Surveyor Program

Following up on the Rangers, the Surveyor series was the first U.S. effort to make a soft landing on the Moon. Initially intended to be a series of robotic scientific missions, the project's focus was switched to engineering in support of the Apollo program to land men on the Moon. The Surveyors tested landing techniques designed to bring the American astronauts safely to the Moon.

The first Surveyor was launched from Cape Canaveral on May 30, 1966, and landed on the Moon on June 2, becoming the first spacecraft to make a survivable "soft" landing beyond the Earth.. Surveyor 7, the last in the series, was launched on January 7, 1968. Although one Surveyor crashed into the Moon and another lost contact with Earth soon after lunar impact, the program acquired almost 90,000 images from five sites. These images would be invaluable to NASA in helping to determine the best locations for manned missions to the Moon.

Spacecraft Specifications

Mass at Launch 2,194-2,888 pounds
Mass at Landing 596-625 pounds
Height ~10 feet
Diameter 14 feet

Instrumentation

All contained television cameras. Some had other tools and instruments to study lunar soil consistency and composition.

Missions

	Launch Date	Landing Site	Notes
Surveyor 1	May 30, 1966	Ocean of Storms	sent 11,240 pictures, revealing details as small as 1/12th inch; operated until January 7, 1967
Surveyor 2	September 20, 1966		crashed into the Moon three days after launch
Surveyor 3	April 17, 1967	Ocean of Storms	carried a soil mechanics surface sampler scoop; operated until May 4, 1967
Surveyor 4	July 14, 1967	Sinus Medii	signal lost 2-1/2 minutes after lunar impact
Surveyor 5	September 8, 1967	Sea of Tranquility	had magnets attached to the footpads and an alpha scattering instrument for chemical analysis of the lunar material; operated until December 17, 1967
Surveyor 6	November 7, 1967	Sinus Medii	had magnets attached to the footpads and an alpha scattering instrument for chemical analysis of the lunar material; operated until December 14, 1967; the first spacecraft to lift off from the Moon
Surveyor 7	January 7, 1968	Tycho North Rim	had magnets attached to the footpads, as well as an alpha scattering instrument for chemical analysis of the lunar material and a soil mechanics surface sampler scoop; operated until February 21, 1968

Below: Surveyor 3 participated in the only lunar surface rendezvous when the Apollo 12 astronauts landed nearby in November 1969. The human crew visited the 2-1/2-year-old lunar station, photographed it and the site and brought some of its parts back to Earth. This is one of the photographs taken by that crew (the descriptions were added later).

Questions or comments about this page?

Ranger Program

"Past Missions--Surveyor 1-7." Past Missions. Jet Propulsion Laboratory. www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/past/surveyor.html
Dr. David R. Williams. "Surveyor (1966-1968)." Lunar Exploration. National Space Science Data Center, 2006. nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/surveyor.html

other sources and links

Space Programs.