Yesterday marked 62 years since the launch of Sputnik, the shiny sphere that kicked off an entire new era of research and development. Exactly two years later, the Soviet space program launched Luna 3 with the mission to obtain photographs of the dark side of the Moon. These days, the quality of its images makes us think they were obtained with a Game Boy but they were revolutionary for the time and multiplied our interest in the satellite's secrets.
In the late 1950s, the Space Race was painted red. In October 1957, they launched Sputnik. A month later, they sent (and killed) Laika. In 1959, they started the Luna program. Luna 1 was the first to enter a heliocentric orbit. Luna 2 became the first object to impact the lunar surface. And in October 1959, Luna 3 traveled there with a camera. The technology of the time allowed us to get this:
The dark side of the Moon
It doesn't look like much, does it? However, consider the following: To take a photograph, you need stability on three axes. Luna 3 had to fulfill that condition, shoot remotely, and transmit its results back to Earth... from space, in 1959. Moreover, there was no digital photography available. That means the probe had to carry its own mini developing lab to the Moon. Now the question is: How did it send the photos back?
https://old.neoteo.com/la-primera-foto-de-la-tierra-tomada-desde-el-espacio/Luna 3 took a total of 29 photographs, covering 70 percent of the dark side of the Moon. The probe had to get close enough to our planet to start transmission. The first attempt took place on October 8, 1959 (two days after the flyby), but its signal was too weak. The process stretched over several days, and the controllers achieved partial success on October 18, recovering 17 of the 29 photographs.
The transmission system was based on a cathode ray tube (you know, like old TVs) that shot its light through the photographs. On the other side, a device called a photomultiplier registered the different levels of brightness and contrast, turning them into an electrical signal sent back via frequency modulation. In simple terms, fax over radio. It wasn't a fast process either: each frame took half an hour.
https://old.neoteo.com/ingenieros-de-kodak-tercera-guerra/The differences between the visible surface of the Moon and its dark side left experts speechless. The presence of lunar seas didn't exceed 1 percent (versus 31 percent on the near side), and the number of visible impacts was much higher. The reason is still debated, and no matter how poor the images from Luna 3 are, they remind us that we still have a lot to learn.
