Curated category
Missions to the Moon
- Apollo command and service moduleNorth American Aviation received the initial Apollo contract on the 28th of November 1961. At that time, engineers assumed lunar landings would occur via…
- Luna-GlobThe Luna-Glob programme traces its roots to planning documents from 1997. A financial crisis struck Russia in 1998 and forced the cancellation of the initial…
- Chandrayaan programmeIn 1999, a meeting of the Indian Academy of Sciences raised the idea of a lunar scientific mission. This proposal moved forward to the Astronautical Society…
- Chang'e 6The Chang'e 6 spacecraft launched from Wenchang Space Launch Site on Hainan Island at 09:27 UTC on the 3rd of May 2024. It was built as a copy of and backup…
- Ranger programThe Ranger program began in 1959 as a series of uncrewed space missions by the United States. Its goal was to obtain the first close-up images of the lunar…
- Surveyor programIn 1960, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory began work on a new robotic program to prepare for human lunar landings. The agency selected Hughes Aircraft…
- Surveyor 1Surveyor 1 touched down on the Ocean of Storms on the 2nd of June 1966. This event marked the first successful soft landing by an American space probe on any…
- Moon landingIn December 1972, Gene Cernan stepped off the lunar surface, the last of twelve astronauts to walk on the Moon. After him, the dust settled and stayed…
- Artemis IIIArtemis III aims to land two astronauts at the Moon's south polar region for approximately one week. This mission marks the first crewed lunar landing since…
- Lunokhod programmeIn mid-1968, engineers built a one-hectare test facility near Simferopol in Crimea. This site covered 120 meters by 70 meters and contained more than 3,000…
- Lunar Orbiter programThe United States launched five uncrewed spacecraft to the Moon between 1966 and 1967. These missions aimed to map the lunar surface for Apollo landing site…
- Surveyor 3The Surveyor 3 lander touched down on the Moon during the early hours of the 20th of April 1967. It landed inside a small crater within the Mare Cognitum…
- Chandrayaan-3On the 23rd of August 2023, a box-shaped lander named Vikram touched down near the lunar south pole at 18:04 IST. This moment marked India's first soft…
- Lunar GatewayThe Lunar Gateway began as a concept called the Deep Space Habitat in 2012. NASA released this proposal to study requirements for deep space habitats under…
- Artemis IIIn April 2017, NASA canceled the Asteroid Redirect Mission. This decision forced a complete rewrite of Exploration Mission-2 plans.
- Lunar Roving VehicleThe Lunar Roving Vehicle made its first drive on the Moon on the 31st of July 1971, and in doing so, it changed what Apollo astronauts could actually…