In the decade following Sputnik I, the United States and the USSR between them launched about 50 space probes to explore the moon. The first probes were intended either to pass very close to the moon (flyby) or to crash into it (hard landing). Later probes made soft landings with instruments intact and achieved stable orbits around the moon. Each of these four objectives required increasingly greater rocket power and more precise maneuvering; successive launches in the Soviet Luna series were the first to accomplish each objective. Luna 2 made a hard lunar landing in Sept., 1959, and Luna 3 took pictures of the moon's far side as the probe flew by in Nov., 1959. Luna 9 soft-landed in Feb., 1966, and Luna 10 orbited the moon in Apr., 1966; both sent back many television pictures to earth. Beginning with Luna 16, which was launched in Sept., 1970, the USSR sent several probes to the moon that either returned lunar soil samples to earth or deployed Lunokhod rovers. In addition to the 24 lunar probes in the Luna program, the Soviets also launched five circumlunar probes in its Zond program.
Early American successes generally lagged behind Soviet accomplishments by several months but provided more detailed scientific information. The U.S. program did not bear fruit until 1964, when Rangers 7, 8, and 9 transmitted thousands of pictures, many taken at altitudes of less than 1 mi (1.6 km) just before impact and showing craters only a few feet in diameter. Two years later, the Surveyor series began a program of soft landings on the moon. Surveyor 1 touched down in June, 1966; in addition to television cameras, it carried instruments to measure soil strength and composition. The Surveyor program established that the moon's surface was solid enough to support a spacecraft carrying astronauts.
In Aug., 1966, the United States successfully launched the first Lunar Orbiter, which took pictures of both sides of the moon as well as the first pictures of the earth from the moon's vicinity. The Orbiter's primary mission was to locate suitable landing sites for the Apollo Lunar Module, but in the process it also discovered the lunar mascons, regions of large concentration of mass on the moon's surface. Between May, 1966, and Nov., 1968, the United States launched seven Surveyors and five Lunar Orbiters. Clementine, launched in 1994, engaged in a systematic mapping of the lunar surface. In 1998, Lunar Prospector orbited the moon in a low polar orbit investigating possible polar ice deposits, but a controlled crash near the south pole detected no water. The U.S. Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, launched in 2009, was designed to collect data that can be used to prepare for future missions to the moon; information from it has been used to produce a relatively detailed, nearly complete topographic map of the moon.
China became the third nation to send a spacecraft to the moon when Chang'e 1, which was launched in 2007, orbited and mapped the moon until it was crash-landed on the lunar surface in 2009. Chang'e 2 also orbited and mapped the moon (2010–11) and later conducted a flyby of an asteroid (2012). In Dec., 2013, Chang'e 3 landed on the moon and deployed a rover, Yutu, or Jade Rabbit (2013–16); in Jan., 2018, Chang'e 4 put the first lander on the far side of the moon; and in Dec., 2020, Chang'e 5 returned lunar rock samples to earth.
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