Sept. 12, 1959: Luna 2 launches

Today in the history of astronomy, a Soviet spacecraft is off to make history. | Published: September 12, 2026 Luna 2 carried two spherical "pennants," which it deposited on the Moon's surface when it crashed. When he visited the U.S. after the Luna 2 impact, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev presented President Dwight Eisenhower with a replica of the pennant. Credit: Patrick Pelletier/CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons Less than two years after the successful launch of Sputnik 1, the Soviet Union put a spacecraft on the Moon. Launched Sept. 12, 1959, Luna 2 traveled over 30 hours to crash-land on the lunar surface. The impact happened at a speed of about 1.9 miles (3 kilometers) per second, and represented the first contact between a human-made craft and a solar system body other than Earth. Though the impact destroyed the spacecraft, its suite of instruments returned data before the crash, and helped confirm that the Moon lacks both significant magnetic field and radiation belts like Earth’s Van Allen belts. And, of course, the political weight of Luna 2 represented another Soviet win in the Space Race. Elisa Neckar is senior production editor of Astronomy magazine, and the editor of the Today in the History of Astronomy feature on Astronomy.com.