Surveyor 1 - America's first soft lunar landing

Image Data

Surveyor 1 was the first in a series of seven US missions to the Moon that preceded Apollo; five of the seven missions were successful. Surveyor 1 was launched on May 30, 1966, and landed on June 2, 1966. The mission's objectives were to soft land on the Moon and to collect information on the lunar regolith. This first Surveyor spacecraft carried only a television camera system (later missions carried additional instruments). The spacecraft landed on a releatively smooth mare surface in Oceanus Procellarum. The landing site is in the northeast corner of the Flamsteed Ring, a 100 km diameter impact crater almost completely buried by mare lavassuch that all that remains exposed is the upper part of the original crater rim.

Read Full Caption