Surveyor

The Surveyor probes were the first U.S. spacecraft to land safely on the Moon. The main objectives of the Surveyors were to obtain close-up images of the lunar surface and to determine if the terrain was safe for manned landings. The Surveyor spacecraft were designed to soft-land on Moon. The series debuted on May 31, 1966, when Surveyor 1 was launched toward the Moon. The spacecraft's remarkable success at setting down on the lunar surface exactly as planned electrified the scientific community and sparked worldwide acclaim. Six more Surveyors were launched through January 7, 1968, with five successful landings in all. Surveyors 1, 3, 5 and 6 landed on maria near the Moon's equator. Surveyor 7 landed on the highlands just north of Tycho crater.
The science instruments on the spacecraft varied from flight to flight, but included cameras, surface samplers and soil analyzers. In all, the Surveyors returned nearly 88,000 high-resolution pictures of the Moon's surface and performed the first soil analysis. Surveyor 3, which touched down in the Ocean of Storms, brought a new robotic tool, the "scratcher arm," into use on the Moon. Apollo 12 astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean landed just 156 meters (512 feet) away from Surveyor 3 in November 1969. They removed the arm and other parts of the spacecraft so that scientists could study their condition after 2.5 years of exposure to the space environment