The Army launched the Pioneer 4 lunar flyby spacecraft two months later (March 3, 1959). The Soviets nicknamed it Mechta ('dream'). It sailed on, however, becoming the first human-made object to orbit the Sun. Their Luna 1 impactor missed the moon by 6400 kilometers, and so failed to accomplish its mission. On January 3, 1959, the Soviet Union snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. Pioneer 3 (December 6-7, 1958), the first NASA/Army moon probe, was launched on an Army Juno II, not a USAF Thor-Able, but performed much as had Pioneer 1. The Pioneer 2 lunar orbiter (November 8, 1958) and another Luna impactor (December 4, 1958) fell victim to premature launch vehicle shutdowns. The Luna's upgraded R-7 launch vehicle exploded 104 seconds after liftoff.Īnd so it went, with launches from Florida and Kazakhstan alternating and failing. The Soviets launched their second Luna moon impactor just 16 hours after the U.S. NASA absorbed most Department of Defense space projects, though in practice the USAF and Army continued to carry out missions while interagency relations and lines of command became defined.Īble 2, later redesignated Pioneer 1, burned up in Earth's atmosphere on October 13, after its Able second stage shut down early, placing it on an elliptical path that took it about a third of the way to the moon.

The civilian space agency had opened its doors on October 1, 1958. It was the first lunar launch conducted under NASA auspices. On October 11, 1958, USAF launched Able 2, a near-copy of Able 1. A spherical Luna probe intended to impact the moon fell victim to the failure of its upgraded R-7 booster rocket just 93 seconds after liftoff from Baikonur Cosmodrome in central Asia. A month later, on September 23, 1958, the Soviet Union joined the race.

Lunark map