Soviet and Russian Lunar Exploration

Luna 4 and the 1963, 1964 rounds of launchings 77
Even though chief designer Yevgeni Gubensko died in the middle of construction,
Yevpatoria station went on line on 26th September 1960, just in time for the first, but
unlucky Mars probes. The facilities there were originally quite primitive, ground
controllers being provided with classroom-style desks, surrounded by walls of computer
equipment. Modern wall displays did not come in until the mid-1970s. Still, it
was the most powerful deep space communications system until NASA's Goldstone
Dish came on line in 1966. In 1963, just in time for the new Ye-6 missions, the
lunar programme acquired a dedicated station, a 32 m dish in Simferopol called
the TNA-400.
Until a mission control was opened in Moscow in 1974, Yevpatoria remained the
main control for all Russian spaceflights, not just the interplanetary ones. It was
normal for the designers to fly from Baikonour Cosmodrome straight to Yevpatoria
to oversee missions. The Americans, by contrast, had a worldwide network oftracking
stations, with large dishes in California, South Africa and Australia. Dependence on
one station at Yevpatoria imposed two important limitations on Soviet lunar probes.
First, the arrival of a spacecraft at the moon had to be scheduled for a time of day
when the moon was over the horizon and visible in Yevpatoria, so schedules had to be
calculated with some care in advance. Second, as noted during the 1959 missions, there
was no point in having Soviet moon probes transmit continuously, for their signals
could not be picked up whenever the moon was out of view. Instead, there would be
short periods of concentrated transmission, called 'communications sessions' scheduled
in advance for periods when the probes would be in line of sight with Yevpatoria.
This required the use of timers and sophisticated systems of control, orientation and
signalling.
Korolev and his colleagues attempted to get around the limits imposed by the
Yevpatoria station. If they lacked friends and allies abroad to locate tracking dishes,
there were always the oceans. Here, three merchant ships were converted to provide
tracking for the first Mars and Venus missions, but they could also serve the moon
programme. These ships were the Illchevsk, Krasnodar and Dolinsk and their main role
was to track the all-important blast out of parking orbit, which was expected to take
place over the South Atlantic. The ships were a helpful addition, but they had
limitations in turn. First, ships could not carry dishes as large as the land-based
dishes; and, second, they were liable to be disrupted in the event of bad weather at sea,
which made it difficult to keep a lock on a spacecraft in a rolling sea.
LUNA 4 AND THE 1963, 1964 ROUNDS OF LAUNCHINGS
Throughout 1962, the Ye-6 was put through a rigorous series of ground tests. These
focused on the landing sequences, the operation of the airbags and ensuring their
subsequent successful deployment.
The first Ye-6 was successfully launched into Earth parking orbit on 4th January
1963, four years and two days after the First Cosmic Ship. Block L was due to fire
from its parking orbit over the Gulf of Guinea toward the end of the first orbit to send
the new spaceship moonbound. The Dolinsk was steaming below to track the signals.