Panoramic Photograph of the Moon's Surface, Taken by Luna 9

Panoramic Photograph of the Moon's Surface, Taken by Luna 9

This presentation album contains 6 composite photographs, which join together to produce the first images ever transmitted back from the Moon’s surface. The album was officially issued by the Soviet State in October 1966 and includes signatures from those that worked on the Luna 9 mission.

The Luna 9 lander has the distinction of having achieved the first soft-landing on the Moon, i.e. a controlled landing where the object is not destroyed upon impact. When it touched down on 3 February 1966, it also marked the first time humans had sent a spacecraft to another celestial body and managed to return photographic images from the surface.

Luna 9 was by no means the first attempt by the Soviets to land softly on the Moon and return images. Success came on this the twelfth attempt, with the mission proving highly fruitful and marking another notable first for the Soviets in the Space Race with the Americans.

A notable aside to the story of Luna 9 was the involvement of Jodrell Bank Observatory, which was tracking the spacecraft from the UK. Jodrell noticed that Luna 9 was transmitting a signal in the universal Radiofax format, which was used by newspaper companies to transmit their photographs. This allowed Jodrell, with the help of equipment provided by the Daily Express, to decode the data being relayed by Luna 9 and publish the first images around the world before the Soviet authorities did. It is possible that the choice to use such a universal transmitting signal was a deliberate one on the part of the designers of Luna 9, to ensure that the images would not be kept secret by the Soviet government.