Surveyor 2 — launch
Date in UTC
Surveyor 2 was to be the second lunar lander in the uncrewed American Surveyor program to explore the Moon. After launch on September 20, 1966, a mid-course correction failure resulted in the spacecraft losing control. Contact was lost with the spacecraft at 9:35 UTC, September 22. On February 3, 1966, the Luna 9 spacecraft was the first spacecraft to achieve a lunar soft landing and to transmit photographic data to Earth. On May 30, Surveyor 1 launched, landing on Oceanus Procellarum on June 2. This craft also transmitted photographic data back to Earth. This spacecraft was the second of a series designed to achieve a soft landing on the Moon and to return lunar surface photography for determining characteristics of the lunar terrain for Apollo program lunar landing missions.
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveyor_2. Related NASA reference: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/surveyor-2/. Description adapted from Wikipedia contributors (CC BY-SA 4.0; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).
- Category
- Launches and Flight Tests
- Type
- Orbital launch
- Subjects
- Space transportation
- Mission
- Surveyor 2
- Organization
- NASA Lewis Research Center
- Vehicle
- Atlas Centaur D
- Location
- Cape Canaveral Air Station, Florida
- Country
- US
- Outcome
- Successful
Context and qualifications
Launch code: DS. Source references: JPL-TR32-1086; TR-1022.
Sources and attribution
- Jonathan McDowell — General Catalog of Artificial Space Objects (opens in a new tab) — Data from GCAT (J. McDowell, planet4589.org/space/gcat), CC BY 4.0. Adapted into anniversary records. (CC BY 4.0)
- Wikipedia — Surveyor 2 (opens in a new tab) — Adapted from Wikipedia contributors; selected sentences retained and edited for length, reference markers and pronunciation glosses. CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ Article and edit history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveyor_2 (CC BY-SA 4.0)
- Timeline of Space Exploration Missions 1957 to 2031 (opens in a new tab)
- NASA — Surveyor 2 (opens in a new tab)
- NASA NSSDCA — Surveyor 2 (opens in a new tab)
