On September 24, 1970, the returned module of the automatic interplanetary station (AMS) “Luna-16” made a soft landing southeast of Jazcazgan. For the first time in the world, samples of lunar soil were delivered to the land. The total mass of the soil column delivered by Luna-16 was 101 grams.
On September 12, 1970, the Proton-K carrier rocket with the Block D brought to the Moon-16 Moon-16 flight trajectory. The flight scheme of the Luna-16 station from the moment of starting from the ground and before the landing on the moon completely repeated the flight scheme of stations with self-propelled vehicles, except that there were tough restrictions on the choice of landing sites. These restrictions were dictated by the conditions of the direct start of the return rocket to the ground after the soil fence.
The capabilities of the Proton-K missile allowed to deliver a return missile to the surface of no more than 5 kg to the surface of the moon – this was not enough to ensure the flight of the Moon – Earth, given the need for a trajectory correction. In this critical situation, a completely original solution was found: the landing on the moon was necessary to carry out in the limited area of the eastern part of the Equatorial zone of the Moon – in this case, the vertical start from the moon in a strictly specified time provided to the ground without the trajectory correction!
After the soil fence and determining the lunar vertical, on September 21, the return rocket started from the surface of the moon strictly vertically. The entire return flight to the Earth, the return rocket conducted in an unautaintent state with a twist around the axis for uniform warming up the apparatus from the Sun. Flight on the Moon’s highway – the land that lasted 84 hours, was held without the correction of the trajectory of the returned rocket.
September 24 8 hours before the existence of a saved apparatus in the Earth’s atmosphere, its separation from the return rocket has occurred. The rate of entry into the atmosphere was 10,950 m / s, and maximum overloads acting on the descent apparatus in the process of aerodynamic braking achieved 315 units. With a decrease in vertical speed up to 250 m / s at an altitude of 14.5 km, a parachute system was put into effect, and the descent apparatus made a soft landing. The Luna-16 station flight program was completely performed.
After opening the capsule at the Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry of the USSR Academy of Sciences named after V.I. Vernadsky (Geohi) It turned out that the borle was filled with a bulk lunar soil – a regolic, which is a rowed dark gray (blackboard) powder, which is easily molded and sticks out into separate loose lumps. This feature is significantly distinguished by the lunar soil from earthly structured dust, on this property it resembles a wet sand or a lumpy structure of earth soil. At the same time, the grain of the regolith increased with the depth. By chemical composition, the substance of the lunar soil was the grinding mountain breed of basalt type.