Missions to the Moon Codexery

Moon landing

Arrival of a spacecraft on the Moon, crewed or robotic.

A crewed or robotic spacecraft arriving on the Moon is what defines a lunar landing.[1] Luna 2 became the initial human-built object to make contact with the Moon in 1959, while Apollo 11 achieved the first landing with a crew in 1969.[1] From 1969 through 1972, six landings involving crews took place, and many uncrewed landings have happened after that period.[2]

Quick Facts

First uncrewed landing
Luna 2 (1959)
First crewed landing
Apollo 11 (1969)
Last crewed landing
Apollo 17 (1972)
Total astronauts landed
12
Nations with soft landings
  • Soviet Union
  • United States
  • China
  • India
  • Japan

Facts from the source article.

Key facts and history

The Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1 on 4 October 1957, initiating the Space Race.[3] Ranger 4 impacted the far side of the Moon on April 26, 1962, after an onboard computer failure.[4] Luna 9 performed the first successful soft Moon landing on 3 February 1966.[5] On 22 February 2024, Intuitive Machines' Odysseus successfully landed, marking the first successful landing of a privately owned spacecraft on the Moon.[6]

The United States made the earliest Moon landing attempts in 1962 with its Rangers 3, 4, and 5 missions.[7] No soft landings happened between Luna 24 in 1976 and Chang'e 3 in 2013.[2]

What the cited sources add

The Ranger 4 spacecraft was designed to rough-land a seismometer capsule on the Moon and transmit pictures during descent.[4] Ranger 4's seismometer was encased in a lunar capsule with a 50-milliwatt transmitter and batteries designed to operate for 30 days.[4] The spacecraft impacted the far side of the Moon at 9600 km/hr after 64 hours of flight.[4] The mission carried 10 NASA science and technology instruments as part of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative.[8]

All 10 NASA payloads successfully activated and collected data on the Moon.[8]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Moon landing" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Luna 2", NASA–NSSDC; NASA Apollo 11 40th anniversary. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Moon landing" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Chinese spacecraft makes first landing on moon's far side", AP NEWS, 3 January 2019 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Moon landing" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "The start of the Space Race (article)", Khan Academy; Hurley, "4 October 1957 – Sputnik 1", Explaining Science, 19 September 2022 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  4. "NASA – NSSDC – Spacecraft – Ranger 4 Details". facts only, no text reused. nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov
  5. Wikipedia, "Moon landing" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Astronautix Luna E-6" (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "Moon landing" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: SpaceX gearing up to launch Intuitive Machines private moon lander in February Space.com. By Mike Wall. 31 January 2024. Retrieved 5 February 2024.; David, "Odysseus achieves the first US Moon landing since 1972", The Verge, 22 February 2024; "Sideways moon landing cuts mission short, private US lunar lander will stop working Tuesday", Quartz, 2024-02-26; "Intuitive Machines returns to the Moon", NASA, 2025-02-21; "Intuitive Machines historic IM-1 mission success: American ingenuity never gives up", Intuitive Machines, 2024-02-29 (original en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "Moon landing" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "NASA – NSSDC – Spacecraft – Ranger 3 Details"; "NASA – NSSDC – Spacecraft – Ranger 4 Details"; "NASA – NSSDC – Spacecraft – Ranger 5 Details"; "NASA – NSSDC – Spacecraft – Ranger 4 Details" (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  8. "NASA science continues after Firefly's first Moon mission concludes", NASA, 2025-03-18. facts only, no text reused. nasa.gov

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Moon landing (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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