The Apollo 15 astronauts worked for a total of 18 hours and 37 minutes on the surface compared to just over two hours logged by the crew of Apollo By Apollo 17, the biggest news was the inclusion of the first bona fide scientist in space.
NASA had built hardware and had plans for increasingly ambitious missions all the way up to Apollo 20, and there was talk of manned flyby missions to Mars and even Venus. But the political winds shifted as quickly as public interest faded.
Pyle says that higher-ups in NASA flight control were in fact relieved when the order came to shut down Apollo. They understood perhaps better than anyone how lucky they were that no Apollo crew was lost on the way to or from the moon.
Tragically, the Apollo 1 crew died in a pre-launch fire. Legendary Mission Control pioneer Christopher Kraft was one of them. He has called for increased NASA funding to send men and women back to the moon by Luna 15 was launched in a veil of secrecy only three days before Apollo The Soviets did not reveal the target or mission of Luna 15 causing some concern on the part of the United States.
Would Luna 15's mission interfere with Apollo 11? Where would it land? Would there be communication interference? Just two hours before the liftoff of Apollo 11, Luna 15 began its descent to the surface in the Sea of Crisis.
The spacecraft crashed landed on the lunar surface. The Soviets issued a statement claiming the research part of the mission was complete, but there had been hints that Luna 15 was intended to be sample return mission. No samples were returned. The spacecraft's second stage rocket shut down early and the rocket failed to achieve Earth orbit. Zond 6 was seen by the western powers as being the Soviet Union's final test before launching cosmonauts to the Moon. Once the spacecraft left Earth orbit, it took 2 days to reach the Moon.
There, it took pictures as it swung close to the lunar surface. Zond 6 then returned to Earth. Instead of splashing down in the Indian Ocean, like the previous Zond 5 mission, controllers programmed the spacecraft to bounce off the atmosphere and redirected the capsule to parachute to a landing within Soviet territory.
Zond 5 left Earth orbit, flew around the Moon and returned to our planet, splashing down in the Indian Ocean. The spacecraft was recovered and taken back to the USSR for study. Not much information was released about this mission, but many believed Zond 5 was one of the last steps before the Soviet Union landed cosmonauts on the Moon.
Surveyor 7 landed in the lunar highlands near the crater Tycho. Scientists used the scoop on the spacecraft to "weigh" lunar rocks, based on how much current was needed to lift each rock. Images sent back from the spacecraft indicated, for the first time, that some of the lunar rocks had been molten at some time in their history. The mission was successfully completed on February 21, Launched: November 7, Lunar landing: November 9, Surveyor 6 touched down in Sinus Medii.
Once on the surface, the spacecraft took a series of pictures and soil samples. Then, on November 17, controllers ordered the spacecraft's engines to fire, lifting Surveyor 6 off the lunar surface 3 meters 10 feet and setting it down again a few feet from the original landing site. The spacecraft then took pictures of the former landing site, checking for evidence of a crater created by the rocket's exhaust.
No crater was found, indicating that the Moon's surface was solid. Last contact with the spacecraft was December 14, Launched: September 8, Lunar landing: September 10, Despite a serious helium leak that occurred during its trip to the Moon, controllers were able to bring Surveyor 5 to a success touchdown. Once on the ground, controllers ordered the spacecraft to fire its engine to test the composition of the soil beneath the lander.
The test firing blew away a few clumps of soil, but did not create a crater. The final transmission from the spacecraft was received on December 17, The mission ended when controllers sent the spacecraft crashing to the lunar surface on January 31, Controllers lost contact with Surveyor 4 just two and a half minutes before it was to touch down in Sinus Medii.
The spacecraft was the first to take pictures of the Moon's south pole. It took images from orbit for eight months before controllers sent the spacecraft crashing to the lunar surface. Crashing the spacecraft into the Moon kept an area around the Moon clear of debris that might compromise the upcoming crewed missions. As Surveyor 3 came in for a soft landing on the Moon one of its thrusters didn't turn off at the proper time and the spacecraft bounced a couple of times before it came to rest in the Ocean of Storms.
Onboard the spacecraft, a scoop was used to collect soil samples, and a camera took over 6, images. The spacecraft's orbit was altered several times during the mission to give controllers on Earth more experience with communications during lunar orbit. Lunar Orbiter 3 was able to photograph Surveyor 2 on the surface. The mission ended on October 9, , when controllers deliberately crashed the spacecraft into the Moon. Launched: December 21, Lunar landing: December 24, Luna 13 bounced to a landing on the lunar surface coming to a rest in the Oceans of Storms between the craters Selencus and Craft.
The lander collected soil samples and conducted experiments to determine the soil density and radioactivity. The mission ended on December 30, , when the spacecraft's supplies were depleted. Lunar Orbiter 2 went into lunar orbit and took over pictures during its mission, including an oblique view of the crater Copernicus that was voted one of the best images of the century by the press. The spacecraft was deliberately sent crashing into the lunar surface on October 11, , bringing to an end the successful mission.
The primary mission of the spacecraft was to photograph the lunar surface and it did, taking 1, pictures including images of the Sea of Rains and the area surrounding the crater Aristarchus. The mission was terminated on January 19, after orbits.
Launched: September 20, Lunar impact: September 22, Just before touchdown, one of the thrusters on the spacecraft malfunctioned during a mid course correction and Surveyor 2 tumbled out of control. It crashed into the moon, southeast of the crater Copernicus. The spacecraft, designed to test new technology, completed orbits before its mission was terminated on October 1, The spacecraft sent back high-quality images by television of over two million square miles of lunar surface, including the first detailed images of potential Apollo landing sites.
After circling the Moon times in 77 days, engineers on Earth deliberately crashed the spacecraft onto the Moon's surface, so that it wouldn't interfere with the upcoming crewed missions. Surveyor 1 was the first spacecraft from the United States to perform a controlled landing on the surface of the Moon. Once on the surface, Surveyor 1 took over 11, images of the lunar landscape during its six-week mission.
Luna 10 arrived at the Moon becoming the first spacecraft to successfully go into orbit around another celestial body. While in orbit, Luna 10 studied radiation levels, cosmic ray intensities, and took readings of the Moon's weak magnetic field.
The spacecraft successfully transmitted data for two months, circling the Moon times before its mission came to an end on May 30, The spacecraft was unable to achieve a lunar trajectory. It re-entered Earth's atmosphere on March 3, Launched: January 31, Lunar landing: February 3, Luna 9 became the first spacecraft to make a controlled landing onto the surface of another celestial body.
Scientists believe Luna 9 landed on the sloping floor of a shallow crater. Over the next two days, the spacecraft sent back three panoramas of the lunar landscape.
During the second and third transmission, the spacecraft evidently shifted or settled a few centimeters, because the third batch of images were taken from a slightly different angle. To many people, "the" Moon mission — the one that springs instantly to mind — was Apollo 11 in July This put the first humans, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin , onto the lunar surface, and then returned them safely to Earth — a monumental feat by the United States that was repeated five more times over the next few years.
From a technical point of view, the Apollo missions were extremely complex, involving both a regular space capsule called the command module, which remained in lunar orbit with another crew member on board, and a specially designed lunar module to descend to the surface. Though they had aspirations to do so, the Soviets never put humans on the moon. Instead, they concentrated on robotic missions, such as Luna 17 in November which delivered the first remote-control rover, Lunokhod 1 , to the moon's surface.
The rover explored its surroundings for 10 months — a mission duration that would have been impossible for human astronauts in the s. In addition to doing important lunar science, Lunokhod 1 also paved the way for today's Mars rovers. When China embarked on its lunar exploration program, it was playing a rapid game of catch-up with what had gone before.
The country's first orbiter, first lander and first rover all came within a few years of each other. Then on Jan. That's the side we never see — or from a spacecraft's perspective, the side that has no line-of-sight communication with Earth. To solve that problem, China had to place a relay satellite, Queqiao , at the Earth-Moon Lagrange point , which has a clear view of both.
Related: China on the moon! A history of Chinese lunar missions in picture. The missions described so far were all designed, operated and paid for by government-owned agencies. The first attempt to put a privately developed spacecraft on the moon wasn't until April , when a small lander called Beresheet almost pulled it off. The lander made it to the lunar surface, but having lost control on the way down it was a crash , not the intended soft landing.
The brainchild of an Israeli nonprofit organization called SpaceIL, Beresheet's operators are hoping that its successor will have better luck. Orbiters and flyby missions may not arouse quite the same excitement as a landing, but from space tortoises to finding ice on the moon, they've been just as important to the advancement of science.
Before a spacecraft can get to the moon or anywhere else beyond Earth orbit, it has to achieve an " escape velocity " of 25, mph After several false starts , the first U.
This was the first lunar "flyby" mission , passing the Moon at a distance of around 37, miles 60, km. On April 3, , the Soviet Union scored another moon first when Luna 10 entered lunar orbit. Not only was it the first spacecraft to do this, but the first to orbit any astronomical body other than Earth.
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