In the aerospace context, Surveyor refers to a series of robotic spacecraft missions conducted by NASA in the 1960s to study the surface of the Moon and prepare for the Apollo manned landings.
The Surveyor program was the first American lunar program to achieve the goal of soft-landing a spacecraft on the lunar surface.
Examples of Surveyor missions include:
- Surveyor 1, the first spacecraft of the Surveyor program, launched in May 1966. It successfully soft-landed on the lunar surface and sent back more than 11,000 images of the landing site.
- Surveyor 3, launched in April 1967, it was the first mission to conduct a soil mechanics experiment by scooping up soil samples and analyzed their properties.
- Surveyor 5, launched in September 1967, it was the first spacecraft to use a robotic arm to collect soil samples and study the lunar surface.
- Surveyor 6, launched in November 1967, it was the first spacecraft to perform a soft landing on the lunar surface using a rocket engine.
The Surveyor program was successful in demonstrating the feasibility of soft landing on the lunar surface and provided valuable information on the geology and environment of the Moon. The data collected by the Surveyor spacecraft helped to select safe landing sites for the Apollo manned missions and to understand the properties of the lunar soil.