v0.2 - 25-04-2020

Moon landings

Earth's moon is a body that has no atmosphere. Therefore a parachute landing is by definition, impossible. These landings are quite complex as one needs a high amount of control over the rocket engines to perform a safe landing. This can be seen by the motor used on the Apollo Lunar Lander which could be throttled to between 10 and 60% of full thrust. Another moon where landing attempts were to be made is Phobos, one of the Martian moons. Phobos is much smaller than the earth-moon, making landings even more difficult. One could compare a landing on the Martian moons more to an asteroid lander. Landings on these surfaces can be found on separate pages.

The moon landing page has been split into moon landings during the space race and after the space race.

Moon landings during the space race

Moon landings after the space race

Crewed landers

Overview of Lunar Landers

The table below shows the first moon landing attempts starting in 1958. As the moon has no atmosphere all of them used some form of propulsive deceleration if needed. From the table, it can be seen that the first landers used a much simpler impact strategy. This means the kinetic energy upon touchdown is higher, but the capsule is designed to handle this. This overview only contains missions that attempted a lunar landing and not failed missions that never started the landing operation.

Mission	Nationality	Year	Mission type	Status
Luna 1	Soviet Union	1959	Impactor	Failure - Did not impact, made the first fly by of the moon
Luna 2	Soviet Union	1959	Impactor	Succesfull
Ranger 3	USA	1962	Impactor	Failure - Guidance problem
Ranger 4	USA	1962	Impactor	Failure - Did not deploy solar panels
Ranger 5	USA	1962	Impactor	Failure - Solar panels shut down by accident
Ranger 6	USA	1964	Impactor	Succesfull impact, did not return science data
Ranger 7	USA	1964	Impactor	Succesfull
Ranger 8	USA	1964	Impactor	Succesfull
Ranger 9	USA	1965	Impactor	Succesfull
Luna 5	Soviet Union	1965	Lander	Failure - Hard landing
Luna 6	Soviet Union	1965	Lander	Failure - Guidance error, became a fly by
Luna 7	Soviet Union	1965	Lander	Failure - Hard landing
Luna 8	Soviet Union	1965	Lander	Failure - Landing system failure
Luna 9	Soviet Union	1966	Lander	Succesfull
Surveyor 1	USA	1966	Lander	Succesfull
Surveyor 2	USA	1966	Lander	Failure - Lost in transit
Luna 13	Soviet Union	1966	Lander	Succesfull
Surveyor 3	USA	1967	Lander	Succesfull
Surveyor 4	USA	1967	Lander	Failure - Loss of contact
Surveyor 5	USA	1967	Lander	Succesfull
Surveyor 6	USA	1967	Lander	Succesfull
Surveyor 7	USA	1968	Lander	Succesfull
Zond 4	Soviet Union	1968	Lunar loop flight	Partial success
Zond 5	Soviet Union	1968	Lunar loop flight	Success - Rough landing
Zond 6	Soviet Union	1968	Lunar loop flight	Partial success
Zond 7	Soviet Union	1969	Lunar loop flight	Success
Luna 15	Soviet Union	1969	Lander	Failure - Landing
Apollo 11	USA	1969	Lander - Crewed	Success - First human landing on the moon
Apollo 12	USA	1969	Lander - Crewed	Success
Zond 8	Soviet Union	1970	Lunar Loop flight	Success
Luna 16	Soviet Union	1970	Sample return	Success
Luna 17	Soviet Union	1970	Lander - Rover	Success - First rover
Luna 18	Soviet Union	1970	Sample return	Failure - Landing
Apollo 14	USA	1971	Lander - Crewed	Success
Apollo 15	USA	1971	Lander - Crewed	Success
Apollo 16	USA	1972	Lander - Crewed	Success
Luna 20	Soviet Union	1972	Sample return	Success
Luna 21	Soviet Union	1972	Lander - Rover	Success
Apollo 17	USA	1972	Lander - Crewed	Success
Luna 23	Soviet Union	1974	Sample return	Failure
Luna 24	Soviet Union	1976	Sample return	Success
Moon Impact Probe	ISRO	2008	Impactor	Success
Chang'e 3 + Yuto	China	2013	Lander - Rover	Success
Chang'e 4 + Yutu-2	China	2019	Lander - Rover	Success
Beresheet	Israel	2019	Lander	Failure - Landing
Vikram lander	India	2019	Lander	Failure - Landing
Chang'e 5	China	2020	Sample return	Success
OMOTENASHI	Japan	2022	Lander	Failed after separation with SLS
Hakuto-R M1	ISpace	2022	Lander	Failure - Landing
Luna 25	Roscosmos	2023	Lander	Failure
Chandrayaan 3	ISRO	2023	Lander	Success
SLIM	JAXA	2023	Lander	Success - Partial
Peregrine	USA - Astrobotic Technology	2024	Lander	Failed - in Transit
Nova-C Odysseus	USA - Intitive Machines	2024	Lander	Success - Partial

v0.2 - 25-04-2020