Surveyor 3 #OnThisDay

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On April 17th 1967 , Surveyor 3 was launched from Cape Canaveral, USA. Three days later on April 20th it landed on the moon.

Less than an hour after landing, the spacecraft began transmitting the first of 6,326 TV pictures of the surrounding areas.

This unusual photograph, taken during the second Apollo 12 extravehicular activity (EVA), shows two U.S. spacecraft on the surface of the moon. The Apollo 12 Lunar Module (LM) is in the background. The unmanned Surveyor 3 spacecraft is in the foreground. The Apollo 12 LM, with astronauts Charles Conrad Jr. and Alan L. Bean aboard, landed about 600 feet from Surveyor 3 in the Ocean of Storms. The television camera and several other pieces were taken from Surveyor 3 and brought back to Earth for scientific examination. Here, Conrad examines the Surveyor’s TV camera prior to detaching it. Astronaut Richard F. Gordon Jr. remained with the Apollo 12 Command and Service Modules (CSM) in lunar orbit while Conrad and Bean descended in the LM to explore the moon. Surveyor 3 soft-landed on the moon on April 20, 1967. Image NASA Published: November 20, 1969

Also on 17th of April a few years later, 1970, Apollo 13 , landed in the Pacific Ocean.  An explosion on board forced Apollo 13 to circle the moon without landing. Apollo 13 was to be the third lunar landing attempt, but the mission was aborted after rupture of service module oxygen tank. Still, it was classified as a “successful failure” because of the experience gained in rescuing the crew. The mission’s spent upper stage successfully impacted the moon.

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