Milestones of lunar exploration

From the first impact probe to commercial landers: the missions that changed what we know about the Moon.

1. 14 September 1959Luna 2 — The Soviet probe becomes the first human-made object to reach another world when it impacts the Moon east of Mare Imbrium.
2. 7 October 1959Luna 3 — First photographs of the far side, a face of the Moon that can never be seen from Earth.
3. 3 February 1966Luna 9 — First soft landing and first pictures from the lunar surface, proving the ground could support a lander.
4. 2 June 1966Surveyor 1 — First American soft landing; the Surveyor series scouted sites for crewed missions.
5. 24 December 1968Apollo 8 — Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders become the first people to orbit the Moon and photograph Earthrise.
6. 20 July 1969Apollo 11 — Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin land in the Sea of Tranquility while Michael Collins orbits above.
7. September 1970Luna 16 — First robotic sample return, bringing back about 100 grams of soil from Mare Fecunditatis.
8. 17 November 1970Lunokhod 1 — The first remote-controlled rover on another world drives more than 10 km over ten months.
9. December 1972Apollo 17 — The last crewed landing. In total twelve astronauts walked on the Moon and returned 382 kg of samples.
10. 1994Clementine — A global multispectral map and the first hints of ice in polar craters.
11. 9 October 2009LCROSS — A spent rocket stage strikes Cabeus crater; the debris plume confirms water ice. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, launched the same year, is still mapping the surface.
12. 14 December 2013Chang’e 3 — China’s first landing, carrying the Yutu rover to Mare Imbrium.
13. 3 January 2019Chang’e 4 — First soft landing on the far side, in Von Kármán crater, using a relay satellite to talk to Earth.
14. December 2020Chang’e 5 — Returns 1.7 kg of young volcanic samples, the first new lunar samples in 44 years.
15. 23 August 2023Chandrayaan-3 — India lands its Vikram lander and Pragyan rover near the south pole.
16. 19 January 2024SLIM — Japan’s lander touches down within about 100 m of its target, demonstrating pinpoint landing.
17. 22 February 2024IM-1 Odysseus — The first commercially built lander to reach the surface.
18. June 2024Chang’e 6 — First samples ever collected from the far side, returned from the South Pole–Aitken basin.
19. 2 March 2025Blue Ghost 1 — A commercial lander touches down upright in Mare Crisium and operates through a full lunar day.