Moon landing

This article is about lunar landings in general. For the Cold War "Race to the Moon", see Space Race. For the first crewed Moon landing, see Apollo 11. For other uses, see Moon landing (disambiguation).

Map of landing sites on the MoonLuna 9Luna 13Luna 16Luna 17Luna 20Luna 21Luna 23Luna 24Surveyor 1Surveyor 3Surveyor 5Surveyor 6Surveyor 7Apollo 11Apollo 12Apollo 14Apollo 15Apollo 16Apollo 17Chang'e 3Chang'e 4Chang'e 5Chang'e 6Chandrayaan 3Smart Lander for Investigating MoonIM-1

Clickable map of the locations of all successful soft landings on the Moon to date (top)

Dates are landing dates in Coordinated Universal Time. Except for the Apollo program, all soft landings were uncrewed.
Still frame from a video transmission, taken moments before Neil Armstrong became the first human to step onto the surface of the Moon, at 02:56 UTC on 21 July 1969. An estimated 500 million people worldwide watched this event, the largest television audience for a live broadcast at that time.[1][2]

A Moon landing or lunar landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon, including both crewed and robotic missions. The first human-made object to touch the Moon was Luna 2 in 1959.[3]

In 1969 Apollo 11 was the first crewed mission to land on the Moon.[4] There were six crewed landings between 1969 and 1972, and numerous uncrewed landings. All crewed missions to the Moon were conducted by the Apollo program, with the last departing the lunar surface in December 1972. After Luna 24 in 1976 there were no soft landings on the Moon until Chang'e 3 in 2013. All soft landings took place on the near side of the Moon until January 2019, when Chang'e 4 made the first landing on the far side of the Moon.[5]

  1. ^ "Manned Space Chronology: Apollo_11". spaceline.org. Retrieved 6 February 2008.
  2. ^ "Apollo Anniversary: Moon Landing "Inspired World"". National Geographic. Archived from the original on 21 July 2004. Retrieved 6 February 2008.
  3. ^ "Luna 2". NASA–NSSDC.
  4. ^ NASA Apollo 11 40th anniversary.
  5. ^ "Chinese spacecraft makes first landing on moon's far side". AP NEWS. 3 January 2019. Retrieved 3 January 2019.