COLD WAR
🗓️1950s
👾 the Cold War sparked a race to visit Earth's moon with flybys, robots, and crewed missions. Here's what we discovered—and what's next.
🗓️ January 1959
🇷🇺 The Soviets scored an early victory when Luna 1, a small Soviet sphere bristling with antennas, became the first spacecraft to escape Earth’s gravity and ultimately fly within about 4,000 miles of the moon’s surface.
🗓️ Later in 1959
🇷🇺 Luna 2 became the first spacecraft to make contact with the moon's surface when it crashed in the Mare Imbrium basin near the Aristides, Archimedes, and Autolycus craters.
🗓️ Still 1959
🇷🇺 Third Luna mission captured the first, blurry images of the far side of the moon—where the rugged highland terrain is markedly different from the smoother basins on the side closest to Earth.
🗓️ Between 1961 and 1965,
🇺🇲 The U.S. got in the game with nine NASA Ranger spacecraft that launched and gave scientists the first close-up views of the moon’s surface.
🗓️ 1965
🇺🇲 images from all the Ranger missions, particularly Ranger 9, had revealed greater detail about the moon’s rough terrain and the potential challenges of finding a smooth landing site for humans.
🗓️ 1966
🇷🇺 the Soviet spacecraft Luna 9 became the first vehicle to land safely on the lunar surface. Later that year, Luna 10 launched, becoming the first spacecraft to successfully orbit the moon.
1966
🇺🇲 NASA also landed a spacecraft on the moon’s surface in 1966 with the first of its Surveyor space probes, which carried cameras to explore the moon's surface and soil samplers to analyze lunar rock and dirt.
🇺🇲 Over the two years that followed, NASA launched five Lunar Orbiter missions that were designed to circle the moon and chart its surface in preparation for the ultimate goal: landing astronauts on the surface.
HUMAN ON THE MOON
At the time, NASA was racing to fulfill a presidential promise:
🗓️ 1961
🇺🇲 President John F. Kennedy committed the United States to landing a person on the moon before the decade was complete.
The Apollo program
🚀 The most expensive spaceflight endeavor in history, kicked off that year
🚀 Ended in 1972
🚀 Nine missions and 24 astronauts had orbited or landed on the moon under the Apollo program.
July 20, 1969
👨🚀 Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin touched down in the Sea of Tranquility in the lunar lander Eagle, while astronaut Michael Collins orbited the moon in the command module Columbia.
👨🚀 Armstrong, who pressed the first bootprints into the moon’s surface, famously said, “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” The pair stayed on the moon’s surface for 21 hours and 36 minutes before rendezvousing with Collins and heading back to Earth.
January 1971
🚀 Apollo 14, commander Alan Shepard set a new record for the farthest distance traveled on the moon: 9,000 feet.
The recent—and future—status of moon exploration
2007
🇯🇵 Japan launched its first lunar orbiter, SELENE.
🇨🇳 China launched its first lunar spacecraft the same year, and India followed suit in 2008.
2013
🇨🇳 China became the third country to successfully land on the lunar surface, when its Chang’e-3 spacecraft deployed the Yutu rover.
January 2019
🇨🇳 Another Chinese lander, Yutu-2, made history by becoming the first rover to touch down on the lunar farside.
🇮🇳 Meanwhile, India’s second lunar orbiter, Chandrayaan-2, unsuccessfully deployed a small lander, Vikram, on the lunar surface that year. (India’s space agency hopes to try again in 2021.)
April 2019
🇮🇱 Israel aimed for the moon with the launch of its Beresheet spacecraft. Unfortunately, even though the spacecraft achieved lunar orbit, it crashed during its attempt to land.
NASA'S ARTEMIS PROGRAM
🚀 A sister to the venerable Apollo project
🚀 Aims to put the first woman—and the next man—on the moon by 2024.
🚀 The backbone of Artemis is NASA’s Orion space capsule, currently in development, although the agency is also partnering with private companies to achieve its goal.
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