Landing sites of Missions to the Moon
Details of spacecraft missions highlighted in image above
| LUNA (unmanned missions by Russia/USSR) | SURVEYOR (unmanned missions by USA) | APOLLO (manned missions by USA) |
|---|---|---|
| Luna 2: Launched 12th September 1959. First manmade object to land on the Moon. | Surveyor 1: Launched on 30th April 1966, landing on 2nd June 1966. First American soft landing on the Moon, sent back images of the surface. | Apollo 11: Launched 16th July 1969, releasing a Lunar Module (Eagle) which contained the astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin. This landed on the Moon on 20th July 1969, and the two astronauts took the first steps of any human being on the surface of the Moon. |
| Luna 9: Launched 31st January 1966 and completed first soft landing on Moon on 3rd February 1966. Sent back the first images from the surface of the Moon which were sneakily published by a British newspaper before the Soviet Union had a chance to see the pictures from their own space craft! | Surveyor 3: Launched on 17th April 1967 and landed on 20th April. Took thousands of images and analysed the soil. Apollo 12 landed near to Surveyor 3 and was visited by astronauts of that mission who took parts of the space craft back to Earth. | Apollo 12: Launched 14th November 1969. Astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean walked on the surface of the Moon and visited Surveyor 3 which had landed nearby two years earlier. |
| Luna 13: Launched 21st December 1966 and completed a soft landing on the Moon on 24th December, completing scientific experiments after landing. Contact was lost on 28th December 1966. | Surveyor 5: Launched on 8th September 1967. While on the surface of the Moon, it sent back thousands of images and was deactivated three times during night on the Moon and reactivated each time (night on the Moon lasts 14 Earth days). | Apollo 14: Launched 31st January 1971, landing in the site originally planned for Apollo 13 (Apollo 13's Moon landing had to be aborted due to an onboard explosion). Astronauts Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell walked on the surface on the Moon, and also played golf there! |
| Luna 16: Launched 12th September 1970, landing on 20th September. It collected soil samples and successfully launched from the Moon to return this soil to Earth. | Surveyor 6: Launched on 7th November 1967, landing on 10th November. Sent back about 30,000 images, conducted experiments and launched from the Moon. It reached a height of 4 metres and continued operating after landing. | Apollo 15: Launched on 26th July 1971.. David Scott and Alfred Worden landed on the Moon's surface. They used the first Lunar Rover during this mission, enabling them to explore a greater area than previous astronauts were able to while on the Moon. |
| Luna 17: Launched on 10th November 1970. After landing, a rover was released from the lander which went for a drive on the surface of the Moon. It travelled about 10 km and operated for 322 days. | Surveyor 7: Launched 7th January 1968 and landed 10th January 1968. The final mission of the Surveyor program which again sent back images and conducted experiments. | Apollo 16: Apollo's penultimate manned mission to the Moon, launched on 16th April 1972. Astronauts John Young and Charles Duke and Ken Mattingly walked on its surface from 21st April 1972. Like Apollo 15, they used a Lunar Rover to explore the mountainous area of their landing. |
| Luna 20: Launched on 14th February 1972, landing on 21st February. Collected soil samples, took off again and returned the samples to Earth on 25th February. | Apollo 17: Final manned mission to the surface of the Moon, launched on 7th December 1972. Astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt walked on the Moon's surface. Eugene Cernan took the last steps to this date on the Moon on 14th December 1972 | |
| Luna 21: Launched on 8th January 1973. Deployed a rover after landing which went for a drive until falling into a crater after about 5 months. | ||
| Luna 24: Launched on 9th August 1976, landing on 18th August. It collected soil samples and returned them to Earth. This was the final mission of the Soviet Union's Luna program. |
