Most Americans are able to recall that the United States successfully landed astronauts on the Moon during 1969 and into the early 1970s. What’s not as well known is the number of attempts by various nations to explore the Moon, whether by fly-by or actual landing…..and how many were unsuccessful.
Even with 50 years of technology under our belts, the first NASA backed mission since 1972 called Peregrine did not make it to the moon, ending last month in the spacecraft’s fiery demise due to an excessive propellant leak.
The upcoming launch this week of the Intuitive Machines IM-1 mission represents the second of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) series of nine missions. IM-1 is an uncrewed lander intended to explore the Moon’s South Polar area.
As NASA steps up its missions to the Moon in preparation for the Artemis Program and specifically landing astronauts on the surface of the Moon beginning with Artemis III it’s worth while to take a look aback at how hard this feat really is.
A total of 149 missions to the Moon have been attempted so far since the first one in 1958, a United States Air Force Pioneer 0 which failed to orbit due to a turbopump gearbox malfunction. There were nine more failures by the USSR and United States, until the USSR’s Luna 2 became the first spacecraft to reach the lunar surface in September 1959. It wasn’t until 3 years later in 1962 that the American Ranger 4 impacted the Moon, on its far side.
Think that it has become routine since then? Afraid not! Of the total of 149 attempts so far, be they flybys, impact probes, orbiters, landers, rovers, or crewed missions, 44% (66) have been failures. The United States has a better success rate (65%) compared to the USSR/Russia (31%). China is 7 for 7. The EU, Luxembourg, South Korea, and Italy are all 1 for 1.
On the other hand, how many of us can name more than a couple of those successful missions? They are actually spread widely over the near side of the Moon (see image).
Some worry about the amount of manmade objects that have been deposited, crashed, or left on the Moon. These include hammers and other tools, retroreflectors, Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Packages, or the commemorative, artistic, and personal objects left by the twelve Apollo astronauts, such as the United States flags, the commemorative plaques attached to the ladders of the sixApollo Lunar Modules, an astronaut pin left by Alan Bean in honor of Clifton C. Williams whom he replaced, the Bible left by Davis Scott, and the golf balls Alan Shepard hit during the Apollo 14 moonwalk.
It is estimated that these and many other items account for over 400,000 pounds of materials left on the Moon, much of it from failed missions. Five S-IVB third stages of Saturn rockets from the Apollo program crashed into the Moon, and are believed to be the heaviest human-made objects on the lunar surface (at 30,000 pounds each).
Who keeps track of missions to the Moon and the stuff left there? NASA keeps a repository called that NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive (NSSDCA). Independently, an organization called the Open Lunar Foundation (www.openlunar.org) is proposing to catalog all the manmade objects left on the Moon.
Given the rather routine pace of SpaceX launches recently, we might be tempted to think of missions to the Moon as not all that more difficult. We might be inclined to forget that the Moon is a thousand times further … a thousand times … than the International Space Station, a routine destination for Dragon and other spacecraft. So don’t take these lunar missions for granted. Despite massive advances in technology since 1958, the Moon remains a challenging destination to say the least.
great story!