Surveyor 7: Lunar Landing – For All Moonkind Moon Registry

Mission Details

Mission Name: Surveyor 7

Mission Type: Lunar Lander

Operator: NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration)

Launching State: United States

Location: Tycho Crater Rim

Latitude: -40.98

Longitude: -11.509

Launch Date: 7 January 1968, 06:30:00 UT

Landing Date: 10 January 1968, 01:05:36 UT

Objects on or Related to Site:
Surveyor 7

Image Source: NASA

Description

The Surveyor program consisted of seven uncrewed lunar missions that were launched between May 1966 and January 1968. Five of these spacecraft, Surveyor 1, 3, 5, 6, and 7 successfully soft-landed on the lunar surface. In addition to demonstrating the feasibility of lunar surface landings, the Surveyor missions obtained lunar and cislunar photographs and both scientific and technological information needed for the Apollo manned landing program. Four spacecraft, Surveyor 1, 3, 5, and 6, returned data from selected mare sites from Apollo program support, and Surveyor 7 provided data from a contrasting rugged highland region.

The mission of Surveyor 7 was to explore a region of the Moon other than lunar maria and into the lunar highlands.

Heritage Consideration

Surveyor 7 was the first probe to detecet the faint glow on the lunar horizon after dark that is now thought to be light reflected from electrostatically levitated Moon dust.

Object on or Related to Site

Object Name: Surveyor 7
Cospar: 1968-001A
Norad: N/A
Location: Precise location unknown or undisclosed.
Launch Date: 7 January 1968, 06:30:00 UTC
Landing Date: 10 January 1968, 01:05:36 UTC
Deployment: N/A
End Date: 21 February 1968
Function: Lunar landing feasibility and data collection.
Image Source: NASA

Description

Surveyor 7 was the fifth and final spacecraft of the Surveyor series to achieve a lunar soft landing. The specific objectives for this mission were to:

Perform a lunar soft landing (in a highland area well removed from the maria to provide a type of terrain photography and lunar sample significantly different from those of other Surveyor missions).
Obtain postlanding TV pictures.
Determine the relative abundances of chemical elements.
Manipulate the lunar material.
Obtain touchdown dynamics data.
Obtain thermal and radar reflectivity data. Surveyor 7 was the only Surveyor craft to land in the lunar highland region.

On 19 November 1969 the Apollo 12 Lunar Module (LM) landed within about 180 m of the Surveyor 3 spacecraft. Astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean visited the spacecraft on their second moonwalk on 20 November, examining Surveyor 3 and its surroundings, taking photographs, and removing about 10 kg of parts from the spacecraft, including the TV camera, for later examination back on Earth.