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The Surveyor 3 robot lander sitting on the slope of a shallow crater on the Moon.

First landing: 2 June 1966Status: Not working any more

Surveyor landers

Image: NASA (JSC)

Main spot on the Moon:Oceanus Procellarum

Five Surveyors landed safely between 1966 and 1968. Together they sent back more than 87,000 pictures. Surveyor 3 dug trenches with a scoop and found soil "similar to wet sand".

Flat map of The Moon with 5 markers: the main site at Oceanus Procellarum (3.02° S, 23.42° W) and the places of Surveyor 1, Surveyor 5, Surveyor 6, Surveyor 7.
Oceanus Procellarum + 4 more places3.02° S, 23.42° WA flat map of the whole Moon, like a world map of Earth. Its middle is the side we always see from Earth. The big dot marks the main spot; the small dots mark other things the mission left behind.

The big map

Where Surveyor landers can be found on the Moon

This is the whole Moon, unrolled flat like a world map of Earth. The middle of the map is the side of the Moon we always see from Earth. The lines are the coordinates , every 30°. Drag the map to look around, pick a spot, then follow its dashed lines to the numbers on the edges.

Where the mission ended More things it left behind

Flat map of The Moon with 5 numbered spots, listed below the map.

Listen

Hear the story of this mission.

What did the Surveyors leave behind?

Today, the Moon is scattered with things that people have left there. Some are easy to spot, like astronaut footprints, flags and equipment. But before any human walked on the Moon, NASA sent a group of robot explorers to prepare the way. They were called Surveyors.

Echo: Hi! Let's meet the robots that landed on the Moon before any astronaut did.

By the numbers

Five robots, one big job

Surveyors that landed safely between 1966 and 1968
5
pictures they sent back to Earth, all together
87,000+
the engine burn that made Surveyor 6 hop
2.5 s
how close Apollo 12 landed to Surveyor 3
180 m

The landers

Like a robot graveyard on the Moon

Between 1966 and 1968, five Surveyors landed safely on the Moon. Their missions ended, but the landers didn't come home. They are still there.

Surveyor 1: the first soft landing

Surveyor 1 was the first American spacecraft to make a soft landing on the Moon. That means it came down gently instead of crashing. It touched down on 2 June 1966 and sent back more than 11,000 photographs.

It stood on three landing legs, each with a footpad at the end. More than 40 years later, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter photographed it from space, still sitting where it landed.

Surveyor 5: the soil detective

Surveyor 5 landed on 11 September 1967. It left behind something even more interesting: a science instrument that tested what the Moon's soil is made of.

The results showed that the soil was a lot like basalt, a dark volcanic rock that we also find on Earth. It was the first time anyone had tested the ground of another world right where it lay.

The long shadow of the Surveyor 1 lander stretching across the grey lunar surface.(opens larger view)

Surveyor 1 The shadow of Surveyor 1 on the Moon in the late lunar afternoon.

Image: NASA/JPL

Surveyor 5's round footpad resting in the dark, grainy lunar soil, at the end of a small trench it made by sliding as it landed.(opens larger view)

Image: NASA/JPL

A magnet on its foot

Surveyor 5 had a small magnet attached to one of its footpads. It was there to find out whether the Moon's soil contained magnetic material.

Echo: Basalt is a volcanic rock. You can find it on Earth too!

Surveyor 6 · 17 November 1967

The robot that hopped

Then there was Surveyor 6. On 17 November 1967, it did something no spacecraft had ever done before: it took off from the surface of the Moon.

It fired its engines for just 2.5 seconds. It rose about 3 metres into the air, about as high as a basketball hoop, and came back down about 2.5 metres to the west.

Its cameras then photographed the marks it had left at its first landing spot. So Surveyor 6 didn't just leave a spacecraft behind. It left two landing sites!

View from orbit of a grey, cratered plain. Surveyor 6 is a tiny bright dot with a long dark shadow, shown enlarged in a box in the corner.(opens larger view)

Surveyor 6 seen from orbit by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. The Sun was low in the sky, so the tiny lander casts an 18-metre-long shadow.

Image: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University

Echo: It hopped about as high as a basketball hoop. On the Moon!

Imagine this…

You are a robot on the Moon, and you can hop just once. Where would you land, and what would you want to take a picture of?

Surveyor 7 · January 1968

Digging in near Tycho

Surveyor 7 left behind an even bigger collection of clues. It landed on 10 January 1968 north of a big crater called Tycho, in the Moon's highlands. It was the only Surveyor to land there.

Its robot arm, with a little scoop on the end, dug trenches in the lunar soil and picked up and moved four rocks. It also pressed on the ground at least 16 times, to test how much weight the surface could hold.

When its mission ended in February 1968, its science instruments and cameras stayed right where they were.

Black-and-white mosaic of photos showing rocky, bumpy lunar ground scattered with stones, with hills on the horizon.(opens larger view)

Surveyor 7's view near Tycho crater, pieced together from many of its own photos.

Image: NASA/JPL

Echo: A robot arm that digs and moves rocks? Like a claw machine on the Moon!

Surveyor 3 standing on the grey slope of a crater, with the Apollo 12 Lunar Module on the horizon behind it.

But one Surveyor had a very different ending.

It had a visit from Earth.

Image: JSC

Surveyor 3 · 1967 and 1969

A visit from Earth

Surveyor 3 landed on 20 April 1967. It bounced twice before it settled, then spent about two weeks studying the Moon. Its scoop dug trenches, and scientists found that the lunar soil had a consistency "similar to wet sand".

More than two years later, something unexpected happened. Humans came to visit it.

In November 1969, Apollo 12 astronauts Charles "Pete" Conrad Jr. and Alan Bean landed about 180 metres from Surveyor 3. They walked over to the old robot, photographed it and removed several parts, including its television camera and soil scoop.

Those pieces travelled all the way back to Earth. There, scientists studied what more than two and a half years on the Moon had done to them.

Astronaut Pete Conrad in a white spacesuit examines the TV camera of the Surveyor 3 lander. The Apollo 12 Lunar Module stands in the background.(opens larger view)

Pete Conrad examines Surveyor 3's TV camera, just before removing it to take home.

Image: NASA (JSC)

Echo: Imagine waiting on the Moon for more than two years… and then visitors show up!

In pictures

Surveyor 3 and its visitors

Timeline

From the first landing to the first visitors

  1. 2 June 1966

    Surveyor 1 lands

    The first American soft landing on the Moon.

  2. 20 April 1967

    Surveyor 3 lands

    It bounces twice, then settles in the Ocean of Storms (Oceanus Procellarum).

  3. 11 September 1967

    Surveyor 5 lands

    Its instrument tests what the Moon's soil is made of.

  4. 10 November 1967

    Surveyor 6 lands

    It comes down in Sinus Medii, the "Central Bay", close to the middle of the Moon's face as we see it from Earth.

  5. 17 November 1967

    Surveyor 6 hops

    The first powered takeoff from the Moon.

  6. 10 January 1968

    Surveyor 7 lands

    The only Surveyor to land in the highlands, north of Tycho crater.

  7. 21 February 1968

    The last Surveyor goes quiet

    Surveyor 7's mission ends. All five landers stay on the Moon.

  8. 20 November 1969

    Visitors from Earth

    On their second moonwalk, Apollo 12 astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean visit Surveyor 3 and take some of its parts home.

Still there

They never really left

The rest of Surveyor 3 was left behind. And so were the other Surveyors.

Their cameras stopped sending pictures. One by one, their radios went silent. Their missions ended.

But the machines stayed, quietly sitting on the Moon beside the marks, trenches and disturbed soil they left behind.

The Surveyors may have stopped exploring the Moon, but they never really left it.

Close-up of a Surveyor 3 footpad and its surface sampler resting in the lunar soil.(opens larger view)

A Surveyor 3 footpad and its soil scoop, photographed by the Apollo 12 crew.

Image: NASA (JSC)

Echo: Five robots, still parked right where they finished their work. Gone quiet, but not forgotten!

Still there today

Five Surveyors, five landing sites

  • Status: Not working any more

    Surveyor 1

    The first US soft landing on the Moon, on 2 June 1966.

  • Status: Not working any more

    Surveyor 3

    Bounced twice before settling, after highly reflective rocks confused its landing radar.

  • Status: Not working any more

    Surveyor 5

    Made the first analysis of soil on another world, right where it landed.

  • Status: Not working any more

    Surveyor 6

    Fired its engines and hopped about 2.5 m: the first powered takeoff from the Moon.

  • Status: Not working any more

    Surveyor 7

    The only Surveyor to land in the lunar highlands.

Sources and fact-check