The moon, Earth’s closest celestial neighbor, has been an object of surprise and thriller since time immemorial.
Scientific missions over the centuries have peeled away layers of that thriller, however the moon continues to harbor many secrets and techniques. This timeline of humanity’s exploration of the moon, supplied by NASA, just isn’t by any means complete however does spotlight a few of the main milestones relationship again 4 centuries:
1609: Hans Lippershey invented the telescope.
1610: Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei made the primary telescopic statement of the moon.
1610: Thomas Harriot and Galileo Galilei drew the primary telescopic illustration of the moon.
1645: Michael Florent van Langren made the primary map of the moon.
1647: Johannes Hevelius revealed the primary treatise dedicated to the moon.
1651: Giovanni Battista Riccioli named craters after philosophers and astronomers.
1753: Roger Joseph Boscovich proved the moon has no atmosphere.
1824: Franz von Gruithuisen thought craters had been shaped by meteor strikes.
1920: Robert Goddard instructed sending rockets to the moon.
1959: Soviet spacecraft Luna 2 reached the moon, impacting close to the crater Autolycus.
1961: President John F. Kennedy proposed a manned lunar program.
1964: NASA’s Ranger 7 produced the primary close-up TV photos of the lunar floor.
1966: Soviet spacecraft Luna 9 made the primary comfortable touchdown on the moon.
1967: NASA’s Lunar Orbiter missions accomplished photographic mapping of the moon.
1968: NASA’s Apollo 8 made the primary manned flight to the moon, circling it 10 occasions earlier than returning to Earth. [Lunar Legacy: 45 Apollo Moon Mission Photos ]
1969: The Apollo 11 mission made the primary touchdown on the moon and returned samples.
1969: Apollo 12 made first precision touchdown on the the moon.
1972: Apollo 17 made the final manned touchdown of the Apollo Program.
1976: Soviet Luna 24 returned the final pattern to be returned from the moon for many years to return.
1990: NASA’s Galileo spacecraft, on its option to Jupiter, obtained multispectral photographs of the western limb and a part of the far facet of the moon.
1994: NASA’s Clementine mission performed multispectral mapping of the moon.
1998: NASA’s Lunar Prospector mission launched.
2007: Japanese SELENE (Kaguya) spacecraft launched.
2007: China’s Chang’e 1 lunar orbiter launched.
2008: India’s Chandrayaan 1 moon orbiter launched.
2009: NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter launched together with the LCROSS probe which crashed into the moon, revealing water ice.
2010: China’s Chang’e 2 lunar orbiter launched, taking images to organize for future landings.
2011: NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission mapped the moon’s gravitational subject intimately.
2013: NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) investigated the lunar ambiance and dirt.
2013: China’s Chang’e 3 efficiently landed a rover referred to as Yutu that photographed the moon’s floor.
2014: A check car for the longer term Chang’e 5 mission launched and flew by the moon to reveal a technique for lunar pattern return.
2018: The Queqiao satellite tv for pc took place to relay instructions and information between the Chang’e four lander, scheduled to land on the far facet of the moon, and Earth.
2018: The Chinese language Chang’e 4 mission landed on the far facet of the moon and started transmitting images.
2019: Israel’s first moon lander, Beresheet, crashed into the moon’s floor.
2019: Chandrayaan 2, India’s second mission to the moon, launched. The rover seems to have crashed, however the orbiter is in operation.
2020: China’s Chang’e 5 launched, landed on the moon, and returned with samples to Earth.
2021: NASA’s Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Know-how Operations and Navigation Experiment (or CAPSTONE) cubesat is scheduled to launch by way of a RocketLab Electron rocket.
2021: Peregrine Mission 1, the primary business lunar touchdown, is scheduled to launch. It can embody Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander and near a dozen different NASA payloads just like the Iris rover.
2021: Russia plans to launch Luna-25, a lander developed in collaboration with the ESA. (Luna-24 launched in 1976.)
2021: Intuitive Machines plans to land its Nova-C craft with non-public and NASA payloads.
2021: NASA plans to launch a number of cubesats by way of the Space Launch System rocket as a part of the Artemis program to return astronauts to the moon. OMOTENASHI, Japan’s first lunar lander, and a Japanese cubesat referred to as EQUULEUS are anticipated to launch as a part of this block as nicely.
This text was up to date on Mar. 15, 2021 by House.com Reference Editor Vicky Stein with new details about upcoming missions.
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