Landings on other planets

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This is a list of all spacecraft landings on other planets and bodies in the solar system, including both intended and unintended crash-landings. The list includes orbiters that were intentionally impacted, but not orbiters that later crashed in an unplanned manner due to orbit decay.

For a list of all planetary missions, including orbiters and flybys, see List of Solar System probes.

1 Moon
2 Venus
3 Mars
4 Other bodies
5 References
6 See also

[edit] Moon

Mission	Country/Agency	Date of landing/impact	Notes
Luna 2	USSR	September 13, 1959	First lunar impact.
Ranger 4	USA	April 26, 1962	Intentional hard impact; hit lunar farside due to failure of navigation system.
Ranger 6	USA	February 2, 1964	Intentional hard impact.
Ranger 7	USA	July 31, 1964	Intentional hard impact.
Ranger 8	USA	February 20, 1965	Intentional hard impact.
Ranger 9	USA	March 24, 1965	Intentional hard impact.
Luna 5	USSR	May 12, 1965	Unsuccessful attempt at soft landing; crashed into Moon.
Luna 7	USSR	October 7, 1965	Unsuccessful attempt at soft landing; crashed into Moon.
Luna 8	USSR	December 6, 1965	Unsuccessful attempt at soft landing; crashed into Moon.
Luna 9	USSR	February 3, 1966	First successful soft landing; first pictures from the surface.
Surveyor 1	USA	June 2, 1966	Soft landing.
Surveyor 2	USA	September 23, 1966	Unsuccessful attempt at soft landing; crashed into Moon.
Lunar Orbiter 1	USA	October 29, 1966	Lunar orbiter, intentionally impacted at end of mission.
Luna 13	USSR	December 24, 1966	Soft landing.
Surveyor 3	USA	April 20, 1967	Soft landing.
Surveyor 4	USA	July 17, 1967	Contact lost on descent.
Surveyor 5	USA	September 11, 1967	Soft landing.
Surveyor 6	USA	November 10, 1967	Soft landing.
Surveyor 7	USA	January 10, 1968	Soft landing.
Apollo 11	USA	July 20, 1969	First manned landing.
Luna 15	USSR	July 21, 1969	Possible attempted sample return; crashed into Moon.
Apollo 12	USA	November 18, 1969	Manned mission.
Apollo 13	USA	April 14, 1970	S-IVB stage crashed for seismic research (rocket stages from a number of other Apollo missions that successfully landed were also crashed in this manner^[1])
Luna 16	USSR	September 20, 1970	First successful robotic sample return.
Luna 17/Lunokhod 1	USSR	November 17, 1970	Robotic lunar rover.
Apollo 14	USA	February 5, 1971	Manned mission.
Apollo 15	USA	July 30, 1971	Manned mission; lunar rover.
Luna 18	USSR	September 11, 1971	Failed attempt at sample return; probable crash-landing.
Luna 20	USSR	February 21, 1972	Robotic sample return.
Apollo 16	USA	April 21, 1972	Manned mission; lunar rover.
Apollo 17	USA	December 7, 1972	Manned mission; lunar rover.
Luna 21/Lunokhod 2	USSR	January 8, 1973	Robotic lunar rover.
Luna 23	USSR	November 6, 1974	Failed attempt at sample return; damaged on landing.
Luna 24	USSR	August 18, 1976	Robotic sample return.
Hiten	Japan	April 10, 1993	Lunar orbiter, intentionally impacted at end of mission.
Lunar Prospector	USA	July 31, 1999	Lunar orbiter, intentionally impacted into polar crater at end of mission to test for liberation of water vapour (not detected).
SMART-1	ESA / Sweden	September 3, 2006	Lunar orbiter, intentionally impacted at end of mission.

[edit] Venus

Mission	Country/Agency	Date of landing/impact	Notes
Venera 3	USSR	March 1, 1966	First impact on the surface of another planet. Contact lost before atmospheric entry.
Venera 4	USSR	October 18, 1967	Crushed by atmospheric pressure before impact.
Venera 5	USSR	May 16, 1969	Atmospheric probe; crushed by atmospheric pressure before impact.
Venera 6	USSR	May 17, 1969	Atmospheric probe; crushed by atmospheric pressure before impact.
Venera 7	USSR	December 15, 1970	First successful soft landing on another planet; transmitted from surface for 23 minutes.
Venera 8	USSR	July 22, 1972	Soft landing; transmitted from surface for 50 minutes.
Venera 9 lander	USSR	October 22, 1975	Soft landing; transmitted from surface for 53 minutes. First pictures from surface.
Venera 10 lander	USSR	October 25, 1975	Soft landing; transmitted from surface for 65 minutes.
Pioneer Venus Multiprobe	USA	December 9, 1978	One of four atmospheric probes survived impact and continued to transmit for 67 minutes.
Venera 12 lander	USSR	December 21, 1978	Soft landing.
Venera 11 lander	USSR	December 25, 1978	Soft landing.
Venera 13 lander	USSR	March 1, 1982	Soft landing.
Venera 14 lander	USSR	March 5, 1982	Soft landing.
Vega 1 lander	USSR	June 11, 1985	Soft landing; instruments failed to return data.
Vega 2 lander	USSR	June 15, 1985	Soft landing.

[edit] Mars

Mission	Country/Agency	Date of landing/impact	Notes
Mars 2 lander	USSR	November 27, 1971	No contact after crash landing.
Mars 3 lander	USSR	December 2, 1971	Sent signal for only 20 seconds after landing.
Mars 6 lander	USSR	March 12, 1974	Contact lost at landing.
Viking 1 lander	USA	July 20, 1976	Successful soft landing; first pictures from surface.
Viking 2 lander	USA	September 3, 1976	Successful soft landing.
Mars Pathfinder and Sojourner rover	USA	July 4, 1997	Mars rover.
Mars Polar Lander	USA	December 3, 1999	Contact lost prior to landing.
Beagle 2	UK/ ESA	December 25, 2003	No contact after landing attempt.
MER-A 'Spirit'	USA	January 3, 2004	Mars rover.
MER-B 'Opportunity'	USA	January 25, 2004	Mars rover.
Phoenix	USA	May 25, 2008	Landed in the north polar region, and will investigate whether conditions there are suitable for life to have evolved.

[edit] Other bodies

Body	Mission	Country/Agency	Date of landing/impact	Notes
Eros (asteroid)	NEAR Shoemaker	USA	February 12, 2001	Designed as an orbiter, but an improvised landing was carried out on completion of the main mission. Transmission from the surface continued for about 16 days.
Jupiter	Galileo	USA	December 7, 1995 (atmospheric probe) September 21, 2003 (main craft)	Atmospheric probe, and, later, main craft were intentionally directed at Jupiter and disintegrated in Jovian atmosphere. [This scarcely constitutes a "landing" but is included here for completeness as an intentional impact on a planetary body.]
Titan (moon of Saturn)	Huygens probe	ESA/ USA/ Italy(ASI)	January 14, 2005	Successful soft landing.
Comet 9P/Tempel 1	Deep Impact	USA	July 4, 2005	Impactor.
Itokawa (asteroid)	Hayabusa	Japan	November 20, 2005	Planned sample return.
Enceladus	Cassini-Huygens (Cassini Orbiter)	ESA/ USA/ Italy(ASI)	March 12, 2008	Orbiter. Passed through Enceladus' vapor plume. Not a landing, however, it did enter Enceladus' atmosphere.

Note: Phobos landing was unsuccessfully attempted by Phobos 2 in 1989.

[edit] References

^ "The Sky is Falling", NASA, April 28, 2006

[edit] See also

List of artificial objects on extra-terrestrial surfaces

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