Luna 19. Heavy lunar orbiter.

 

Luna 19. Credit: NPO Lavochkin  

Luna 19, a Soviet heavy lunar orbiter, was the first mission based on the third generation Ye-8LS orbiter bus. It had a launch mass of 5,330 kg. The bus was similar to the descent stage of the Lunokhod lander missions, consisting of a collection of propellant tanks and rockets, topped by a disc-shaped platform. Two booms protruded radially from opposite sides holding conical antennas and a magnetometer. Mounted on the top platform was a pressurized, hermetically sealed container holding the scientific equipment. It had a hinged lid that would expose solar panels when opened. Luna 19 carried two television cameras, a Vega radar altimeter, and ARL gamma-ray spectrometer, an RV-2NLS radiation detector, a SIM-RMCh micrometeoroid detector, and an SG-59M magnetometer.

   The spacecraft was launched on a Proton-K booster and a Blok-D upper stage from Baikonur Cosmodrome on September 28, 1971 at 10:00:22 UT. It was placed in an intermediate Earth parking orbit and, from this orbit, was sent toward the Moon. After 2 mid-course corrections, the spacecraft reached the Moon and went into a 40.5 degree inclination, 141.2 x 133.9 km altitude orbit on October 2. On October 6 a maneuver was attempted to put Luna 19 into its nominal orbit for imaging the Moon, but an orientation system error due to a faulty gyro caused the spacecraft to go into a higher-than-planned, 127 x 135 km orbit. The high-resolution imaging and radar altimeter plans were canceled, and the cameras were used for panoramic images of the Moon instead.

   Luna 19 extended the systematic study of lunar gravitational fields and location of mascons (mass concentrations). It also studied the lunar radiation environment, the gamma-active lunar surface, micrometeoroid flux, magnetic field, and the solar wind. Communications were lost on November 1, 1972 after over a year's operation and 4,000 orbits. The orbit presumably decayed over the next year or less, resulting in an impact on the lunar surface at an unknown location.  

 
The best published image from the Luna 19 mission. Credit: Don P. Mitchell, http://mentallandscape.com

 

References:

Asif A. Siddiqi. Beyond Earth: A Chronicle of Deep Space Exploration, 1958-2016. Washington, DC: NASA History Program Office, 2018. ISBN 978-1-62683-042-4
Wesley T. Huntress Jr., Mikhail Ya. Marov. Soviet Robots in the Solar System: Mission Technologies and Discoveries. Springer Praxis Books, 2011. ISBN 978-1-4419-7897-4.
NASA/NSSDCA. Luna 19

© 2025, Andrew Mirecki 

 

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