Question

Write a short note.

Moon missions

Answer 1

1. Moon is the closest astronomical object to earth, hence the first space missions to objects in the solar system were the missions to the moon. Such missions have so far been executed by USA, Soviet Union, European countries, China, Japan and India.
2. The space crafts in the Luna series sent by Soviet Union reached near the moon. Luna 2, launched in 1959 was first such craft. After that, till 1975, 15 space crafts made chemical analysis of the moon and also measured its gravity, density and radiations. Last four crafts even landed on the moon and brought the samples of stones on the moon for analysis in the laboratories. All these missions were unmanned.
3. America also executed moon missions from 1962 to 1972. The specialty of these missions was that some of these were manned missions.
4. In July, 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first human to step on the moon. In 2008, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) successfully launched Chandrayaan- 1 and placed it into an orbit around the moon. It sent useful information to earth for about a year.
5. The most important discovery made during the mission was the presence of water on the moon surface. India was the first country to discover this.