 The U.S. exploration of the Moon began with the Ranger 4 impactor in 1962.Starting in 1966 the Soviets successfully deployed a number of landers to the Moon which were able to obtain data directly from the Moon's surface; just four months later, "Surveyor 1" marked the debut of a successful series of U.S. landers.The Soviet uncrewed missions culminated in the Lunokhod program in the early 1970s, which included the first uncrewed rovers and also successfully brought lunar soil samples to Earth for study.