NASA’s Apollo 11 mission is famous for landing the first humans on the Moon in 1969. But three years earlier, the Soviet Union made its own history with Luna 9, the first uncrewed spacecraft to touch lunar soil. Recently, an interesting debate has emerged: two research teams claim to have found Luna 9, but in different spots.
Last November, a Russian-born space enthusiast revealed he located the long-lost lander using a combination of crowdsourced effort and NASA lunar imagery. However, researchers led by Lewis Pinault at University College London believe they’ve pinpointed Luna 9’s location using a machine-learning tool that analyzed data from the same orbiters.
Luna 9 landed on February 3, 1966, designed like a small, Upside-Down barbecue grill. Weighing 218 pounds, it carried instruments to broadcast and conduct scientific experiments. The probe used retrorockets and a landing airbag for a controlled landing at about 14 mph. Sadly, contact was lost just three days later.
The debate over Luna 9’s location highlights a significant gap in technology and data. According to a recent New York Times article, space explorer Vitaly Egorov spent years trying to find the probe by matching images from Luna 9’s cameras with the terrain shown on NASA’s LROC QuickMap, a sort of Google Maps for the Moon. However, the detail in this data isn’t very high.
The team led by Pinault aims to overcome this challenge through a machine-learning algorithm named You-Only-Look-Once–Extraterrestrial Artefact (YOLO-ETA). This tool was developed to identify man-made objects on the Moon, using the Apollo landing sites as references. Proving Luna 9’s existence could validate their work effectively.
In March, the upcoming Chandrayaan-2 mission, an Indian orbiter, will fly over the area both teams claim as Luna 9’s location. Higher-resolution images may finally resolve this mystery. Interestingly, it would be a twist of fate for an Indian mission to confirm Luna 9’s final resting place, especially since India’s Chandrayaan-3 landed on the Moon’s south pole shortly after Russia’s Luna 25 mission failed in 2023.
This ongoing saga highlights not just the history of space exploration, but also our ever-evolving technology and where it may lead us. As we learn more about the Moon, we discover the steps taken by pioneers like those who launched Luna 9—a remarkable milestone in our quest to understand the cosmos.
