NEXT SPACEFLIGHT

Status

Success

Surveyor 1

Launch Time
Mon May 30, 1966 14:41 UTC

First American lander to soft-land on the Moon.

Rocket

Atlas-LV3C Centaur-D
Image Credit: USAF or NASA
General Dynamics
Status: Retired
Stages: 2
Strap-ons: 0

Mission Details

Surveyor 1

Surveyor 1 was the first lunar soft-lander in the uncrewed Surveyor program of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA, United States). This lunar soft-lander gathered data about the lunar surface that would be needed for the crewed Apollo Moon landings that began in 1969. The successful soft landing of Surveyor 1 on the Ocean of Storms was the first by an American space probe on any extraterrestrial body, occurring on the first attempt and just four months after the first Moon landing by the Soviet Union's Luna 9 probe.

Payloads: 1
Total Mass: 995.0 kg
Trans Lunar Injection

Location

SLC-36A, Cape Canaveral SFS, Florida, USA

Stats

1966

52nd orbital launch attempt

Atlas-Centaur

8th mission
2nd mission of 1966
3rd successful mission
1st consecutive successful mission