EXPLORING THE MOON: THE PAST

Apollo 11 21 July 1969

NASA astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong became the first humans to set foot on another body in space when they landed on the Moon in 1969.

Apollo 12 19 November 1969

The second spacecraft to land on the Moon, Apollo 12, used a Doppler effect radar technique to land the spacecraft within walking distance of the Surveyor 3 probe, which had landed on the lunar surface about two years prior.

Apollo 14 5 February 1971

The commander on board the third spacecraft to land on the Moon was Alan Shepard who, a decade earlier on 5 May 1961, had become the second person in space after Yuri Gagarin and the first American as part of the Mercury program.

Apollo 15 30 July 1971

NASA deemed this Moon landing the most successful so far out of its manned missions. It is also known as the first of the longer missions to the Moon, called ‘J missions’, staying for three days.

Apollo 16 21 April 1972

Apollo 16 was the first spacecraft to land in the highlands on the Moon, which let the astronauts gather older lunar rocks.

Apollo 17 11 December 1972

This last manned mission to the Moon carried the Traverse Gravimeter Experiment, which measured relative gravity at different sites on the Moon.

Luna 1 4 January 1959

This Soviet probe was the first to reach the vicinity of the Moon and the first to break out of geocentric orbit. But it didn’t impact the Moon as had originally been planned.

Luna 21 15 January 1973

This Soviet spacecraft landed on the Moon and carried a lunar rover, Lunokhod 2. It performed numerous experiments and sent back more than 80,000 images.

Luna 24 22 August 1976

This was the last of the Luna missions, landing near Mare Crisium to recover samples. It was the last spacecraft to have a soft landing on the Moon until 2013.