Russian Moon Crash Recording Released

The Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester has released a recording of Soviet spacecraft Luna 15's crash landing on the Moon's surface.

The unmanned Soviet craft, which was on a mission to collect samples of lunar rock and soil, was launched three days ahead of Apollo. It crash-landed on the Moon's surface a few hours on July 21, 1969 at 3|:50 PM, a few hours before NASA's Apollo 11, the first manned Moon mission, was launched.

Sir Bernard Lovell, Jodrell Bank's founder narrates the events on the recording. Sir Lovell was part of a team listening to transmissions from that area of space. Conversations with Apollo 11 astronauts can be heard in the background.

Sir Bernard can be heard announcing that Luna 15 is changing its orbit to move closer to the NASA landing site. Later, as Luna 15 begins to land, voices in the Jodrell control room can be heard shouting that the craft is descending too quickly.

Observers reported their discoveries to the Americans, who were concerned that the Russians were trying to sabotage the Apollo mission. However, it has been calculated that even if Luna 15 had landed safely, it still would not have beaten Apollo 11 back to Earth.

Jodrell Bank has released the recording in honor of the 40th anniversary the Apollo 11 Moon landing.

Listen to recording.