How did a Soviet probe race Apollo 11 to the Moon — and crash trying?

On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the Moon while Michael Collins orbited above, but they were not the only ones trying to bring Moon material home that week. Three days before Apollo 11 launched, the Soviet Union launched an uncrewed probe, Luna 15: its second attempt to bring lunar soil back to Earth and beat the US to the first sample return. Luna 15 even reached lunar orbit before Apollo 11 did. Then, with the astronauts already on the surface, its controllers unexpectedly hastened the mission and began the descent. A malfunction followed, and Luna 15 crashed in Mare Crisium about two hours before Armstrong and Aldrin lifted off for home.

The race had started more than a decade earlier. In 1957, the Soviet launch of Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite, surprised the world and fueled fears about Soviet technological and military power. President Kennedy then committed the United States to landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely before the end of the 1960s. By 1969, the Soviet Union's early lead had been overtaken by the US Gemini program and by its own failure to develop the N1, a launcher that would have been comparable to the Saturn V. Seeing those failures, the Soviets tried to win the return of lunar material with uncrewed probes instead. Oddly for rivals, they released Luna 15's flight plan so it would not collide with Apollo 11, though they did not publicize its exact mission.

Armstrong's moonwalk was broadcast live to an estimated 600 million people, about a fifth of the world's population, and his words, "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind," became part of one of the most-watched events in television history. Luna 15's end was heard by far fewer: a radio telescope in England recorded its descent transmissions, and one of the British astronomers listening remarked, "I say, this has really been drama of the highest order." The recordings were released in 2009, for Apollo 11's 40th anniversary.