Surveyor

The image shown is a full-size engineering model of the Surveyor robotic lunar spacecraft on the beach in Los Angeles. Surveyors were launched toward the moon between 1966 and 1968 to make soft landings as precursors to the Apollo astronaut missions. The successful missions were Surveyor 1 on June 2, 1966, Surveyor 3 on Apr 19, 1967, and Surveyor 7 on Jan 9, 1968. Surveyor's view of the moon Apollo 12 astronauts at Surveyor 3

Surveyor Moon View

This view near the crater Tycho is part of a circular mosaic of hundreds of TV photos taken by Surveyor 7 in January 1968. The large rock in the foreground is 60 cm (2 ft) across. In the right background is a 6.1 m (20 ft) boulder about 366 m (400 yds) away. Hills on the center horizon are a little under 13 km (8 mi) away.

Surveyor 7 was launched on Jan 6, 1968 and soft-landed on the moon on Jan 9. The spacecraft returned 21,038 TV pictures and data from other experiments. Surveyor 7 operated during a second lunar day; the last signal was received on Feb 20, some 18 hours before lunar sunset.

Apollo 12 Astronauts at Surveyor 3

The Surveyor program made detailed images of the Moon in preparation for the later exploration missions.

The Apollo 12 mission landed in view of the Surveyor 3 Moon probe.