96-577: Comet Hopper ( CHopper ) was a proposed lander to NASA's Discovery Program that, had it been selected, would have orbited and landed multiple times on Comet Wirtanen as it approached the Sun . The proposed mission was led by Jessica Sunshine of the UMD , working with Lockheed Martin to build the spacecraft and the NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center to manage the mission. The Comet Hopper mission
192-518: A Saturn IB . This was originally planned for April 1967, to be followed by the first crewed flight later that year. But the LM's development problems had been underestimated, and LM-1's flight was delayed until January 22, 1968, as Apollo 5 . At that time, LM-2 was held in reserve in case the LM-1 flight failed, which did not happen. LM-3 now became the first crewed LM, again to be flown in low Earth orbit to test all
288-432: A hard landing that damages or destroys the probe upon reaching the surface, a lander makes a soft landing after which the probe remains functional. For bodies with atmospheres , the landing occurs after atmospheric entry . In these cases, landers may employ parachutes to slow them down enough to maintain a low terminal velocity . In some cases, small landing rockets will be fired just before impact in order to reduce
384-453: A magnetometer , a seismometer , a soil penetrating device (mole), and a micro-rover. The MSE aspect of the mission was cancelled in 2003 due to budgetary constraints. A few Jupiter probes provide many images and other data about its moons. Some proposed missions with landing on Jupiter's moons were canceled or not adopted. The small nuclear-powered Europa lander was proposed as part of NASA's Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO) mission that
480-412: A rover . Designed to rendezvous and land on a low-gravity body, Hayabusa became the second spacecraft to land on an asteroid, and in 2010 the first sample return mission from an asteroid. The Rosetta probe, launched 2 March 2004, put the first robotic lander Philae on the comet Churyumov–Gerasimenko on 12 November 2014. Due to the extremely low gravity of such bodies, the landing system included
576-458: A small Solar System body (an object in the Solar System that is not a moon, planet, or dwarf planet) was performed in 2001 by the probe NEAR Shoemaker at asteroid 433 Eros despite the fact that NEAR was not originally designed to be capable of landing. Japanese Hayabusa probe made several attempts to land on 25143 Itokawa in 2005 with mixed success, including a failed attempt to deploy
672-616: A throttleable Descent Propulsion System (DPS) engine with four hypergolic propellant tanks. A continuous-wave Doppler radar antenna was mounted by the engine heat shield on the bottom surface, to send altitude and rate of descent data to the guidance system and pilot display during the landing. Almost all external surfaces, except for the top, platform, ladder, descent engine and heat shield, were covered in amber, dark (reddish) amber, black, silver, and yellow aluminized Kapton foil blankets for thermal insulation. The number 1 (front) landing leg had an attached platform (informally known as
768-591: A Reaction Control System (RCS) for attitude and translation control, which consisted of sixteen hypergolic thrusters similar to those used on the Service Module, mounted in four quads, with their own propellant supply. A forward extravehicular activity hatch provided access to and from the lunar surface, while an overhead hatch and docking port provided access to and from the Command Module. Internal equipment included an environmental control (life support) system;
864-530: A Saturn V, the telescope was mounted on a hinged arm and controlled from inside the MDA. Only the octagonal shape of the telescope container, solar panels and the Apollo Telescope Mount name were kept, though there was no longer any association with the LM. The Apollo LM Truck (also known as Lunar Payload Module) was a stand-alone LM descent stage intended to deliver up to 11,000 pounds (5.0 t) of payload to
960-487: A VHF communications system with two antennas for communication with the Command Module; a unified S-band system and steerable parabolic dish antenna for communication with Earth; an extravehicular activity antenna resembling a miniature parasol which relayed communications from antennas on the astronauts' Portable Life Support Systems through the LM; primary (PGNCS) and backup (AGS) guidance and navigation systems; an Alignment Optical Telescope for visually determining
1056-503: A crew. A third test flight in low lunar orbit was Apollo 10 , a dress rehearsal for the first landing, conducted on Apollo 11 . The Apollo 13 lunar module functioned as a lifeboat to provide life support and propulsion to keep the crew alive for the trip home, when their CSM was disabled by an oxygen tank explosion en route to the Moon. The six landed descent stages remain at their landing sites; their corresponding ascent stages crashed into
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#17330848678761152-577: A crewed command and service module , named the Apollo Telescope Mission (ATM). This idea was later transferred to the original wet workshop design for the Skylab orbital workshop and renamed the Apollo Telescope Mount to be docked on a side port of the workshop's multiple docking adapter (MDA). When Skylab changed to a "dry workshop" design pre-fabricated on the ground and launched on
1248-669: A dramatization of that mission starring Tom Hanks , Kevin Bacon , and Bill Paxton , was filmed using realistic spacecraft interior reconstructions of the Aquarius and the Command Module Odyssey . In 2013 in the television show Arrested Development , a fictionalized version of Howard is depicted as having the Apollo 11 "LEM" in his office, which his character claims was used to fake the 1969 moon landing . The development and construction of
1344-461: A harpoon launcher intended to anchor a cable in the comet's surface and pull the lander down. JAXA launched the Hayabusa2 asteroid space probe in 2014 to deliver several landing parts (including Minerva II and German Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout (MASCOT) landers and a Small Carry-on Impactor (SCI) penetrator) in 2018–2019 to return samples to Earth by 2020. The Chinese Space Agency is designing
1440-410: A high-velocity impact is intentionally planned in order to study the consequences of impact, the spacecraft is called an impactor. Several terrestrial bodies have been subject to lander or impactor exploration. Among them are Earth's Moon ; the planets Venus , Mars , and Mercury ; Saturn's moon Titan ; asteroids ; and comets . Beginning with Luna 2 in 1959, the first few spacecraft to reach
1536-588: A much heavier, complete Apollo spacecraft on the Moon. Once the decision had been made to proceed using LOR, it became necessary to produce a separate craft capable of reaching the lunar surface and ascending back to lunar orbit. In July 1962, eleven firms were invited to submit proposals for the LEM. Nine companies responded in September, answering 20 questions posed by the NASA RFP in a 60-page limited technical proposal. Grumman
1632-486: A number of Venus landers, some of which were crushed during descent much as Galileo's Jupiter "lander" and others which successfully touched down. Venera 3 in 1966 and Venera 7 in 1970 became the first impact and soft landing on Venus respectively. The Soviet Vega program also placed two balloons in the Venusian atmosphere in 1985, which were the first aerial tools on other planets. The Soviet Union's Mars 1962B became
1728-478: A permanently shadowed crater near a lunar polar region. LCROSS was launched together with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) on 18 June 2009, as part of the shared Lunar Precursor Robotic Program . LCROSS was designed to collect and relay data from the impact and debris plume resulting from the launch vehicle's spent Centaur upper rocket stage striking the crater Cabeus near the south pole of
1824-642: A sample retrieval mission from Ceres that would take place during the 2020s. Launched in October 2018 and expected to reach Mercury in December 2025, ESA 's BepiColombo mission to Mercury was originally designed to include the Mercury Surface Element (MSE). The lander would have carried a 7 kg payload consisting of an imaging system (a descent camera and a surface camera), a heat flow and physical properties package, an alpha particle X-ray spectrometer ,
1920-471: A second, forward docking port, allowing the LEM crew to take an active role in docking with the CSM. As the program continued, there were numerous redesigns to save weight, improve safety, and fix problems. First to go were the heavy cockpit windows and the seats; the astronauts would stand while flying the LEM, supported by a cable and pulley system, with smaller triangular windows giving them sufficient visibility of
2016-546: A suit-puncture hazard to the astronauts, as the probes tended to break off and protrude upwards from the surface.) Equipment for the lunar exploration was carried in the Modular Equipment Stowage Assembly (MESA), a drawer mounted on a hinged panel dropping out of the lefthand forward compartment. Besides the astronaut's surface excavation tools and sample collection boxes, the MESA contained a television camera with
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#17330848678762112-403: A tripod; as the commander opened the MESA by pulling on a lanyard while descending the ladder, the camera was automatically activated to send the first pictures of the astronauts on the surface back to Earth. A United States flag for the astronauts to erect on the surface was carried in a container mounted on the ladder of each landing mission. The Early Apollo Surface Experiments Package (later
2208-499: The Yutu-2 rover on the far side of the Moon . Chang'e 5 and Chang'e 6 are designed to be sample return missions. Chang'e 5 and 6 were conducted successfully in 2020 and 2024 respectively. Chang'e 5 mission landed on the Moon on 1 December 2020, China completed the Chang'e 5 mission on 16 December 2020 with the return of approximately 2 kilograms of lunar sample. On 6 September 2019,
2304-498: The Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package ), was carried in the opposite compartment behind the LM. An external compartment on the right front panel carried a deployable S-band antenna which, when opened looked like an inverted umbrella on a tripod. This was not used on the first landing due to time constraints, and the fact that acceptable communications were being received using the LM's S-band antenna, but
2400-582: The Lunar Landing Research Vehicle (LLRV), which used a gimbal-mounted vertical jet engine to counter five-sixths of its weight to simulate the Moon's gravity, in addition to its own hydrogen peroxide thrusters to simulate the LM's descent engine and attitude control. Successful testing of two LLRV prototypes at the Dryden Flight Research Center led in 1966 to three production Lunar Landing Training Vehicles (LLTV) which along with
2496-588: The OSIRIS-REx II mission concept. The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) plans to launch the Martian Moons Exploration (MMX) mission in 2024, a sample return mission targeting Phobos. MMX will land and collect samples from Phobos multiple times, along with deploying a rover jointly developed by CNES and the German Aerospace Center (DLR). By using a corer sampling mechanism,
2592-524: The Tianwen-1 mission, on 23 July 2020. It includes an orbiter, a lander and a 240 kilograms rover. The orbiter was placed into orbit on 10 February 2021. The Zhurong successfully soft landed on 14 May 2021 and deployed on 22 May 2021. While several flybys conducted by Mars orbiting probes have provided images and other data about the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos , only few of them intended to land on
2688-617: The command and service module (CSM) with legs folded, inside the Spacecraft-to-LM adapter (SLA) attached to the S-IVB third stage of the Saturn V rocket. There it remained through Earth parking orbit and the trans-lunar injection (TLI) rocket burn to send the craft toward the Moon. Soon after TLI, the SLA opened; the CSM performed a maneuver whereby it separated, turned around, came back to dock with
2784-561: The command module Columbia splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, completing President John F. Kennedy's goal : "...before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth". This was followed by landings by Apollo 12 (LM-6 Intrepid ) and Apollo 14 (LM-8 Antares ). In April 1970, the Apollo 13 LM-7 Aquarius played an unexpected role in saving the lives of
2880-412: The landing gear , the LM was withdrawn to a safe distance, then rotated until the descent engine was pointed forward into the direction of travel. A 30-second descent orbit insertion burn was performed to reduce speed and drop the LM's perilune to within about 50,000 feet (15 km) of the surface, about 260 nautical miles (480 km) uprange of the landing site. As the craft approached perilune,
2976-411: The "porch") in front of the ascent stage's extravehicular activity hatch and a ladder, which the astronauts used to ascend and descend between the cabin to the surface. The landing pad of each leg incorporated a 67-inch-long (1.7 m) surface contact sensor probe, which signaled the commander to switch off the descent engine. (The probe was omitted from the number 1 leg of every landing mission, to avoid
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3072-596: The Hera spacecraft will arrive in 2027 to investigate the effects of the impact. Apollo Lunar Module The Apollo Lunar Module ( LM / ˈ l ɛ m / ), originally designated the Lunar Excursion Module ( LEM ), was the lunar lander spacecraft that was flown between lunar orbit and the Moon's surface during the United States' Apollo program . It was the first crewed spacecraft to operate exclusively in
3168-572: The LLRV's were used to train the astronauts at the Houston Manned Spacecraft Center. This aircraft proved fairly dangerous to fly, as three of the five were destroyed in crashes. It was equipped with a rocket-powered ejection seat, so in each case the pilot survived, including the first man to walk on the Moon, Neil Armstrong . LM-1 was built to make the first uncrewed flight for propulsion systems testing, launched into low Earth orbit atop
3264-474: The LM for development and the units produced was $ 21.65 billion in 2016 dollars, adjusting from a nominal total of $ 2.29 billion using the NASA New Start Inflation Indices. Ten lunar modules were launched into space. Of these, six were landed by humans on the Moon from 1969 to 1972. The first two flown were tests in low Earth orbit : Apollo 5 , without a crew; and Apollo 9 with
3360-413: The LM's ascent engine fired, leaving the descent stage on the Moon's surface. After a few course correction burns, the LM rendezvoused with the CSM and docked to transfer the crew and rock samples. Having completed its job, the ascent stage was separated. The Apollo 10 ascent stage engine was fired until its fuel was used up, sending it past the Moon into a heliocentric orbit . The Apollo 11 ascent stage
3456-454: The LM, replaced the hatches and docking equipment, unfolded and locked its landing legs, and separated from the CSM, flying independently. The commander operated the flight controls and engine throttle, while the Lunar Module pilot operated other spacecraft systems and kept the commander informed about systems status and navigational information. After the command module pilot visually inspected
3552-470: The Lunar Module, and extracted it from the S-IVB. During the flight to the Moon, the docking hatches were opened and the Lunar Module pilot entered the LM to power up temporarily and test all systems except propulsion. The Lunar Module pilot performed the role of an engineering officer, monitoring the systems of both spacecraft. After achieving a lunar parking orbit, the commander and LM pilot entered and powered up
3648-423: The Moon following use. One ascent stage (Apollo 10's Snoopy ) was discarded in a heliocentric orbit after its descent stage was discarded in lunar orbit. The other three LMs were destroyed during controlled re-entry in the Earth's atmosphere: the four stages of Apollo 5 and Apollo 9 each re-entered separately, while Apollo 13's Aquarius re-entered as a unit. At launch, the lunar module sat directly beneath
3744-557: The Moon for an uncrewed landing. This technique was intended to deliver equipment and supplies to a permanent crewed lunar base . As originally proposed, it would be launched on a Saturn V with a full Apollo crew to accompany it to lunar orbit and guide it to a landing next to the base; then the base crew would unload the "truck" while the orbiting crew returned to Earth. In later AAP plans, the LPM would have been delivered by an uncrewed lunar ferry vehicle. The 1995 Ron Howard film Apollo 13 ,
3840-401: The Moon. Japan became the fifth country to land a lunar probe on 19 January 2024, by successfully landing its SLIM lander . On 22 February 2024, Intuitive Machine's Odysseus successfully landed on the Moon after taking off on a SpaceX Falcon 9 . This was the first successful landing of a privately owned spacecraft on the Moon. China sent Chang'e 6 on 3 May 2024, which conducted
3936-584: The Moon. Centaur impacted successfully on 9 October 2009, at 11:31 UTC . The "shepherding spacecraft" (carrying the LCROSS mission payload) descended through Centaur's plume of debris, and collected and relayed data before impacting six minutes later at 11:37 UTC. The project was successful in discovering water in Cabeus. The NASA MESSENGER (Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry, and Ranging) mission to Mercury launched on 3 August 2004 and entered orbit around
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4032-439: The abbreviation as ( / l ɛ m / ) instead of the letters "L-M". Comparing landing on the Moon to "a hovering operation", Gus Grissom said in 1963 that although most early astronauts were fighter pilots, "now we're wondering if the pilot making this first moon landing shouldn't be a highly experienced helicopter pilot". To allow astronauts to learn lunar landing techniques, NASA contracted Bell Aerosystems in 1964 to build
4128-410: The airless vacuum of space, and remains the only crewed vehicle to land anywhere beyond Earth. Structurally and aerodynamically incapable of flight through Earth's atmosphere, the two-stage Lunar Module was ferried to lunar orbit attached to the Apollo command and service module (CSM), about twice its mass. Its crew of two flew the Lunar Module from lunar orbit to the Moon's surface. During takeoff,
4224-452: The cabin. The return payload included the lunar rock and soil samples collected by the crew (as much as 238 pounds (108 kg) on Apollo 17), plus their exposed photographic film . The descent stage's primary job was to support a powered landing and surface extravehicular activity. When the excursion was over, it served as the launch pad for the ascent stage. Its octagonal shape was supported by four folding landing gear legs, and contained
4320-402: The comet. As the comet approached the sun, the spacecraft would land and hop multiple times to record surface changes as the comet became more active. The final landing would occur at 1.5 AU. Lander (spacecraft) A lander is a spacecraft that descends towards, then comes to rest on the surface of an astronomical body other than Earth . In contrast to an impact probe, which makes
4416-418: The descent engine was started again to begin powered descent. During this time, the crew flew on their backs, depending on the computer to slow the craft's forward and vertical velocity to near zero. Control was exercised with a combination of engine throttling and attitude thrusters, guided by the computer with the aid of landing radar. During braking, the LM descended to about 10,000 feet (3.0 km), then, in
4512-508: The descent propellant tanks were enlarged. A waste storage tank was added to the descent stage, with plumbing from the ascent stage. These upgrades allowed stays of up to 75 hours on the Moon. The Lunar Roving Vehicle was folded up and carried in Quadrant 1 of the descent stage. It was deployed by the astronauts after landing, allowing them to explore large areas and return a greater variety of lunar samples. Weights given here are an average for
4608-493: The designers compromised on four landing legs. In June 1966, the name was changed to Lunar Module (LM), eliminating the word excursion . According to George Low , Manager of the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office, this was because NASA was afraid that the word excursion might lend a frivolous note to Apollo. Despite the name change, the astronauts and other NASA and Grumman personnel continued to pronounce
4704-478: The existence of water on the moon and determining the water's characteristics. The Deep Space 2 impactor probe was to be the first spacecraft to penetrate below the surface of another planet. However, the mission failed with the loss of its mother ship, Mars Polar Lander , which lost communication with Earth during entry into Mars' atmosphere on 3 December 1999. Comet Tempel 1 was visited by NASA's Deep Impact probe on 4 July 2005. The impact crater formed
4800-400: The extended missions. [REDACTED] One proposed Apollo application was an orbital solar telescope constructed from a surplus LM with its descent engine replaced with a telescope controlled from the ascent stage cabin, the landing legs removed and four "windmill" solar panels extending from the descent stage quadrants. This would have been launched on an uncrewed Saturn IB, and docked with
4896-436: The final approach phase, down to about 700 feet (210 m). During final approach, the vehicle pitched over to a near-vertical position, allowing the crew to look forward and down to see the lunar surface for the first time. Astronauts flew Apollo spacecraft manually only during the lunar approach. The final landing phase began about 2,000 feet (0.61 km) uprange of the targeted landing site. At this point, manual control
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#17330848678764992-413: The final approach. The CSM would then raise its perilune back to the normal 60 nautical miles (110 km). The Extended Lunar Module (ELM) used on the final three "J-class missions" — Apollo 15 , 16 , and 17 — was upgraded to land larger payloads and stay longer on the lunar surface. The descent engine thrust was increased by the addition of a 10-inch (250 mm) extension to the engine bell, and
5088-529: The first acting rover on Mars, Sojourner , in July 1997. It worked until September 1997. The Mars Polar Lander ceased communication on 3 December 1999 prior to reaching the surface and is presumed to have crashed. The European Beagle 2 lander deployed successfully from the Mars Express spacecraft but the signal confirming a landing which should have come on 25 December 2003 was not received. No communication
5184-475: The first lunar sample return from Apollo Basin on the far side of the Moon . This is China's second lunar sample return mission, the first was achieved by Chang'e 5 from the lunar near side four years earlier. It also carried the Chinese Jinchan rover to conduct infrared spectroscopy of lunar surface and imaged Chang'e 6 lander on lunar surface. The lander-ascender-rover combination was separated with
5280-534: The first mission intended to impact on Mars in 1962. In 1971, the lander of the Mars 3 probe conducted the first soft landing on Mars, but communication was lost within a minute after touchdown, which occurred during one of the worst global dust storms since the beginning of telescopic observations of the Red Planet. Three other landers, Mars 2 in 1971 and Mars 5 and Mars 6 in 1973, either crashed or failed to even enter
5376-458: The first successful, functioning Mars landers. The mission ended in May 1983, after both landers had stopped working. Mars 96 was the first complex post-Soviet Russian mission with an orbiter, lander, penetrators. Planned for 1996, it failed at launch. A planned repeat of this mission, Mars 98, was cancelled due to lack of funding. The U.S. Mars Pathfinder was launched in December 1996 and released
5472-400: The lander Vikram on Chandrayaan-2 , attempting to land on the lunar south polarregion. Due to software glitch, it lost contact and crashed moments before landing. About 4 years later, on 23 August 2023, the lander Vikram on Chandrayaan-3 successfully touched down on the lunar south pole, close to the crater Manzinus U. This made it the first lander to soft land at the south pole of
5568-429: The lander's velocity. Landing may be accomplished by controlled descent and set down on landing gear , with the possible addition of a post-landing attachment mechanism (such as the mechanism used by Philae ) for celestial bodies with low gravity. Some missions (for example, Luna 9 and Mars Pathfinder ) used inflatable airbags to cushion the lander's impact rather than utilizing more traditional landing gear. When
5664-546: The landing site. Later, the redundant forward docking port was removed, which meant the Command Pilot gave up active control of the docking to the Command Module Pilot; he could still see the approaching CSM through a small overhead window. Egress while wearing bulky extra-vehicular activity spacesuits was eased by a simpler forward hatch (32 in × 32 in or 810 mm × 810 mm). The configuration
5760-468: The last four landing missions by using the Service Module engine to perform the initial descent orbit insertion burn 22 hours before the LM separated from the CSM, a practice begun on Apollo 14. This meant that the complete spacecraft, including the CSM, orbited the Moon with a 9.1-nautical-mile (16.9 km) perilune, enabling the LM to begin its powered descent from that altitude with a full load of descent stage propellant, leaving more reserve propellant for
5856-402: The legs of the lander touched the surface, activating the contact indicator light which signaled the commander to shut off the descent engine, allowing the LM to settle onto the surface. On touchdown, the probes would be bent as much as 180 degrees, or even break off. The original design used the probes on all four legs, but starting with the first landing (LM-5 on Apollo 11), the one at the ladder
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#17330848678765952-411: The lightest possible configuration. But as any particular leg would have to carry the weight of the vehicle if it landed at a significant angle, this was also the least stable configuration if one of the legs were damaged during landing. The next landing gear design iteration had five legs and was the most stable configuration for landing on an unknown terrain. That configuration, however, was too heavy and
6048-409: The lunar landing, practicing all phases of the mission except powered descent initiation through takeoff. The LM descended to 47,400 feet (9.0 mi; 14.4 km) above the lunar surface, then jettisoned the descent stage and used its ascent engine to return to the CSM. The first crewed lunar landing occurred on July 20, 1969, in the Apollo 11 LM-5 Eagle . Four days later, the Apollo 11 crew in
6144-403: The lunar module is dramatized in the 1998 miniseries From the Earth to the Moon episode entitled "Spider" . This is in reference to LM-3, used on Apollo 9, which the crew named Spider after its spidery appearance. The unused LM-13 stood in during the teleplay to depict LM-3 and LM-5, Eagle , used by Apollo 11. The Apollo 11 Lunar Module Eagle is depicted in the 2018 film First Man ,
6240-539: The lunar soil and determine the thickness of the dust layer, which was unknown before Surveyor. The U.S.-crewed Apollo Lunar Modules (1969–1972) with rovers (1971–1972) and late Soviet large robotic landers (1969–), Lunokhods (1970–1973) and sample return missions (1970–1976) used a rocket descent engine for a soft landing of astronauts and lunar rovers on the Moon. The Chinese Chang'e 3 mission and its Yutu (' Jade Rabbit ') rover landed on 14 December 2013. In 2019, China's Chang'e 4 mission successfully landed
6336-596: The lunar surface were impactors, not landers. They were part of the Soviet Luna program or the American Ranger program . In 1966, the Soviet Luna 9 became the first spacecraft to achieve a lunar soft landing and to transmit photographic data to Earth. The American Surveyor program (1966–1968) was designed to determine where Apollo could land safely. As a result, these robotic missions required soft landers to sample
6432-475: The mission to Phobos to 2016 with lander and sample return, but it stayed as a project. Since 2007 the Canadian Space Agency has considered a mission to Phobos called Phobos Reconnaissance and International Mars Exploration (PRIME), which would include an orbiter and lander. Recent proposals include a 2008 NASA Glenn Research Center Phobos and Deimos sample return mission, the 2013 Phobos Surveyor , and
6528-491: The multi-aimed Soviet mission, was developed in cooperation with European countries for realization in 1991–1994 but canceled due to the Soviet Union disbanding. It included a flyby of Mars, where Vesta would deliver an aerostat (balloon or airship) and small landers or penetrators, followed by flybys of Ceres or 4 Vesta and some other asteroids with the impact of a large penetrator on one of them. The first landing on
6624-582: The orbiter and returner before landing on 1 June 2024 at 22:23 UTC. It landed on the Moon's surface on 1 June 2024. The ascender was launched back to lunar orbit on 3 June 2024 at 23:38 UTC, carrying samples collected by the lander, and later completed another robotic rendezvous and docking in lunar orbit. The sample container was then transferred to the returner, which landed in Inner Mongolia on 25 June 2024, completing China's far side extraterrestrial sample return mission. The Soviet Venera program included
6720-403: The original pre-ELM spec vehicles. For specific weights for each mission, see the individual mission articles. The ascent stage contained the crew cabin with instrument panels and flight controls. It contained its own Ascent Propulsion System (APS) engine and two hypergolic propellant tanks for return to lunar orbit and rendezvous with the Apollo command and service module . It also contained
6816-480: The planet on 18 March 2011. Following a mapping mission, MESSENGER was directed to impact Mercury's surface on 30 April 2015. The spacecraft's impact with Mercury occurred near 3:26 pm EDT on 30 April 2015, leaving a crater estimated to be 16 m in diameter. The ESA's AIDA mission concept would investigate the effects of impact crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid. The DART spacecraft impacted asteroid 65803 Didymos 's moon Dimorphos in 2022, and
6912-467: The planet's atmosphere. All four landers used an aeroshell-like heat shield during atmospheric entry . Mars 2 and Mars 3 landers carried the first small skis-walking Mars rovers , PrOP-M , that did not work on the planet. The Soviet Union planned the heavy Marsokhod Mars 4NM mission in 1973 and the Mars sample return Mars 5NM mission in 1975, but neither occurred due to needing the N1 super-launcher that
7008-504: The spacecraft aims to retrieve a minimum of 10 g of samples. MMX will return to Earth in 2029. The Huygens probe, carried to Saturn 's moon Titan by Cassini , was specifically designed to survive landing on land or on liquid. It was thoroughly drop-tested to make sure it could withstand impact and continue functioning for at least three minutes. However, due to the low-speed impact, it continued providing data for more than two hours after it landed. The landing on Titan in 2005
7104-409: The spacecraft orientation; rendezvous radar with its own steerable dish antenna; and a system for active thermal control. Electrical storage batteries, cooling water, and breathing oxygen were stored in amounts sufficient for a lunar surface stay of 48 hours initially, extended to 75 hours for the later missions. During rest periods while parked on the Moon, the crew would sleep on hammocks slung across
7200-403: The spatial heterogeneity of surface solids as well as gas and dust emissions from the coma - the nebulous envelope around the nucleus of a comet . The remote mapping would also allow for any nucleus structure, geologic processes, and coma mechanisms to be determined. After arriving at Comet Wirtanen, the spacecraft would have approached and landed, then subsequently hopped to other locations on
7296-500: The spent descent stage was used as a launch pad for the ascent stage which then flew back to the command module , after which it was also discarded. Overseen by Grumman , the LM's development was plagued with problems that delayed its first uncrewed flight by about ten months and its first crewed flight by about three months. Regardless, the LM became the most reliable component of the Apollo–Saturn space vehicle . The total cost of
7392-494: The surface of these satellites. Two probes under the Soviet Phobos program were successfully launched in 1988, but in 1989 the intended landings on Phobos and Deimos were not conducted due to failures in the spacecraft system. The post-Soviet Russian Fobos-Grunt probe was an intended sample return mission to Phobos in 2012 but failed after launch in 2011. In 2007 European Space Agency and EADS Astrium proposed and developed
7488-403: The surface, leaving the spacecraft to be only remotely attended by Mission Control. Beginning with Apollo 14 , extra LM propellant was made available for the powered descent and landing, by using the CSM engine to achieve the 50,000-foot (15 km) perilune. After the spacecraft undocked, the CSM raised and circularized its orbit for the remainder of the mission. When ready to leave the Moon,
7584-416: The systems, and practice the separation, rendezvous, and docking planned for Apollo 8 in December 1968. But again, last-minute problems delayed its flight until Apollo 9 on March 3, 1969. A second, higher Earth orbit crewed practice flight had been planned to follow LM-3, but this was cancelled to keep the program timeline on track. Apollo 10 launched on May 18, 1969, using LM-4 for a "dress rehearsal" for
7680-752: The three astronauts after an oxygen tank in the service module ruptured, disabling the CSM. Aquarius served as a "lifeboat" for the astronauts during their return to Earth. Its descent stage engine was used to replace the crippled CSM Service Propulsion System engine, and its batteries supplied power for the trip home and recharged the Command Module's batteries critical for reentry. The astronauts splashed down safely on April 17, 1970. The LM's systems, designed to support two astronauts for 45 hours (including two depressurization and repressurization cycles, causing loss of oxygen supply), actually stretched to support three astronauts for 90 hours (without pressurization cycles and loss of oxygen). Hover times were maximized on
7776-529: Was approximately 200 m wide and 30–50 m deep, and scientists detected the presence of silicates , carbonates , smectite , amorphous carbon and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons . The Moon Impact Probe (MIP) developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), India's national space agency, was a lunar probe that was released on 14 November 2008 by ISRO's Chandrayaan-1 lunar remote sensing orbiter. Chandrayaan-1
7872-486: Was awarded the contract officially on November 7, 1962. Grumman had begun lunar orbit rendezvous studies in the late 1950s and again in 1961. The contract cost was expected to be around $ 350 million. There were initially four major subcontractors: Bell Aerosystems ( ascent engine ), Hamilton Standard (environmental control systems), Marquardt (reaction control system) and Rocketdyne ( descent engine ). The Primary Guidance, Navigation and Control System (PGNCS)
7968-409: Was canceled in 2006. NASA's Europa Clipper is planned to explore Jupiter's moons, particularly Europa , starting in 2030. NASA considered a lander or impactor to fly alongside Europa Clipper , but ultimately declined. As Europa is hypothesized to have water beneath its icy surface , these missions are sent to investigate its habitability and assess its astrobiological potential by confirming
8064-417: Was chiefly designed by Grumman aerospace engineer Thomas J. Kelly . The first LEM design looked like a smaller version of the Apollo command and service module (a cone-shaped cabin atop a cylindrical propulsion section) with folding legs. The second design invoked the idea of a helicopter cockpit with large curved windows and seats, to improve the astronauts' visibility for hover and landing. This also included
8160-537: Was declared effectively dead, having exceeded its three-month design lifetime by well over a decade. The U.S. spacecraft Phoenix successfully achieved soft landing on the surface of Mars on 25 May 2008, using a combination of parachutes and rocket descent engines. Mars Science Laboratory , which carried the rover Curiosity , was launched by NASA on 26 November 2011. It landed in the Aeolis Palus region of Gale Crater on Mars on 6 August 2012. China launched
8256-677: Was developed by the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory ; the Apollo Guidance Computer was manufactured by Raytheon (a similar guidance system was used in the command module ). A backup navigation tool, the Abort Guidance System (AGS), was developed by TRW . The landing gear was manufactured by Héroux . The Apollo Lunar Module was assembled in a Grumman factory in Bethpage, New York . The Apollo Lunar Module
8352-451: Was enabled for the commander, who had enough propellant to hover for up to two minutes to survey where the computer was taking the craft and make any necessary corrections. If necessary, landing could have been aborted at almost any time by jettisoning the descent stage and firing the ascent engine to climb back into orbit for an emergency return to the CSM. Finally, one or more of three 67.2-inch (1.71 m) probes extending from footpads on
8448-623: Was ever established and Beagle 2 was declared lost on 6 February 2004. The proposed 2009 British Beagle 3 lander mission to search for life, past or present, was not adopted. The American Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity were launched in June and July 2003. They reached the Martian surface in January 2004 using landers featuring airbags and parachutes to soften impact. Spirit ceased functioning in 2010, more than five years past its design lifetime. As of 13 February 2019, Opportunity
8544-651: Was frozen in April 1963, when the ascent and descent engine designs were decided. In addition to Rocketdyne, a parallel program for the descent engine was ordered from Space Technology Laboratories (TRW) in July 1963, and by January 1965 the Rocketdyne contract was cancelled. Power was initially to be produced by fuel cells built by Pratt and Whitney similar to the CSM, but in March 1965 these were discarded in favor of an all-battery design. The initial design had three landing legs,
8640-446: Was launched on 22 October 2008. It led to the discovery of the presence of water on the Moon . The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) was a robotic spacecraft operated by NASA to perform a lower-cost means of determining the nature of hydrogen detected at the polar regions of the Moon . The main LCROSS mission objective was to explore the presence of water ice in
8736-575: Was left in lunar orbit to eventually crash; all subsequent ascent stages (except for Apollo 13) were intentionally steered into the Moon to obtain readings from seismometers placed on the surface. The Lunar Module (originally designated the Lunar Excursion Module, known by the acronym LEM) was designed after NASA chose to reach the Moon via Lunar Orbit Rendezvous (LOR) instead of the direct ascent or Earth Orbit Rendezvous (EOR) methods. Both direct ascent and EOR would have involved landing
8832-464: Was never flown successfully. A double-launching Soviet Mars 5M (Mars-79) sample return mission was planned for 1979 but cancelled due to complexity and technical problems. NASA 's Viking 1 and Viking 2 were launched respectively in August and September 1975, each comprising an orbiter vehicle and a lander. Viking 1 landed in July 1976 Viking 2 in September 1976. The Viking program rovers were
8928-484: Was one of three Discovery Program finalists that received US$ 3 million in May 2011 to develop a detailed concept study. The other two missions were InSight and Titan Mare Explorer . After a review in August 2012, NASA selected the InSight mission. The CHopper mission had three primary science goals for the 7.3 years of its lifetime. At roughly 4.5 AU the spacecraft would have rendezvoused with Comet Wirtanen to map
9024-415: Was removed out of concern that the bent probe after landing might puncture an astronaut's suit as he descended or stepped off the ladder. The original extravehicular activity plan, up through at least 1966, was for only one astronaut to leave the LM while the other remained inside "to maintain communications". Communications were eventually deemed to be reliable enough to allow both crew members to walk on
9120-566: Was the first, and to date only, landing on any planet's satellite other than Earth's moon. The proposed U.S. Titan Mare Explorer (TiME) mission considered a lander that would splash down in a lake in Titan's northern hemisphere and float on the surface of the lake for few months. Spain's proposed Titan Lake In-situ Sampling Propelled Explorer (TALISE) mission is similar to the TiME lander but has its own propulsion system for controlling shipping. Vesta ,
9216-593: Was used on Apollo 12 and 14. A hand-pulled Modular Equipment Transporter (MET), similar in appearance to a golf cart, was carried on Apollo 13 and 14 to facilitate carrying the tools and samples on extended moonwalks. On the extended missions ( Apollo 15 and later), the antenna and TV camera were mounted on the Lunar Roving Vehicle , which was carried folded up and mounted on an external panel. Compartments also contained replacement Portable Life Support System (PLSS) batteries and extra lithium hydroxide canisters on
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