#cosmic rocket

On This Day in History January 2, 1959: In what the Soviet press named “The Cosmic Rocket,” the lunar probe that would later be known as Luna 1 was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan. The aim of the probe was to impact the surface of the moon in order to study interplanetary matter, cosmic radiation and the magnetic fields of the Moon and Earth.

While the probe made history by being the first man made object to reach the velocity necessary to escape Earth's gravity, a malfunction to its guidance system caused the probe to miss the moon,. But in doing so, the probe also became the first man made object to enter an orbit around the sun. 

The technicians lost contact with the probe 62 hours after launch. 

For Further Reading:

Luna 01 from the Missions webpage of the NASA Science Solar System Exploration website

Luna 1 from the NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive