| The spacecraft descent
stage was equipped with a television
camera, radiation and temperature
monitors, telecommunications equipment,
and an extendable arm with a drilling rig
for the collection of a lunar soil sample. .....The Luna 16
automatic station was launched toward the
Moon from a preliminary Earth orbit and
after one mid-course correction on 13
September it entered a circular 111 km
lunar orbit on 17 September 1970. The
lunar gravity was studied from this
orbit, and then the spacecraft was fired
into an elliptical orbit with a perilune
of 15.1 km. The main braking engine was
fired on 20 September, initiating the
descent to the lunar surface. The main
descent engine cut off at an altitude of
20 m and the landing jets cut off at 2 m
height at a velocity less than 2.4 m/s,
followed by vertical free-fall. At 05:18
UT, the spacecraft soft landed on the
lunar surface in Mare Foecunditatis (the
Sea of Fertility) as planned,
approximately 100 km west of Webb crater.
|
