Surveyor 3 landing

Surveyor 3 · 1967 CE – 1969 CE · The Moon

Surveyor 3 landing — Surveyor 3 · 1967 CE – 1969 CE · The Moon — Recorded expedition route · schematic map

Land in the Apollo zone east of Surveyor 1, photograph the surface, measure its bearing strength and work a surface sampler from Earth.

Historical context

NASA's Surveyor landers were to prove the technique of a soft landing and check the Apollo design against the lunar surface. Surveyor 3, the second to land, touched down three times because its engines would not stop, dug four trenches with a scoop worked from Earth and, thirty-one months later, was visited by the Apollo 12 crew, who brought its camera home.

The voyage, step by step

  1. A hydrogen rocket to the Moon

    17 April 1967

    At 07:05 UTC on 17 April 1967, 02:05 Eastern Standard Time, an Atlas-Centaur lifts the third Surveyor off Complex 36B at Cape Kennedy; its Centaur stage fires twice, with a coast in Earth orbit between.

  2. A landing in three touches

    20 April 1967

    At 00:04 UTC on 20 April 1967, 19:04 Eastern Standard Time on 19 April, Surveyor 3 touches the Moon with its engines still firing and bounces twice before a command from Earth shuts them off.

  3. Landing in the Ocean of Storms

    20 April 1967

    Surveyor 3 comes to rest tilted about 14 degrees on the inner slope of a crater some two hundred metres across; its first picture is taken within the hour, and by 3 May it has taken more than six thousand.

  4. Four trenches in the dust

    22 April 1967

    From 22 April, controllers on Earth work a scoop on a hinged arm that opens out like a pair of scissors, pressing, digging and dropping the soil in view of the camera.

  5. Visited by Apollo 12

    19 November 1969

    At 06:54 UTC on 19 November 1969, 00:54 Houston time, Pete Conrad and Alan Bean set the lunar module Intrepid down on the rim of Surveyor Crater, 155 metres from the old lander.

  6. The camera comes home

    20 November 1969

    On 20 November, during their second moonwalk, Conrad and Bean reach Surveyor 3 at 06:27 UTC, find it turned brown, and cut off its television camera, its scoop, two lengths of tubing and a piece of cable to take home.

Outcome

Landed in the Ocean of Storms on 20 April 1967 after three touchdowns, took more than six thousand pictures and dug four trenches; on 19 November 1969 Apollo 12 landed 155 metres away, and Conrad and Bean brought its camera and scoop home.

Surveyor 3

NASA lander that touched down on the Moon in 1967 and was later visited by the Apollo 12 crew.

Read on Wikipedia

Sources

Continue exploring