Short answers, pulled from the story.
A lander is a spacecraft that descends towards, then comes to rest on the surface of an astronomical body other than Earth. It makes a soft landing after which the probe remains functional unlike impact probes that destroy themselves upon reaching the surface.
The Soviet Luna 9 became the first spacecraft to achieve a lunar soft landing and transmit photographic data to Earth in 1966. This mission marked the beginning of successful soft landings on the Moon following earlier impactor missions from 1959.
India successfully touched down the lander Vikram on Chandrayaan-3 on the 23rd of August 2023 at the lunar south pole near the crater Manzinus U. This achievement made it the first lander to soft land at the south pole of the Moon.
China successfully conducted four Chang'e missions including Chang'e 3 in 2013, Chang'e 4 in 2019, Chang'e 5 in 2020, and Chang'e 6 in 2024. These missions included sample returns with approximately 2 kilograms of lunar sample returned by the 16th of December 2020.
The Rosetta probe launched on the 2nd of March 2004 placed the first robotic lander Philae on the comet Churyumov Gerasimenko on the 12th of November 2014. The landing system used a harpoon launcher to anchor a cable in the comet's surface due to its extremely low gravity.