List of missions to the Moon

The Luna programme was the first successful lunar programme, its Luna 1 (1959) being the first partially successful lunar mission
The first image taken of the far side of the Moon, returned by Luna 3 (1959)

Missions to the Moon have been numerous and include some of the earliest space missions, conducting exploration of the Moon since 1959.

The first partially successful lunar mission was Luna 1 (January 1959), the first probe to leave Earth and fly past another astronomical body. Soon after that the first Moon landing and the first landing on any extraterrestrial body was performed by Luna 2,[1] which intentionally impacted the Moon on 14 September 1959. The far side of the Moon, which is always facing away from Earth due to tidal locking, was seen for the first time by Luna 3 in (7 October 1959). In 1966, Luna 9 became the first spacecraft to achieve a controlled soft landing,[2] while Luna 10 became the first mission to enter orbit, and in 1968 Zond 5 became the first mission to carry terrestrial lifeforms (tortoises) to close proximity of the Moon through a circumlunar approach.[3]

India's Chandrayaan-3 (2023) became the first lunar mission to achieve a soft landing near the lunar south pole

The first crewed missions to the Moon were pursued by the Soviet Union and the United States, becoming the climax of the Space Race. While the Soviet Union shifted to robotic sample return missions, the American Apollo program proceeded 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 Armstrong became the first person to walk on the Moon. At the same time another mission, the robotic sample return mission Luna 15 by the Soviet Union, was in orbit around the Moon, becoming together with Apollo 11 the first ever case of two extraterrestrial missions being conducted at the same time. Until 1972 crewed Apollo missions and until 1976 Soviet uncrewed sample return missions, with the first ever successful extraterrestrial rovers (Lunokhod programme), continued. After that no dedicated lunar missions were conducted until 1990. Since then the following nations and organisations (in chronological order) have visited the Moon, after the Soviet Union and the United States: Japan, the European Space Agency, China, India, Luxembourg, Israel, Italy, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, Russia, Mexico, and Pakistan.

In 2018 the far side of the Moon was for the first time landed on by the Chang'e 4 mission at the Aitken basin on 3 January 2019 and deployed the Yutu-2 rover. Five years later, China followed with Chang'e 6 sample return mission to the far side whose lander successfully landed in Apollo crater on 1 June 2024 and collected lunar samples.

On August 23, 2023 12:34 UTC, India's Chandrayaan-3 became the first lunar mission to achieve a soft landing near the lunar south pole. The mission consisted of a lander and a rover for carrying out scientific experiments.

The Moon has also been visited by five spacecraft not dedicated to studying it; four of these spacecraft have flown past for the purpose of gravity assistance, and a radio telescope, Explorer 49, was placed into selenocentric orbit in order to use the Moon to block interference from terrestrial radio sources.

20th century

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Legend

Cubesat or similar

21st century

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Legend

⚀ Cubesat or similar

Statistics

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

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

Dates are landing dates in Coordinated Universal Time. Except for the Apollo program, all soft landings were uncrewed.
Interactive Map of soft landings till SLIM lander of Japan

Launches by decade

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Launches to Moon
Decade
1950s
13
1960s
63
1970s
23
1980s
0
1990s
7
2000s
8
2010s
10
2020s
14

This is a list of 138 missions (including failed ones) to the Moon. It includes Flybys, Impact probes, orbiters, landers, rovers and crewed missions.

Mission milestones by country

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This is a list of major milestones achieved by country. Recorded is the first spacecraft from each respective country to accomplish each milestone, regardless of mission type or intended outcome. For example, Beresheet was not intended to be an impactor, but achieved that milestone incidentally.

Legend

  Attempted Milestone achieved
  Attempted Milestone not achieved
First to achieve

Country/

Agency

Flyby[b] Orbit Impact Soft landing Rover Sample return Crewed orbiting Crewed landing
United States United States Pioneer 4, 1959 Lunar Orbiter 1, 1966 Ranger 4, 1962 Surveyor 1, 1966 LRV (Apollo 15), 1971 Apollo 11, 1969 Apollo 8, 1968 Apollo 11, 1969 †
Soviet Union Soviet Union Luna 1, 1959 Luna 10, 1966 Luna 2, 1959 Luna 9, 1966 Lunokhod 1, 1970 Luna 16, 1970
China China Chang'e 5-T1, 2014 Chang'e 1, 2007 Chang'e 1, 2009 Chang'e 3, 2013 Yutu, 2013 Chang'e 5, 2020
India India Chandrayaan 3, 2023 Chandrayaan 1, 2008 MIP, 2008 Chandrayaan 3, 2023 Pragyan, 2023
Japan Japan Hiten, 1990 Hiten, 1993 Hiten, 1993 SLIM, 2024 LEV-1, 2024
Israel Israel Beresheet, 2019 Beresheet, 2019 Beresheet, 2019
Russia Russia Luna 25, 2023 Luna 25, 2023 Luna 25, 2023
ESA SMART-1, 2003 SMART-1, 2006
Luxembourg Luxembourg 4M, 2014 4M, 2022
South Korea South Korea Danuri, 2022
Italy Italy ArgoMoon, 2022
United Arab Emirates UAE Rashid, 2023 Rashid, 2023
Pakistan Pakistan ICUBE-Q, 2024 ICUBE-Q, 2024
Mexico Mexico Colmena, 2024

Missions by organization/company

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Future missions

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There are several future lunar missions planned or proposed by various nations and organisations.

Funded and are under development

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Robotic

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Crewed

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Proposed but full funding still unclear

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Robotic

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The following robotic space probe missions have been proposed but their full funding is unclear:

Lunar Rovers

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Unrealized concepts

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1960s

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1970s

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  • Canceled Apollo missions – The Apollo program had three more missions lined up until Apollo 20, but the missions beyond Apollo 17, the sixth and final landing mission, were canceled due to budget constraints, change in technical direction and hardware delays. The ambitions shifted towards developing next generation rockets like Space Shuttle, the space station Skylab and in exploration programs such as Grand Tour program.[177]

2000s

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2010s

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  • Resource Prospector – Concept by NASA of a rover that would have performed a survey expedition on a polar region of the Moon. It was canceled in April 2018.[179]
  • Indo-Russian joint mission – A joint mission between India and Russia for a robotic lander and rover was under development since 2007. Russia was supposed to develop the lander while India would develop an orbiter, a rover and launch the composite. However, with failure of Fobos-Grunt mission, Russia was unable to provide the lander in time and requested India to accept the delay and risk. The collaboration ended with India repurposing its orbiter towards Mars with its Mars Orbiter Mission in 2013.[180]

2020s

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  • DearMoon was an unrealized tourist mission financed by Japanese entrepreneur Yusaku Maezawa. Maezawa and six to eight other civilians would have performed a lunar flyby in a SpaceX Starship. It was cancelled on June 1, 2024[181]
  • VIPER – NASA rover that would have performed a survey expedition on a polar region of the Moon. It was canceled in July 2024.[182]

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ "Even though the source says "IST will conduct various tests"; IST being a research university does not directly control the orbiter, rather any tests or operations on the orbiter are done through the national space agency i.e SUPARCO."[113]
  2. ^ While Orbiting specific missions achieve a flyby milestone by virtue of entering the orbit, this table lists only flyby specific missions.

References

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  1. ^ "Why failure is the fuel for a trip to Moon". The Times of India. 11 September 2019. Archived from the original on 19 February 2021. Retrieved 11 September 2019.
  2. ^ "Chandrayaan-2 landing: 40% lunar missions in last 60 years failed, finds Nasa report". 7 September 2019. Archived from the original on 8 September 2019. Retrieved 28 June 2022.
  3. ^ a b "月周回衛星「かぐや(SELENE)」 – SELENE通信 – お知らせ" (in Japanese). JAXA. 30 June 2009. Archived from the original on 3 October 2011. Retrieved 17 July 2009.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Siddiqi, Asif A. (2002). "1958" (PDF). Deep Space Chronicle: A Chronology of Deep Space and Planetary Probes 1958–2000. Monographs in Aerospace History, No. 24. NASA History Office. pp. 17–19. Archived (PDF) from the original on 12 February 2013. Retrieved 12 July 2017.
  5. ^ "Pioneer 0". US National Space Science Data Center. Archived from the original on 19 December 2021. Retrieved 3 December 2013.
  6. ^ a b c Wade, Mark. "Luna E-1". Encyclopedia Astronautica. Archived from the original on 22 December 2010. Retrieved 3 December 2013.
  7. ^ "Pioneer 1". US National Space Science Data Center. Archived from the original on 5 April 2022. Retrieved 3 December 2013.
  8. ^ "Pioneer 2". US National Space Science Data Center. Archived from the original on 9 February 2022. Retrieved 3 December 2013.
  9. ^ "Pioneer 3". US National Space Science Data Center. Archived from the original on 19 April 2019. Retrieved 3 December 2013.
  10. ^ a b c d Siddiqi, Asif A. (2002). "1959" (PDF). Deep Space Chronicle: A Chronology of Deep Space and Planetary Probes 1958–2000. Monographs in Aerospace History, No. 24. NASA History Office. pp. 21–24. Archived (PDF) from the original on 22 September 2020. Retrieved 12 July 2017.
  11. ^ "Luna 1". US National Space Science Data Center. Archived from the original on 2 June 2019. Retrieved 3 December 2013.
  12. ^ "Pioneer 4". US National Space Science Data Center. Archived from the original on 23 February 2017. Retrieved 3 December 2013.
  13. ^ "Luna 2". US National Space Science Data Center. Archived from the original on 25 August 2019. Retrieved 3 December 2013.
  14. ^ "Luna 3". US National Space Science Data Center. Archived from the original on 4 June 2021. Retrieved 3 December 2013.
  15. ^ "Pioneer P-3". US National Space Science Data Center. Archived from the original on 19 June 2019. Retrieved 3 December 2013.
  16. ^ a b c d Siddiqi, Asif A. (2002). "1960" (PDF). Deep Space Chronicle: A Chronology of Deep Space and Planetary Probes 1958–2000. Monographs in Aerospace History, No. 24. NASA History Office. pp. 25–27. Archived (PDF) from the original on 27 October 2020. Retrieved 12 July 2017.
  17. ^ "Pioneer P-30". US National Space Science Data Center. Archived from the original on 26 June 2019. Retrieved 3 December 2013.
  18. ^ "Pioneer P-31". US National Space Science Data Center. Archived from the original on 29 June 2019. Retrieved 3 December 2013.