who launched the first spacecraft to reach the lunar surface
Soviet Union
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Luna 2 Luna 2 (E-1A series) or Lunik 2 was the second of the Soviet Union's Luna programme spacecraft launched to the Moon. It was the first spacecraft to reach the surface of the Moon, and the first man-made object to land on another celestial body. On September 13, 1959, it hit the Moon's surface east of Mare Imbrium near the craters Aristides, Archimedes, and Autolycus. Launch was scheduled for September 9, but the Blok I core stage was shut down after it failed to reach full thrust at ignition. The booster was removed from the pad and replaced by
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Lunokhod 1 Lunokhod 1 (Луноход, "moon walker" in Russian; "Аппарат 8ЕЛ № 203", "vehicle 8ЕЛ№203") was the first of two unmanned lunar rovers landed on the Moon by the Soviet Union as part of its Lunokhod program. The "Luna 17" spacecraft carried "Lunokhod 1" to the Moon in 1970. "Lunokhod 1" was the first remote-controlled robot "rover" to freely move across the surface of an astronomical object beyond the Earth. Lunokhod 0 (No.201), the previous and first attempt to do so, launched in February 1969 but failed to reach orbit. Although only designed for a lifetime of three lunar days,
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landed. While on the lunar surface, the panoramic television system was operated. Lunar samples were obtained by means of an extendable drilling apparatus. The ascent stage of "Luna 20" was launched from the lunar surface on 22 February 1972 carrying 30 grams of collected lunar samples in a sealed capsule. It landed in the Soviet Union on 25 February 1972. The lunar samples were recovered the following day. This was the eighth Soviet spacecraft launched with the intent of returning lunar soil to Earth. It was evidently sent to complete the mission that Luna 18 had failed to accomplish. After
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of particular interest in exploration of the Moon, but suffer from gravitational perturbation effects that make most unstable, and leave only a few orbital inclinations possible for indefinite "frozen orbits", useful for long-term stays in LLO. The Soviet Union sent the first spacecraft to the vicinity of the Moon, the robotic vehicle Luna 1, on January 4, 1959. It passed within of the Moon's surface, but did not achieve lunar orbit. Luna 3, launched on October 4, 1959, was the first robotic spacecraft to complete a circumlunar free return trajectory, still not a lunar orbit, but a figure-8 trajectory which
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not only the large Descent Stages of the lunar landers left behind but also tracks of the astronauts' walking paths in the lunar dust. Moon landing A Moon landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon. This includes both manned and unmanned (robotic) missions. The first human-made object to reach the surface of the Moon was the Soviet Union's Luna 2 mission, on 13 September 1959. The United States' Apollo 11 was the first manned mission to land on the Moon, on 20 July 1969. There have been six manned U.S. landings (between 1969 and
Moon landing
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Luna 2 Luna 2 (E-1A series) or Lunik 2 was the second of the Soviet Union's Luna programme spacecraft launched to the Moon. It was the first spacecraft to reach the surface of the Moon, and the first man-made object to land on another celestial body. On September 13, 1959, it hit the Moon's surface east of Mare Imbrium near the craters Aristides, Archimedes, and Autolycus. Launch was scheduled for September 9, but the Blok I core stage was shut down after it failed to reach full thrust at ignition. The booster was removed from the pad and replaced by
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1993 at , between the craters Stevinus and Furnerius. Hiten The Hiten Spacecraft (ひてん, ), given the English name Celestial Maiden and known before launch as MUSES-A (Mu Space Engineering Spacecraft A), part of the MUSES Program, was built by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science of Japan and launched on January 24, 1990. It was Japan's first lunar probe, the first robotic lunar probe since the Soviet Union's Luna 24 in 1976, and the first lunar probe launched by a country other than the Soviet Union or the United States. Hiten was to be placed into a highly
Hiten
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Hiten The Hiten Spacecraft (ひてん, ), given the English name Celestial Maiden and known before launch as MUSES-A (Mu Space Engineering Spacecraft A), part of the MUSES Program, was built by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science of Japan and launched on January 24, 1990. It was Japan's first lunar probe, the first robotic lunar probe since the Soviet Union's Luna 24 in 1976, and the first lunar probe launched by a country other than the Soviet Union or the United States. Hiten was to be placed into a highly elliptical Earth orbit with an apogee of 476,000 km,
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mission, NASA correctly identified that it had been an attempted Lunar impact mission, however they incorrectly believed that it had been launched on 16 June, two days before its actual launch. Luna E-1A No.1 Luna E-1A No.1 or E-1 No.5, sometimes identified by NASA as Luna 1959A, was a Soviet spacecraft which was lost in a launch failure in 1959. It was a Luna E-1A spacecraft, the first of two to be launched. It was intended to impact the surface of the Moon, and in doing so would be the first man-made object to reach its surface. Launch was originally
Luna E-1A No.1
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view of it in history. The United States of America launched the Ranger spacecraft between 1961 and 1965 to photograph the lunar surface until the instant they impacted it, the Lunar Orbiters between 1966 and 1967 to photograph the Moon from orbit, and the Surveyors between 1966 and 1968 to photograph and softly land on the lunar surface. The Soviet Lunokhods 1 (1970) and 2 (1973) traversed almost 50 km of the lunar surface, making detailed photographs of the lunar surface. The Clementine spacecraft obtained the first nearly global cartograph (map) of the lunar topography, and also multispectral images. Successive
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1 launched RatSat, following previous failures in 2006, 2007, and August. India launched its first Lunar probe, Chandraayan-1, on 22 October, with the spacecraft entering selenocentric orbit on 8 November. On 16 November, the Moon Impact Probe was released, and crashed into the Lunar surface. Although no other spacecraft were launched beyond geocentric orbit in 2008, several significant events occurred in interplanetary flights which had been launched in previous years. MESSENGER conducted flybys of Mercury in January and October, the first spacecraft to do so since Mariner 10 in 1975. Cassini continued to make flybys of the moons of Saturn,
2008 in spaceflight
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quality with resolution down to . Included was a frame of the Surveyor 1 landing site, permitting identification of the location of the spacecraft on the surface. Accurate data were acquired from all other experiments throughout the mission. The spacecraft was used for tracking purposes until it struck the lunar surface on command at 14.3 degrees N latitude, 97.7 degrees W longitude (selenographic coordinates) on October 9, 1967. Lunar Orbiter 3 The Lunar Orbiter 3 was a spacecraft launched by NASA in 1967 as part of the Lunar Orbiter Program. It was designed primarily to photograph areas of the lunar
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the asteroids and comets. Beginning with Luna 2 in 1959, the first few spacecraft to reach the lunar surface were impactors, not landers. They were part of the Soviet Luna program or the American Ranger program. In 1966, the Soviet Luna 9 became the first spacecraft to achieve a lunar soft landing and to transmit photographic data to Earth. The American Surveyor program (since 1966) was designed to determine where Apollo could land safely. As a result, these robotic missions required soft landers to sample the lunar soil and determine the thickness of the dust layer, which was unknown before
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swung around the far side of the Moon and returned to the Earth. This craft provided the first pictures of the far side of the Lunar surface. The Soviet Luna 10 became the first spacecraft to actually orbit the Moon in April 1966. It studied micrometeoroid flux, and lunar environment until May 30, 1966. A follow-on mission, Luna 11, was launched on August 24, 1966 and studied lunar gravitational anomalies, radiation and solar wind measurements. The first United States spacecraft to orbit the Moon was Lunar Orbiter 1 on August 14, 1966. The first orbit was an elliptical orbit, with
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very successful and ended up being extended for another four months. On March 1, 2009, Chang'e 1 was intentionally impacted on the lunar surface completing the 16-month mission. On October 1, 2010, China launched the Chang'e 2 lunar orbiter. China landed the rover Chang'e 3 on the Moon on December 14, 2013, became the third country to have done so. Chang'e 3 is the first spacecraft to soft-land on lunar surface since Luna 24 in 1976. India's national space agency, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), launched Chandrayaan-1, an unmanned lunar orbiter, on October 22, 2008. The lunar probe was originally
Exploration of the Moon
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Chang'e 1 Chang'e 1 (; ) was an unmanned Chinese lunar-orbiting spacecraft, part of the first phase of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program. The spacecraft was named after the Chinese Moon goddess, Chang'e. Chang'e 1 was launched on 24 October 2007 at 10:05:04 UTC from Xichang Satellite Launch Center. It left lunar transfer orbit on 31 October and entered lunar orbit on 5 November. The first picture of the Moon was relayed on 26 November 2007. On 12 November 2008, a map of the entire lunar surface was released, produced from data collected by Chang'e 1 between November 2007 and
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and 21°30' east longitude. Ranger 6 Ranger 6 was a lunar probe in the Ranger program, a robotic spacecraft series launched by NASA in the early and mid-1960s to obtain the first close-up images of the Moon's surface. It was designed to achieve a lunar-impact trajectory and to transmit high-resolution photographs of the lunar surface during the final minutes of flight up to impact. The spacecraft carried six television vidicon cameras - two wide-angle (channel F, cameras A and B) and four narrow-angle (channel P) - to accomplish these objectives. The cameras were arranged in two separate chains, or channels,
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Ranger 6 Ranger 6 was a lunar probe in the Ranger program, a robotic spacecraft series launched by NASA in the early and mid-1960s to obtain the first close-up images of the Moon's surface. It was designed to achieve a lunar-impact trajectory and to transmit high-resolution photographs of the lunar surface during the final minutes of flight up to impact. The spacecraft carried six television vidicon cameras - two wide-angle (channel F, cameras A and B) and four narrow-angle (channel P) - to accomplish these objectives. The cameras were arranged in two separate chains, or channels, each self-contained with separate
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initial report "Ranger 8 Photographs of the Moon".) Impact velocity was slightly less than 2.68 km/s, approximately 6,000 mph. The spacecraft performance was excellent. The impact crater of Ranger 8, approximately 13.5 m wide, was later photographed by "Lunar Orbiter 4". Ranger 8 Ranger 8 was a lunar probe in the Ranger program, a robotic spacecraft series launched by NASA in the early-to-mid-1960s to obtain the first close-up images of the Moon's surface. These pictures helped select landing sites for Apollo missions and were used for scientific study. During its 1965 mission, Ranger 8 transmitted 7,137 lunar surface photographs before
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Constellation would have also employed Earth orbit rendezvous, conveying the crew to the vehicle. The lander, known as Altair, would have been launched separately on the Ares V rocket, a rocket based on both Space Shuttle and Apollo technologies. Orion would have been launched separately and would have linked up with Altair in low Earth orbit. Also, unlike Apollo, Orion would have remained unmanned in lunar orbit while the entire crew landed on the lunar surface. Toward the end of the mission, the Altair spacecraft would have launched into lunar orbit to link up with the Orion spacecraft in lunar
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performed lunar observations to within 25 minutes before impact. The landing test will be applied to future soft landings such as Chandrayaan-2, planned for 2016. The Chinese Chang'e-1 spacecraft also achieved a systematic hard landing at the end of its mission in 2009, when China became the sixth country to reach the lunar surface. One purpose of the lander was to pre-test for future soft landings. A Chinese lunar soft lander is achieved with the Chang'e-3 mission. Japanese interplanetary probes have been mostly limited to Small Solar System bodies such as comets and asteroids. JAXA's Nozomi probe was launched in
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NASA launched the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, on June 18, 2009, which has collected imagery of the Moon's surface. It also carried the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), which investigated the possible existence of water in Cabeus crater. GRAIL is another mission, launched in 2011. The first commercial mission to the Moon was accomplished by the Manfred Memorial Moon Mission (4M), led by LuxSpace, an affiliate of German OHB AG. The mission was launched on 23 October 2014 with the Chinese Chang'e 5-T1 test spacecraft, attached to the upper stage of a Long March 3C/G2 rocket. The 4M spacecraft
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into earth and lunar orbits; first scientific instrument module (SIM) bay flown and operated on an Apollo spacecraft; longest distance traversed on lunar surface; first use of a lunar surface navigation device (mounted on Rover-1); first subsatellite launched in lunar orbit; and first extravehicular (EVA) from a Command Module during transearth coast. The latter feat was performed by Worden during three excursions to "Endeavour's" SIM-bay where he retrieved film cassettes from the panoramic and mapping cameras and reported his personal observations of the general condition of equipment housed there. Apollo 15 concluded with a Pacific Ocean splashdown and subsequent recovery
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onboard the Lunar Prospector, which impacted the Moon's surface on 31 July 1999. Manfred Memorial Moon Mission Manfred Memorial Moon Mission (4M) was the first private commercial probe to fly by the Moon. It was led by LuxSpace, a child company of German OHB System, in honor of OHB Systems founder, professor Manfred Fuchs, who died in 2014, and was launched with the Chinese Chang'e 5-T1 test spacecraft on 23 October 2014. The lunar flyby took place on 28 October 2014, after which the spacecraft entered the elliptical Earth orbit and continued transmission until 11 November 2014, exceeding its designed
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the on-board scientific instruments, yet still becoming the first U.S. spacecraft to reach a solar orbit. The final Pioneer lunar probe design consisted of four "paddlewheel" solar panels extending from a one-meter diameter spherical spin-stabilized spacecraft body that was equipped to take images of the lunar surface with a television-like system, estimate the Moon's mass and topography of the poles, record the distribution and velocity of micrometeorites, study radiation, measure magnetic fields, detect low frequency electromagnetic waves in space and use a sophisticated integrated propulsion system for maneuvering and orbit insertion as well. None of the four spacecraft built in
Moon landing
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to impact on the lunar surface near the crater Gill at 18:25 UTC on 10 June 2009. The Chinese lunar orbiter Chang'e 1, launched 24 October 2007, 10:05 UTC, executed a controlled crash onto the surface of the Moon on 1 March 2009, 20:44 GMT, after a 16-month mission. Chandrayaan-1 was launched on 22 October 2008, 00:52 UTC. The impactor, the Moon Impact Probe, impacted near Shackleton Crater at the south pole of the lunar surface at 14 November 2008, 20:31 IST. Chandrayaan-2 is scheduled for launch in 2019. The LCROSS data collecting shepherding spacecraft was launched together with the
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reschedule of the Gemini 9A mission using a backup Augmented Target Docking Adapter atop an Atlas, but with no Agena rocket stage. Two more GATVs were successfully launched and used on Gemini 11 and Gemini 12. A series of five Lunar Orbiter spacecraft were launched from August 1966 through August 1967, to help select landing sites for the Apollo manned lunar landing program by mapping the Moon's surface. Each spacecraft weighed and was in diameter, minus the four extended solar panels. All launches were successful, and a total of 99 percent of the surface of the Moon (near and far
Atlas-Agena
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peanuts – surely the reason the mission was successful. Since 1964 control rooms ceremonially open a container of peanuts for luck and tradition. Ranger 7 Ranger 7 was the first space probe of the United States to successfully transmit close images of the lunar surface back to Earth. It was also the first completely successful flight of the Ranger program. Launched on July 28, 1964, Ranger 7 was designed to achieve a lunar-impact trajectory and to transmit high-resolution photographs of the lunar surface during the final minutes of flight up to impact. The spacecraft carried six television vidicon cameras –
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Pioneer 4 Pioneer 4 was an American spin-stabilized unmanned spacecraft launched as part of the Pioneer program on a lunar flyby trajectory and into a heliocentric orbit making it the first probe of the United States to escape from the Earth's gravity. It carried a payload similar to "Pioneer 3": a lunar radiation environment experiment using a Geiger–Müller tube detector and a lunar photography experiment. It passed within 58,983 km of the Moon's surface. However, "Pioneer 4" did not come close enough to trigger its photoelectric sensor. The spacecraft was still in solar orbit as of 1969. It was the
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satellite telecommunications. Additional non-commercial uses of spaceflight include space observatories, reconnaissance satellites and other Earth observation satellites. A spaceflight typically begins with a rocket launch, which provides the initial thrust to overcome the force of gravity and propels the spacecraft from the surface of the Earth. Once in space, the motion of a spacecraft – both when unpropelled and when under propulsion – is covered by the area of study called astrodynamics. Some spacecraft remain in space indefinitely, some disintegrate during atmospheric reentry, and others reach a planetary or lunar surface for landing or impact. The first theoretical proposal of
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Ranger 7 Ranger 7 was the first space probe of the United States to successfully transmit close images of the lunar surface back to Earth. It was also the first completely successful flight of the Ranger program. Launched on July 28, 1964, Ranger 7 was designed to achieve a lunar-impact trajectory and to transmit high-resolution photographs of the lunar surface during the final minutes of flight up to impact. The spacecraft carried six television vidicon cameras – two wide-angle (channel F, cameras A and B) and four narrow-angle (channel P) – to accomplish these objectives. The cameras were arranged in
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support the Soviet manned moon missions during the Moon race. Instead, they were used as remote-controlled robots for exploration of the lunar surface and return its pictures after the successful Apollo manned lunar landings and cancellation of the Soviet manned moon program. The Lunokhods were transported to the lunar surface by Luna spacecraft, which were launched by Proton-K rockets. The moon lander part of the Luna spacecraft for Lunokhods was similar to the one for sample-return missions. The Lunokhods were designed by Alexander Kemurdzhian at Lavochkin. Not until the 1997 Mars Pathfinder was another remote-controlled vehicle put on an extraterrestrial
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the lunar south pole. The mission will be the first CubeSat to reach the Moon, and the first mission to use lasers to look for water ice. Any polar volatile data collected by Lunar Flashlight could then ensure the most appropriate landing sites for a more expensive rover to perform "in situ" measurements and chemical analyses. The spacecraft will maneuver to its lunar polar orbit and use its near infrared lasers to shine light into the shaded polar regions, while the on-board spectrometer measures surface reflection and composition. Barbara Cohen from the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center is the Principal
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Luna 22 Luna 22 (Ye-8-LS series) was an unmanned space mission, part of the Soviet Luna program, also called Lunik 22. "Luna 22" was a lunar orbiter mission. The spacecraft carried imaging cameras and also had the objectives of studying the Moon's magnetic field, surface gamma ray emissions and composition of lunar surface rocks, and the gravitational field, as well as micrometeorites and cosmic rays. Luna 22 was launched into Earth parking orbit and then to the Moon. It was inserted into a circular lunar orbit on 2 June 1974. The spacecraft made many orbit adjustments over its 18-month lifetime
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Lunar Orbiter 3 The Lunar Orbiter 3 was a spacecraft launched by NASA in 1967 as part of the Lunar Orbiter Program. It was designed primarily to photograph areas of the lunar surface for confirmation of safe landing sites for the Surveyor and Apollo missions. It was also equipped to collect selenodetic, radiation intensity, and micrometeoroid impact data. The spacecraft was placed in a cislunar trajectory and injected into an elliptical near-equatorial lunar orbit on February 8 at 21:54 UT. The orbit was with an inclination of 20.9 degrees and a period of 3 hours 25 minutes. After four days
Lunar Orbiter 3
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on the Moon's surface. Japan's Kaguya probe's high resolution imaging sensors failed to detect any signs of water ice in permanently shaded craters around the south pole of the Moon, and it ended its mission by crashing into the lunar surface in order to study the ejecta plume content. The People's Republic of China's Chang'e 1 orbiter, launched in October 2007, took the first detailed photographs of some polar areas where ice water is likely to be found. On November 14, 2008, the Indian spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 released the Moon Impact Probe (MIP) that impacted Shackleton Crater, of the lunar south
Lunar water
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Surveyor program. The department developed the trajectories for all Surveyor spacecraft flights. Additionally, he managed the Liftoff and Translation experiment. It proved that spacecraft engines can be reignited on the lunar surface, a task which was not a Surveyor technical requirement. The Surveyor was the first unmanned spacecraft to soft land on the moon. In addition to collecting and analyzing lunar samples, and photographing the surface of the moon, it proved the principle of soft landing a spacecraft on the lunar surface, and selected the landing corridor for the future Apollo manned flights. Later, as the engineering department manager, and
Robert Frimtzis
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amount, distribution, and sizes of ejecta, mechanical properties of the surface such as bearing strength, cohesiveness, compaction, etc. Determination and recognition of processes operating to produce the lunar surface features also were among the objectives of this photographic experiment. Luna 4 Luna 4, or E-6 No.4 was a Soviet spacecraft launched as part of the Luna program to attempt the first soft landing on the Moon. Following a successful launch, the spacecraft failed to perform a course correction and as a result it missed the moon, remaining instead in Earth orbit. "Luna 4" was launched by a Molniya-L carrier rocket
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to the release of information about its mission, NASA correctly identified that it had been a test of a spacecraft intended for manned Lunar flights. However, they were unsure whether it was intended to reach the Moon itself. Soyuz 7K-L1 No.4L Soyuz 7K-L1 No.4L, sometimes identified by NASA as Zond 1967A, was a Soviet spacecraft which was launched in 1967 as part of the Zond programme. It was a Soyuz 7K-L1 spacecraft, the first of nine to be launched. Although it was intended to perform a circumlunar flyby of the Moon before returning to the Earth for landing, it failed
Soyuz 7K-L1 No.4L
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July 2008. The mission was scheduled to continue for a year, but was later extended and the spacecraft operated until 1 March 2009, when it was taken out of orbit. It impacted the surface of the Moon at 08:13 UTC. Data gathered by Chang'e 1 was able to create the most accurate and highest resolution 3-D map ever created of the lunar surface. Chang'e 1 is the first lunar probe to conduct passive, multi-channel, microwave remote sensing of the Moon by using a microwave radiator. Its sister orbital probe Chang'e 2 was launched on 1 October 2010. The Chinese Lunar
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Luna 15 Luna 15 was an unmanned space mission of the Soviet Luna programme. On 21 July 1969, while Apollo 11 astronauts finished the first human moonwalk, Luna 15, an unmanned Soviet spacecraft in lunar orbit at the time, began its descent to the lunar surface. Launched three days before the Apollo 11 mission, it was the second Soviet attempt to return lunar soil back to Earth with a goal to outstrip the US in achieving a sample return in the Moon race. The previous mission, designated E-8-5-402, launched June 14, 1969, did not achieve Earth orbit because the third
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lunar exploration missions or lunar outpost construction on the Moon between 2018 and 2025. SELENE SELENE (; Selenological and Engineering Explorer), better known in Japan by its nickname , was the second Japanese lunar orbiter spacecraft following the Hiten probe. Produced by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) and the National Space Development Agency (NASDA), the spacecraft was launched on September 14, 2007. After successfully orbiting the Moon for a year and eight months, the main orbiter was instructed to impact on the lunar surface near the crater Gill on June 10, 2009. The orbiter's nickname, Kaguya, was
SELENE
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Apollo Lunar Module The Apollo Lunar Module, or simply lunar module (LM, pronounced "Lem"), originally designated the lunar excursion module (LEM), was the spacecraft which was flown to and landed on the Moon. The lander spacecraft were built for the US Apollo program by Grumman Aircraft. The lunar module, consisting of a descent stage and an ascent stage, was ferried from the Earth to the Moon attached to the Apollo spacecraft command and service module (CSM), approximately twice its mass. The ascent stage carried a crew of two who flew the spacecraft from lunar orbit to the surface and later
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Luna 1 Luna 1, also known as Mechta ( , "lit.": "Dream"), E-1 No.4 and "First Lunar Rover ", was the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Earth's Moon, and the first spacecraft to be placed in heliocentric orbit. Intended as an impactor, "Luna 1" was launched as part of the Soviet Luna programme in 1959, however due to an incorrectly timed upper stage burn during its launch, it missed the Moon, in the process becoming the first spacecraft to leave geocentric orbit. While traveling through the outer Van Allen radiation belt, the spacecraft's scintillator made observations indicating
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Cargo Block, it never served in its intended role as a lunar or Almaz crew vehicle when the programs was canceled, and neither was it ever launched together with an Almaz space station. VA was the first spacecraft to be launched into orbit twice, as Kosmos 929 was recovered and launched again as Kosmos 998. Gemini 2 was launched into space twice, but both launches were suborbital. The VA spacecraft was initially designed as part of the LK-1 manned lunar flyby spacecraft and then the LK-700 spacecraft, but got later repurposed for the Almaz space station program. First work on
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Ranger program The Ranger program was a series of unmanned space missions by the United States in the 1960s whose objective was to obtain the first close-up images of the surface of the Moon. The Ranger spacecraft were designed to take images of the lunar surface, transmitting those images to Earth until the spacecraft were destroyed upon impact. A series of mishaps, however, led to the failure of the first six flights. At one point, the program was called "shoot and hope". Congress launched an investigation into "problems of management" at NASA Headquarters and Jet Propulsion Laboratory. After two reorganizations
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to land on an airless body such as the Moon, a powered descent with a gravity turn is a good alternative. The Apollo lunar module used a slightly modified gravity turn to land from lunar orbit. This was essentially a launch in reverse except that a landing spacecraft is lightest at the surface while a spacecraft being launched is heaviest at the surface. A computer program called Lander that simulated gravity turn landings applied this concept by simulating a gravity turn launch with a negative mass flow rate, i.e. the propellant tanks filled during the rocket burn. The idea of
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with NASA's planned Lunar Surface Access Module lunar lander. Another Jupiter-246 would be launched, its Jupiter Upper Stage (JUS) fully fueled with no payload. This particular JUS would serve as the Earth Departure Stage. The two upper stages would meet in low Earth orbit and the lunar spacecraft would transfer from the spent JUS to the fresh JUS. The assembled Orion/Altair/JUS would leave Earth orbit for the Moon. The JUS would be expended on reaching the moon. After this the spacecraft would enter lunar orbit, and the entire crew would descend to the Moon in the Altair while the Orion
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Ranger 3 Ranger 3 was a space exploration mission conducted by NASA to study the Moon. The Ranger 3 robotic spacecraft was launched January 26, 1962 as part of the Ranger program. Due to a series of malfunctions, the spacecraft missed the Moon by and entered a heliocentric orbit. The Ranger 3 space probe was designed to transmit pictures of the lunar surface during a period of 10 minutes of flight prior to impacting on the Moon, to rough-land a seismometer capsule on the Moon, to collect gamma-ray data in flight, to study radar reflectivity of the lunar surface, and
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did not repeat itself. The Ranger spacecraft were designed to impact the Moon, returning photographs of the lunar surface until their destruction. The spacecraft was designed in three Blocks, all similar in appearance with a forward antenna and magnetometer, supported by a boom, with more sensors and two solar panels and a dish antenna mounted at the base. The first two Block I spacecraft, Ranger 1 and Ranger 2, were launched on August 23 and November 18, 1961, not to the Moon, but in intended high Earth orbits to test the Atlas-Agena and spacecraft capabilities. However, the Agena malfunctioned on
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mission would have returned to Earth alone aboard his spacecraft. It consisted of a Gemini Reentry Module, which would have housed the astronauts while they awaited rescue, and a descent stage containing life support systems, consumables, and the engine and propellant used to land the spacecraft. The Gemini Lunar Surface Rescue Spacecraft was intended to fly a direct ascent mission, launched by a Saturn V. Descent stages, built from either the descent stage of the Apollo Lunar Module, or from the Apollo Service Module, would have reduced the spacecraft's velocity as it approached the Moon. One configuration used two Service
Advanced Gemini
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SELENE SELENE (; Selenological and Engineering Explorer), better known in Japan by its nickname , was the second Japanese lunar orbiter spacecraft following the Hiten probe. Produced by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) and the National Space Development Agency (NASDA), the spacecraft was launched on September 14, 2007. After successfully orbiting the Moon for a year and eight months, the main orbiter was instructed to impact on the lunar surface near the crater Gill on June 10, 2009. The orbiter's nickname, Kaguya, was selected by the general public. It comes from the name of a lunar princess
SELENE
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Lunar Orbiter 1 The Lunar Orbiter 1 unmanned robotic spacecraft, part of the Lunar Orbiter Program, was the first American spacecraft to orbit the Moon. It was designed primarily to photograph smooth areas of the lunar surface for selection and verification of safe landing sites for the Surveyor and Apollo missions. It was also equipped to collect selenodetic, radiation intensity, and micrometeoroid impact data. The spacecraft was placed in an Earth parking orbit on August 10, 1966, at 19:31 UTC. The trans-lunar injection burn occurred at 20:04 UTC. The spacecraft experienced a temporary failure of the Canopus star tracker (probably
Lunar Orbiter 1
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Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) on 18 June 2009 on board an Atlas V rocket with a Centaur upper stage. On 9 October 2009, at 11:31 UTC, the Centaur upper stage impacted the lunar surface, releasing the kinetic energy equivalent of detonating approximately 2 tons of TNT (8.86 GJ). Six minutes later at 11:37 UTC, the LCROSS shepherding spacecraft also impacted the surface. The GRAIL mission consisted of two small spacecraft: GRAIL A ("Ebb"), and GRAIL B ("Flow"). They were launched on 10 September 2011 on board a Delta II rocket. GRAIL A separated from the rocket about nine minutes after
Moon landing
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Pioneer 3 Pioneer 3 was a spin stabilized spacecraft launched at 05:45:12 UTC on 6 December 1958 by the U.S. Army Ballistic Missile Agency in conjunction with the NASA, using a Juno II rocket. This spacecraft was intended as a lunar probe, but failed to go past the Moon and into a heliocentric orbit as planned, but did reach an altitude of 102,360 km before falling back to Earth. The revised spacecraft objectives were to measure radiation in the outer Van Allen radiation belt using two Geiger-Müller tubes and to test the trigger mechanism for a lunar photographic experiment. "Pioneer
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gravity and propels the spacecraft from the surface of Earth. Once in space, the motion of a spacecraft—both when unpropelled and when under propulsion—is covered by the area of study called astrodynamics. Some spacecraft remain in space indefinitely, some disintegrate during atmospheric reentry, and others reach a planetary or lunar surface for landing or impact. Satellites are used for a large number of purposes. Common types include military (spy) and civilian Earth observation satellites, communication satellites, navigation satellites, weather satellites, and research satellites. Space stations and human spacecraft in orbit are also satellites. Current examples of the commercial use of
Space exploration
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the centre of the galaxies etc. Chandrayaan-1 was India's first mission to the Moon. The unmanned lunar exploration mission included a lunar orbiter and an impactor called the Moon Impact Probe. ISRO launched the spacecraft using a modified version of the PSLV on 22 October 2008 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota. The vehicle was inserted into lunar orbit on 8 November 2008. It carried high-resolution remote sensing equipment for visible, near infrared, and soft and hard X-ray frequencies. During its 312 days operational period (2 years planned), it surveyed the lunar surface to produce a complete map of its
Indian Space Research Organisation
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Luna 5 Luna 5, or E-6 No.10, was an unmanned Soviet spacecraft intended to land on the Moon as part of the Luna programme. It was intended to become the first spacecraft to achieve a soft landing on the Moon, however its retrorockets failed, and the spacecraft impacted the lunar surface. "Luna 5" was launched by a Molniya-M carrier rocket, flying from Site 1/5 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Liftoff occurred at 07:49:37 UTC on 9 May 1965. The spacecraft and Blok L upper stage entered a low Earth parking orbit, before the Blok L fired to propel "Luna 5" towards
Luna 5
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elements; manipulate the lunar material; obtain touchdown dynamics data; and obtain thermal and radar reflectivity data. This spacecraft was similar in design to the previous Surveyors, but it carried more scientific equipment including a television camera with polarizing filters, a surface sampler, bar magnets on two footpads, two horseshoe magnets on the surface scoop, and auxiliary mirrors. Of the auxiliary mirrors, three were used to observe areas below the spacecraft, one to provide stereoscopic views of the surface sampler area, and seven to show lunar material deposited on the spacecraft. The spacecraft landed on the lunar surface on January 10,
Surveyor 7
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to fuel future energy demands in Asia. All three main Asian space powers plan to send men to the Moon in the distant future and have already sent lunar probes. Japan was the first Asian country to launch a lunar probe. The Hiten (Japanese: "flying angel") spacecraft (known before the launch as MUSES-A), built by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science of Japan, was launched on 24 January 1990. In many ways, the mission did not go as was planned. Kaguya, the second Japanese lunar orbiter spacecraft, was launched on 14 September 2007. China launched its first lunar probe,
Comparison of Asian national space programs
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. The spacecraft performance was excellent. Real-time television coverage with live network broadcasts of many of the F-channel images (primarily camera B but also some camera A pictures) were provided for this flight. Ranger 9 Ranger 9 was a Lunar probe, launched in 1965 by NASA. It was designed to achieve a lunar impact trajectory and to transmit high-resolution photographs of the lunar surface during the final minutes of flight up to impact. The spacecraft carried six television vidicon cameras - two wide-angle (channel F, cameras A and B) and four narrow-angle (channel P) - to accomplish these objectives. The
Ranger 9
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schedule was: Following initial LK-700 landings, the more ambitious Lunar Expeditionary Complex (LKE) would be delivered to the surface in three UR-700 launches: LK-700 LK-700 was a Soviet direct ascent lunar lander program proposed in 1964. It was developed by Vladimir Chelomey as an alternative to the N1-L3 program. It was also a further development of the LK-1 lunar flyby spacecraft. It would have been launched using the proposed UR-700 rocket (related to the Proton rocket) with a crew of three cosmonauts on a direct flight to the lunar surface and back. The direct landing approach would allow the Soviets
LK-700
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was announced on 17 February 2011. The Puli spacecraft was planned to be finished by 2014. It was planned to be launched by a commercial carrier rocket, and to reach the Moon on its own. In the team's early concept traveling on the lunar surface was planned to be achieved by changing the spherical lander's center of mass, making it roll. Later they redesigned the rover to run on four "wheg" (wheel of legs) structures. During 2012 the second, bigger rover of that concept (Iteration 2) was constructed and underwent running tests. Puli Space Technologies Puli Space Technologies (named after
Puli Space Technologies
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2010, the Apache Point Observatory Lunar Laser-ranging Operation team announced that with the aid of these photos, they had found the long-lost "Lunokhod 1" rover and had received returns from the laser retroreflector. Luna 17 Luna 17 (Ye-8 series) was an unmanned space mission of the Luna program, also called Lunik 17. "Luna 17" was launched from an Earth parking orbit towards the Moon and entered lunar orbit on 15 November 1970. The spacecraft softly landed on the Moon in the Sea of Rains. The spacecraft had dual ramps by which the payload, "Lunokhod 1", descended to the lunar surface.
Luna 17
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Luna 17 Luna 17 (Ye-8 series) was an unmanned space mission of the Luna program, also called Lunik 17. "Luna 17" was launched from an Earth parking orbit towards the Moon and entered lunar orbit on 15 November 1970. The spacecraft softly landed on the Moon in the Sea of Rains. The spacecraft had dual ramps by which the payload, "Lunokhod 1", descended to the lunar surface. "Lunokhod 1" was a lunar vehicle formed of a tub-like compartment with a large convex lid on eight independently powered wheels. "Lunokhod 1" was equipped with a cone-shaped antenna, a highly directional helical
Luna 17
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Ranger 8 Ranger 8 was a lunar probe in the Ranger program, a robotic spacecraft series launched by NASA in the early-to-mid-1960s to obtain the first close-up images of the Moon's surface. These pictures helped select landing sites for Apollo missions and were used for scientific study. During its 1965 mission, Ranger 8 transmitted 7,137 lunar surface photographs before it crashed into the Moon as planned. This was the second successful mission in the Ranger series, following Ranger 7. Ranger 8's design and purpose were very similar to those of Ranger 7. It had six television vidicon cameras: two full-scan
Ranger 8
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15's flight plan to ensure it would not collide with Apollo 11, though its exact mission was unknown. Luna 15 Luna 15 was an unmanned space mission of the Soviet Luna programme. On 21 July 1969, while Apollo 11 astronauts finished the first human moonwalk, Luna 15, an unmanned Soviet spacecraft in lunar orbit at the time, began its descent to the lunar surface. Launched three days before the Apollo 11 mission, it was the second Soviet attempt to return lunar soil back to Earth with a goal to outstrip the US in achieving a sample return in the Moon
Luna 15
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transmitting photographic data back to Earth. This spacecraft was the second of a series designed to achieve a soft landing on the moon and to return lunar surface photography for determining characteristics of the lunar terrain for Apollo program lunar landing missions. Besides transmitting photos, Surveyor 2 was planned to perform a 'bounce', to photograph underneath its own landing site. It was also equipped to return data on radar reflectivity of the lunar surface, bearing strength of the lunar surface, and spacecraft temperatures for use in the analysis of lunar surface temperatures. the official cost was $469. The target area
Surveyor 2
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unmanned ones to the surface of the Moon. Of particular importance was developing the expertise to perform flight operations in lunar orbit. Ranger, Surveyor and initial Luna Moon landing attempts all utilized flight paths from Earth that traveled directly to the lunar surface without first placing the spacecraft in a lunar orbit. Such direct ascents use a minimum amount of fuel for unmanned spacecraft on a one-way trip. In contrast, manned vehicles need additional fuel after a lunar landing to enable a return trip back to Earth for the crew. Leaving this massive amount of required Earth-return fuel in lunar
Moon landing
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Luna 12 Luna 12 (E-6LF series) was an unmanned space mission of the Luna program, also called Lunik 12. Luna 12 was launched towards the Moon from an Earth-orbiting platform and achieved lunar orbit on October 25, 1966. The spacecraft was equipped with a television system that obtained and transmitted photographs of the lunar surface. The photographs contained 1100 scan lines with a maximum resolution of 14.9-19.8 m. Pictures of the lunar surface were returned on October 27, 1966. The number of photographs is not known. Radio transmissions from Luna 12 ceased on January 19, 1967, after 602 lunar orbits
Luna 12
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exploration, and also in commercial activities like space tourism and satellite telecommunications. Additional non-commercial uses of spaceflight include space observatories, reconnaissance satellites and other earth observation satellites. A spaceflight typically begins with a rocket launch, which provides the initial thrust to overcome the force of gravity and propels the spacecraft from the surface of the Earth. Once in space, the motion of a spacecraft—both when unpropelled and when under propulsion—is covered by the area of study called astrodynamics. Some spacecraft remain in space indefinitely, some disintegrate during atmospheric reentry, and others reach a planetary or lunar surface for landing or
Flight
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from the surface of the moon into the Earth’s orbit and vice versa. According to Jerome Pearson, many of the Moon's material resources can be extracted and sent into Earth orbit more easily than if they were launched from the Earth's surface. For example, lunar regolith itself could be used as massive material to shield space stations or crewed spacecraft on long missions from solar flares, Van Allen radiation, and other kinds of cosmic radiation. The Moon's naturally occurring metals and minerals could be mined and used for construction. Lunar deposits of silicon, which could be used to build solar
Lunar space elevator
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balloon's smoothness and sphericity. It was launched January 25, 1964 on a Thor Agena rocket. The Ranger program was a series of unmanned space missions by the United States in the 1960s whose objective was to obtain the first close-up images of the surface of the Moon. The Ranger spacecraft were designed to take images of the lunar surface, returning those images until they were destroyed upon impact. A series of mishaps, however, led to the failure of the first five flights. Congress launched an investigation into "problems of management" at NASA Headquarters and JPL. After reorganizing the organization twice,
Unmanned NASA missions
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the ill-fated launch. Prior to the release of information about its mission, NASA correctly identified that it had been an attempt to deploy a rover onto the lunar surface. Luna E-8 No.201 Luna E-8 No.201, also known as Luna Ye-8 No.201, and sometimes identified by NASA as Luna 1969A, was a Soviet spacecraft which was lost in a launch failure in 1969. It was a Luna E-8 spacecraft, the first of three to be launched, It was intended to perform a soft landing on the Moon, in order to deploy a Lunokhod rover onto the surface. It carried the Lunokhod
Luna E-8 No.201
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in lunar orbit while they were on the Moon's surface. Armstrong and Aldrin spent 21.5 hours on the lunar surface before rejoining "Columbia" in lunar orbit. Apollo 11 was launched by a Saturn V rocket from Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Florida, on July 16 at 13:32 UTC, and was the fifth crewed mission of NASA's Apollo program. The Apollo spacecraft had three parts: a command module (CM) with a cabin for the three astronauts, and the only part that returned to Earth; a service module (SM), which supported the command module with propulsion, electrical power, oxygen, and water;
Apollo 11
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order to reach the Moon or a planet at a desired time, the spacecraft must be launched within a limited range of times known as the launch window. Using a preliminary parking orbit before final injection can widen this window from seconds or minutes, to several hours. For the Apollo program's manned lunar missions, a parking orbit allowed time for spacecraft checkout while still close to home, before committing to the lunar trip. Use of a parking orbit requires a rocket upper stage to perform the injection burn while under zero g conditions. Often, the same upper stage which performs
Parking orbit
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Luna E-1 No.3 Luna E-1 No.3, sometimes identified by NASA as "Luna 1958C", was a Soviet spacecraft which was lost in a launch failure in 1958. It was a Luna E-1 spacecraft, the third of four to be launched, all of which were involved in launch failures. It was intended to impact the surface of the Moon, and in doing so become the first man-made object to reach its surface. The spacecraft was intended to release of sodium, in order to create a cloud of the metal which could be observed from Earth, allowing the spacecraft to be tracked. Prior
Luna E-1 No.3
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Luna E-1 No.2 Luna E-1 No.2, sometimes identified by NASA as Luna 1958B, was a Soviet spacecraft which was lost in a launch failure in 1958. It was a Luna E-1 spacecraft, the second of four to be launched, all of which were involved in launch failures. It was intended to impact the surface of the Moon, and in doing so become the first man-made object to reach its surface. The spacecraft was intended to release of sodium, in order to create a cloud of the metal which could be observed from Earth, allowing the spacecraft to be tracked. Prior
Luna E-1 No.2
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failed to leave Earth orbit due to problems with the upper stages of their carrier rockets. Mars 2M No.521 and Mars 2M No.522, known in the West as Mars 1969A and B, were heavier spacecraft with masses of . They were launched by Proton-K rockets, and consisted of orbiters. Both were destroyed during launch. The Mars 4M spacecraft; Mars 2 and Mars 3 missions consisted of identical spacecraft, each with an orbiter and an attached lander, which became the first spacecraft to reach the surface of Mars. The orbiters' primary scientific objectives were to image the Martian surface and clouds,
Mars program
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Gemini spacesuit. After an unmanned LM test flight AS-206, a crew would fly the first Block II CSM and LM in a dual mission known as AS-207/208, or AS-278 (each spacecraft would be launched on a separate Saturn IB). The Block II crew positions were titled Commander, Command Module Pilot, and Lunar Module Pilot. The astronauts would begin wearing a new Apollo A6L spacesuit, designed to accommodate lunar extravehicular activity (EVA). The traditional visor helmet was replaced with a clear "fishbowl" type for greater visibility, and the lunar surface EVA suit would include a water-cooled undergarment. Deke Slayton, the grounded
Apollo program
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and entered lunar orbit on 5 November. The spacecraft operated until 1 March 2009, when it was intentionally crashed into the surface of the Moon. Data gathered by Chang'e 1 were used to create an accurate and high-resolution 3D map of the entire lunar surface, assisting site selection for the Chang'e 3 lander. Chang'e 1's successor, Chang'e 2, was approved on October 2008 and was launched on 1 October 2010 to conduct research from a 100-km-high lunar orbit, in preparation for Chang'e 3's 2013 soft landing. Chang'e 2, though similar in design to Chang'e 1, was equipped with improved instruments
Chang'e 3
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Luna E-1A No.1 Luna E-1A No.1 or E-1 No.5, sometimes identified by NASA as Luna 1959A, was a Soviet spacecraft which was lost in a launch failure in 1959. It was a Luna E-1A spacecraft, the first of two to be launched. It was intended to impact the surface of the Moon, and in doing so would be the first man-made object to reach its surface. Launch was originally scheduled for June 16, but delayed two days after a careless lieutenant had the booster filled with the wrong grade of RP-1 propellant. Luna E-1A No.1 was launched at 08:08 UTC
Luna E-1A No.1
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Tom Dolan (engineer) Thomas Dolan was an American engineer who proposed the first fully developed concept of Lunar orbit rendezvous for the Apollo program while working at Vought Astronautics. Dolan referred to his LOR study concept as Manned Lunar Landing and Return (MALLAR), and it was largely ignored by NASA administrators until Langley engineer John Houbolt began championing the concept in 1961. The proposed idea outlined a smaller spacecraft dedicated only to operate in the vacuum of space. This spacecraft could act as sort of a shuttle between an orbiting "command module" in Lunar orbit and the surface of the
Tom Dolan (engineer)
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to a guidance malfunction of the Blok A core stage, leading to RSO destruct. Luna 2 was launched by a Luna 8K72 12 September 1959. It was the first spacecraft to impact the lunar surface. The final successful launch of a Luna 8K72 took place 4 October 1959. The Luna 3 spacecraft took the first photographs of the far side of the Moon. The eighth flight of a Luna 8K72 (March 1960) ended 435 seconds after launch when the Blok E upper stage developed insufficient thrust, causing the Luna probe to reenter the atmosphere and burn up. The ninth flight
Luna (rocket)
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November 1975. "Luna 22" as of November, 2011, is the last Soviet or Russian lunar orbiter. Luna 22 Luna 22 (Ye-8-LS series) was an unmanned space mission, part of the Soviet Luna program, also called Lunik 22. "Luna 22" was a lunar orbiter mission. The spacecraft carried imaging cameras and also had the objectives of studying the Moon's magnetic field, surface gamma ray emissions and composition of lunar surface rocks, and the gravitational field, as well as micrometeorites and cosmic rays. Luna 22 was launched into Earth parking orbit and then to the Moon. It was inserted into a circular
Luna 22
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mission, Luna 12 was put into a spin-stabilized roll to carry out its scientific mission, which was successfully fulfilled. Luna 12 Luna 12 (E-6LF series) was an unmanned space mission of the Luna program, also called Lunik 12. Luna 12 was launched towards the Moon from an Earth-orbiting platform and achieved lunar orbit on October 25, 1966. The spacecraft was equipped with a television system that obtained and transmitted photographs of the lunar surface. The photographs contained 1100 scan lines with a maximum resolution of 14.9-19.8 m. Pictures of the lunar surface were returned on October 27, 1966. The number
Luna 12
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Lunar Module could not carry enough fuel to reach the polar regions of the Moon but the Altair lunar lander was intended to access any part of the Moon. While the Altair and surface systems would have been equally necessary for Project Constellation to reach fruition, the focus was on developing the Orion spacecraft to shorten the gap in US access to orbit following the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2010. Even NASA has described Constellation architecture as 'Apollo on steroids'. Nonetheless, a return to the proven capsule design is a move welcomed by many. The Orion Crew Module
Space architecture
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with the Hiten spacecraft, becoming the third country to place an object in orbit around the Moon. The spacecraft released the Hagoromo probe into lunar orbit, but the transmitter failed, thereby preventing further scientific use of the spacecraft. In September 2007, Japan launched the SELENE spacecraft, with the objectives "to obtain scientific data of the lunar origin and evolution and to develop the technology for the future lunar exploration", according to the JAXA official website. The European Space Agency launched a small, low-cost lunar orbital probe called SMART 1 on September 27, 2003. SMART 1's primary goal was to take
Exploration of the Moon
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identical miniaturized instruments: BOLAS (spacecraft) Bi-sat Observations of the Lunar Atmosphere above Swirls (BOLAS) is a spacecraft mission concept that would orbit the Moon at very low altitude in order to study vital aspects of the lunar surface. The concept, currently under study by NASA, involves two small identical CubeSat satellites connected vertically above the lunar surface by a 25 km long tether. The mission goal is to understand the hydrogen cycle on the Moon, dust weathering, and the formation of lunar swirls. The team from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center was selected in August 2017 to further mature the
BOLAS (spacecraft)
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BOLAS (spacecraft) Bi-sat Observations of the Lunar Atmosphere above Swirls (BOLAS) is a spacecraft mission concept that would orbit the Moon at very low altitude in order to study vital aspects of the lunar surface. The concept, currently under study by NASA, involves two small identical CubeSat satellites connected vertically above the lunar surface by a 25 km long tether. The mission goal is to understand the hydrogen cycle on the Moon, dust weathering, and the formation of lunar swirls. The team from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center was selected in August 2017 to further mature the concept. BOLAS is
BOLAS (spacecraft)
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Surveyor 2 Surveyor 2 was to be the second lunar lander in the unmanned American Surveyor program to explore the Moon. It was launched September 20, 1966 from Cape Kennedy, Florida aboard an Atlas-Centaur rocket. A mid-course correction failure resulted in the spacecraft losing control. Contact was lost with the spacecraft at 9:35 UTC, September 22. On February 3, 1966 Luna 9 spacecraft was the first spacecraft to achieve a lunar soft landing and to transmit photographic data to Earth. Several months after, Surveyor 1 launched on May 30, 1966; and landed on Oceanus Procellarum on June 2, 1966, also
Surveyor 2
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Lunar Orbit Rendezvous (LOR). A direct ascent configuration would require an extremely large rocket to send a three-man spacecraft to land directly on the lunar surface. Earth orbit rendezvous would launch the direct-landing spacecraft in two smaller parts which would combine in Earth orbit. A LOR mission would involve a single rocket launching two spacecraft: a mother ship, and a smaller, two-man landing module which would rendezvous back with the main spacecraft in lunar orbit. The lander would be discarded and the mother ship would return home. NASA at first dismissed LOR as a riskier option, given that a space
Saturn V
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launch, and GRAIL B followed about eight minutes later. The first probe entered orbit on 31 December 2011 and the second followed on 1 January 2012. The two spacecraft impacted the Lunar surface on 17 December 2012. LADEE was launched on 7 September 2013. The mission ended on 18 April 2014, when the spacecraft's controllers intentionally crashed LADEE into the far side of the Moon, which, later, was determined to be near the eastern rim of Sundman V crater. On 14 December 2013 at 13:12 UTC Chang'e 3 soft-landed a rover on the Moon. This was the first lunar soft
Moon landing
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have been developed at JSC to study/develop specialized subsystems and other design considerations. Northrop Grumman, which built the Apollo Lunar Module, was contracted to help the project office develop the system concept. Altair (spacecraft) The Altair spacecraft, previously known as the Lunar Surface Access Module or LSAM, was the planned lander spacecraft component of NASA's cancelled Constellation program. Astronauts would have used the spacecraft for landings on the Moon, which was intended to begin around 2019. The Altair spacecraft was planned to be used both for lunar sortie and lunar outpost missions. On February 1, 2010, U.S. President Barack Obama
Altair (spacecraft)
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of mass-efficient (high specific impulse), low thrust drives such as ion drives which otherwise cannot land on the Moon. Since the docking port would be connected to the cable in a microgravity environment, these and other drives can reach the cable from low Earth orbit (LEO) with minimal launched fuel from Earth. With conventional rockets, the fuel needed to reach the lunar surface from LEO is many times the landed mass, thus the elevator can reduce launch costs for payloads bound for the lunar surface by a similar factor. There are two points in space where an elevator's docking port
Lunar space elevator
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data. The Chang'e 1 spacecraft had a mass of , with a payload, carrying 24 instruments including a charge-coupled device (CCD) stereo camera, microprobe instruments, and a high-energy solar particle detector. Chang'e 1 Chang'e 1 (; ) was an unmanned Chinese lunar-orbiting spacecraft, part of the first phase of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program. The spacecraft was named after the Chinese Moon goddess, Chang'e. Chang'e 1 was launched on 24 October 2007 at 10:05:04 UTC from Xichang Satellite Launch Center. It left lunar transfer orbit on 31 October and entered lunar orbit on 5 November. The first picture of the
Chang'e 1
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altitude of 40 km on opposite sides of the lunar body. The penetrators were to have been braked by a small rocket at an altitude of 25 km, then free fall to the surface. They were designed to withstand a collision speed of 330 meters per second to deeply penetrate the lunar regolith. Once the penetrators deployed, the LUNAR-A spacecraft was mission-planned to maneuver to an orbital altitude of 200 km above the lunar surface. The craft was to have carried a monochromatic imaging camera with a resolution of 30 m. Lunar-A LUNAR-A is a cancelled Japanese spacecraft project that
Lunar-A
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Lunar Lander (spacecraft) The Lunar Lander was a robotic mission intended to send a lander vehicle to the Moon, led by ESA's Human Spaceflight and Operations directorate. The primary objective of the Lunar Lander mission was to demonstrate Europe’s ability to deliver payload safely and accurately to the Moon’s surface. More specifically the mission would have demonstrated the technologies required to achieve a soft and precise landing while autonomously avoiding surface hazards that can endanger landing and surface mission safety. These technologies will be an asset for future human and robotic exploration missions. However the project was put on hold
Lunar Lander (spacecraft)
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not consistent with the presence of thick deposits of nearly pure water ice within a few meters of the lunar surface, but it does not rule out the presence of small (<∼10 cm), discrete pieces of ice mixed in with the regolith. The mission was launched on 22 October 2008 and expected to operate for two years. However, around 20:00 UTC on 28 August 2009 communication with the spacecraft was suddenly lost. The probe had operated for 312 days. The craft had been expected to remain in orbit for approximately another 1000 days and to crash into the lunar surface
Chandrayaan-1
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was tracked until it impacted the lunar surface on command at 7 degrees north latitude, 161 degrees east longitude (selenographic coordinates) on the Moon's far side on October 29, 1966, on its 577th orbit. The early end of the nominal one-year mission was due to the small amount of remaining attitude control gas and other deteriorating conditions and was planned to avoid transmission interference with Lunar Orbiter 2. Lunar Orbiter 1 The Lunar Orbiter 1 unmanned robotic spacecraft, part of the Lunar Orbiter Program, was the first American spacecraft to orbit the Moon. It was designed primarily to photograph smooth
Lunar Orbiter 1
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reflected off the lunar surface. The laser altimeter was designed with the intention of measuring the altitude of the spacecraft above the lunar surface within approximately , and providing altitude information to the panoramic and mapping cameras. Throughout the Apollo lunar missions, the crew members observed light flashes that penetrated closed eyelids. These flashes, described as "streaks" or "specks" of light, were usually observed by astronauts while the spacecraft was darkened during a sleep period. These flashes, while not observed on the lunar surface, would average about two per minute and were observed by the crew members during the trip
Apollo 17