1472 kg third stage. The third stage, 5.2 m long and 2.4 m in diameter, travelled along with Luna 1. On 3 January, at a distance of 113,000 km from Earth, a large (1 kg) cloud of sodium gas was released by the spacecraft. This glowing orange trail of gas, visible over the Indian Ocean with the brightness of a sixth-magnitude star, allowed astronomers to track the spacecraft. It also served as an experiment on the behavior of gas in outer space. Luna 1 passed within 5,995 km of the Moon's s!
urface on 4 January after 34 hours of flight. It went into orbit around the Sun, between the orbits of Earth and Mars. The measurements obtained during this mission provided new data on the Earth's radiation belt and outer space, including the discovery that the Moon had no magnetic field and that a solar wind, a strong flow of ionized plasma emmanating from the Sun, streamed through interplanetary space. "
See the Enclosed Astronautica at http://www.astronautix.com/craft/lunae1.htm for more. Due to its small size I doubt that anyone in the See-SatL group is tracking it. Furthermore the US Strategic Command who publishes the "official" elsets that this group reference does not track objects once they Earth orbit. Hope that helps.
-Hartley Saunders II
-----Original Message-----
From: Fam. F. de Graaff [mailto:f.c.de.graaff@freeler.nl]
Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2004 15:40
To: SeeSat-L@satobs.org
Subject: Luna
Hallo to you,
I hope someone can give me an answer on following question:
Yesterday I saw on TV a document about space on Discovery Channel.
Someone told, that the Luna 1 in february 1959 was launched and missed the
moon.
Then came, the for me unknown statement that this satellite was renamed
"Michta" while it moved on in the direction of the sun.
Is someone of you capable of telling me something about this item?
Thanks a lot,
Friendly Regards,
Frits de Graaff-The Netherlands
51.9830 degrees N. and 5.8000 degrees E.
p.s. The question is: Is this this message reliable/trustful.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive:
http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive:
http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Jul 07 2004 - 16:21:35 EDT