Seven Surveyor spacecraft were launched between June 1966 and January 1968. The objective for all 7 missions was a lunar soft landing, and to provide data in support of the upcoming manned Apollo program.
Surveyor 1 was launched on May 30, 1966 and landed on June 2, 1966.
- Original Caption Released with Image Above:
- Surveyor 5 image of the footpad resting in the lunar soil. The trench at right was
formed by the footpad sliding during landing. Surveyor 5 landed on the Moon on 11
September 1967 at 1.41 N, 23.18E in Mare Tranquillitatis. The spacecraft landed on the
inside edge of a small rimless crater at an angle of about 20 degrees, explaining the
sliding. The footpad is about half a meter in diameter. (Surveyor 5, 67-H-1340) radar
reflectivity data.
The purpose of the seven Surveyor missions (five of which were successful) was to land safely on the Moon, testing the landing techniques planned for the manned Apollo lunar landers, and take close-up images of the surface and make other observations to find locations that would be safe for Apollo landings.
Surveyor 5 was equipped with an alpha-backscatter instrument to determine chemical composition of the soil and a small bar magnet in one of its landing feet to test for magnetic material. Even though it had developed a helium regulator leak and had to land using a hastily and radically re-designed descent profile, the landing was flawless and Surveyor 5 performed even better than its predecessors.
Surveyor 5 was launched on September 8, 1967 and landed on September 11, 1967.
- Original Caption Released with Image Above:
- Photo-mosaic of lunar panorama near the Tycho crater taken by Surveyor 7. The hills on
the center horizon are about eight miles away from the spacecraft.
Since the landing site survey for the Apollo missions had been successfully completed by the previous Surveyors, the landing site for Surveyor 7 was selected more for its scientific interest. Surveyor 7, in addition to taking thousands of images and gathering a wide variety of surface data, performed star surveys, took pictures of Earth, and tested laser-pointing techniques by detecting laser beams from Earth.
The primary objectives of the Surveyor program having already been met by the previous missions, Surveyor 7 was sent to perform a soft landing in a type of terrain different from the previous Surveyors. Other objectives were to obtain images of the landing site, manipulate the soil and analyze its composition, and obtain temperature and radar reflectivity data.
Surveyor 7 was launched on January 7, 1968 and landed on January 10, 1968.
In all, 87,674 photos were returned in the Surveyor program.