spaceflight, a lunar orbit (also known as a selenocentric orbit) is an orbit by an object around Earth's Moon. In general these orbits are not circular...

operations in lunar orbit. Ranger, Surveyor and initial Luna Moon landing attempts all flew directly to the surface without a lunar orbit. Such direct...

Lunar orbit rendezvous (LOR) is a process for landing humans on the Moon and returning them to Earth. It was utilized for the Apollo program missions...

The Lunar Gateway, or simply Gateway, is a space station which is planned to be assembled in orbit around the Moon. The Gateway is intended to serve as...

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is a NASA robotic spacecraft currently orbiting the Moon in an eccentric polar mapping orbit. Data collected by...

Lunar Module (LM /ˈlɛm/), originally designated the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM), was the lunar lander spacecraft that was flown between lunar orbit and...

landed their Apollo Lunar Module (LM) on July 20, 1969, and walked on the lunar surface, while Michael Collins remained in lunar orbit in the command and...

velocity, changing its orbit from a circular low Earth orbit to a highly eccentric orbit. As the spacecraft begins coasting on the lunar transfer arc, its...

The 1966 Lunar Orbiter 1 robotic spacecraft mission, part of NASA's Lunar Orbiter program, was the first American spacecraft to orbit the Moon. It was...

procedures short of actual descent and landing. After the spacecraft reached lunar orbit, astronaut John Young remained in the Command and Service Module (CSM)...

Project LOLA, or Lunar Orbit and Landing Approach, was a simulator built at the NASA's Langley Research Center to study landing on the lunar surface. Built...

within the orbital plane, i.e. the axes of the ellipse change direction. The lunar orbit's major axis – the longest diameter of the orbit, joining its...

waning crescent. A lunar month is the time between successive recurrences of the same phase: due to the eccentricity of the Moon's orbit, this duration is...

pounds (21.5 kg) of lunar material to bring back to Earth as pilot Michael Collins flew the Command Module Columbia in lunar orbit, and were on the Moon's...

encompasses lunar orbiters, landers, rovers and sample return spacecraft, launched using the Long March series of rockets. A human lunar landing component...

Moon have over time synchronized the Moon's orbital period (lunar month) with its rotation period (lunar day) at 29.5 Earth days, causing the same side...

The Lunar Orbiter program was a series of five uncrewed lunar orbiter missions launched by the United States in 1966 and 1967. Intended to help select...

lander and a Pragyan lunar rover was launched from Satish Dhawan Space Centre on 14 July 2023. The spacecraft entered lunar orbit on 5 August, and India...

such orbit in cislunar space, and this Moon-centric orbit is planned as a staging area for future lunar missions. In contrast with low lunar orbit which...

Command Module Pilot Richard F. Gordon remained in lunar orbit. Apollo 12 would have attempted the first lunar landing had Apollo 11 failed, but after the success...

Earth orbit. Commander Gene Cernan and Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt walked on the Moon, while Command Module Pilot Ronald Evans orbited above....

Lunar Orbiter 4 was a robotic U.S. spacecraft, part of the Lunar Orbiter Program, designed to orbit the Moon, after the three previous orbiters had completed...

successfully, with Apollo 8 becoming the first crewed mission to enter lunar orbit in December 1968. On 20 July 1969 Apollo 11 landed on the Moon, and Neil...

More technically, it is the semi-major axis of the geocentric lunar orbit. The lunar distance is on average approximately 385,000 km (239,000 mi), or...

low Earth orbit, but the LK lunar module never flew to the Moon, as the development of the N1 Rocket Launch Vehicle required for the lunar flight suffered...

any attempt to perform a lunar landing. In the end, the Peregrine spacecraft never left the (highly elliptical) Earth orbit it was injected into by the...

incorporates a lunar orbiter, an impactor, a soft lander and a rover spacecraft. There have been three missions so far with a total of two orbiters, landers...

of a lunar day (sunrise to sunrise on the Moon) equals the time that the Moon takes to complete one orbit around Earth, returning to the same lunar phase...

featured prominently on the mission insignia. It flew from Earth to lunar orbit on the command module Columbia, and then was flown to the Moon on July...

The Lunar Orbiter 3 was a spacecraft launched by NASA in 1967 as part of the Lunar Orbiter Program. It was designed primarily to photograph areas of the...