A Short History of Spacecraft Landings on the Moon

Many years have passed since the first spacecraft landed on the moon in 1966. From then until now, there have been many additional attempts with some succeeding and others failing. Here is a short history of some of these attempts.

First victories

The Soviet Union’s Luna 9 spacecraft was the first to land on the moon. It touched down on the lunar surface in 1966. The landing came after several other Soviet spacecraft either did not reach the moon or crashed on the surface.

The American space agency NASA says Luna 9 was the first spacecraft to carry out a soft landing on the moon. It was also the first to send “photographic data” from the moon’s surface to Earth. Luna 9’s landing proved “the lunar surface could support the weight of a lander and that an object would not sink into a loose layer of dust as some models predicted,” NASA said.

In May 1966, the United States followed with its Surveyor 1 mission. NASA describes this effort as “the first of a series of seven robotic spacecraft sent to the moon to gather data in preparation for NASA's Apollo missions.” The successful soft landing of Surveyor 1 “was one of the great successes of NASA's early lunar and interplanetary program.”

Both the U.S. and Soviet Union had other successful robotic landings. Next, the countries aimed to be the first to land humans on the moon.

Apollo program

In 1969, NASA successfully landed Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon. The U.S. Apollo program sent 12 astronauts to explore the moon over six missions. Apollo 17 was the last in 1972. The U.S. is still the only country to land humans on the moon. NASA officials say the agency’s Artemis program aims to return astronauts to the lunar surface possibly by the end of 2026.

China expands space efforts

In 2013, China became the third country to successfully land a spacecraft on the moon. China landed an exploring vehicle, or rover named Yutu that year. China followed with the Yutu-2 rover in 2019, this time touching down on the moon’s unexplored far side.

In 2020, China successfully returned samples of rock and dirt collected by the rovers. The mission returned about 1.7 kilograms of lunar material collected from the near side of the moon. Then in 2024, another mission returned rock and soil samples from the less explored far side of the moon. China has said it aims to land its astronauts on the moon by 2030.

Russian landing failure

In 2023, Russia tried its first moon landing in nearly 50 years. The Luna 25 spacecraft was attempting to land near the lunar south pole. But it is believed to have crash landed on the moon’s surface. The country’s last effort before that, Luna 24 in 1976, landed successfully and returned moon rocks to Earth.

India succeeds on second attempt

After its first lander crashed into the moon in 2019, India made its second attempt in 2023. The country successfully landed its Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft on the lunar surface. The mission made India the fourth nation to complete a moon landing.

Japan lands sideways

In January 2024, Japan became the fifth country to successfully land a spacecraft on the moon. But the SLIM spacecraft landed upside down. This caused some power and communication problems, but the lander was able to operate for a short time.

I’m Bryan Lynn.

The Associated Press reported this story. Bryan Lynn adapted the report for VOA Learning English with additional information from NASA.

layer – n. an amount of a substance that covers a surface

mission – n. (space travel) the flight of a spacecraft to perform a certain task or job

sample – n. a small amount of something that gives you information about the thing it was taken from

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