Luna 2 also crash land on the Moon in exactly the same way. Crash landing proved useful even after soft landing was mastered. NASA used crash landings to test whether Moon craters contained ice by crashing space probes into craters and testing the debris that got thrown out. The satellite's impact made it the first man-made object to land on another celestial body. "Luna 2" carried 5 different instruments to conduct various tests while it was on its way to the Moon. The scintillation counters would be used to measure any ionizing radiation; the Cherenkov radiation detectors would be measuring for electromagnetic
Luna 2 "СССР январь 1959" ("USSR January 1959") on the other side. They most likely vaporized on impact, however. The third pennant was located in the last stage of the "Luna 2" rocket, which collided with the Moon's surface 30 minutes after the spacecraft did. It was a capsule filled with liquid, with aluminium strips placed into it. On each of these strips the USSR Coat of Arms, the words "1959 январь" ("1959 January"), and the words "СОЮЗ СОВЕТСКИХ СОЦИАЛИСТИЧЕСКИХ РЕСПУБЛИК" (English: "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics") were engraved. On September 15, 1959, the premier of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev, presented