Surveyor 1
Surveyor 1 was the first lunar soft-lander in the uncrewed Surveyor program of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Surveyor 1 transmitted 11,237 still photos of the lunar surface to the Earth by using a television camera and a sophisticated radio-telemetry system. Over 100 engineering sensors were on board each Surveyor.
About Surveyor 1 in brief
Surveyor 1 was the first lunar soft-lander in the uncrewed Surveyor program of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Surveyor 1 transmitted 11,237 still photos of the lunar surface to the Earth by using a television camera and a sophisticated radio-telemetry system. The success of the first Surveyor landing was considered surprising, especially after the failure of a number of the Ranger spacecraft en route to the Moon. The Surveyor series of space probes was designed to carry out the first soft landings on the Moon by any American spacecraft. No instrumentation was carried specifically for scientific experiments, but considerable scientific data were collected by its TV camera and then returned to Earth via the Deep Space Network from 1966 to 1967. Over 100 engineering sensors were on board each Surveyor. Their television systems transmitted pictures of the spacecraft footpad and surrounding lunar terrain and surface materials.
These spacecraft also acquired data on the radar reflectivity of the moon’s surface, the load-bearing strength of the surface, and the temperatures for use in the analysis of lunar surface temperatures. The return of engineering information continued through January 7, 1967, with several interruptions during the lunar nights. The duration of the spaceflight of Surveyor1 was about 63 hours, 30 minutes. The landing was carried live on some television networks, and it was considered a success. The successful soft landing on the Ocean of Storms was thefirst by an American space probe on any extraterrestrial body, occurring on the first attempt and four months after the first Moon landing by the Soviet Union’s Luna 9 probe.
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This page is based on the article Surveyor 1 published in Wikipedia (as of Oct. 31, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
