NASA s current program of lunar exploration is being conducted by the Surveyor and Lunar Orbiter projects. The Surveyor project will serve to validate several key aspects of the soft landing technology for use by Apollo; it will also provide essential data on the compatibility of the Apollo design and the conditions of the lunar surface. The first pictures of the moon taken from a spacecraft were obtained at long range by the Russian Luna III on October 3, 1959. In this achievement, 70% of the far side of the moon was photographed. Russia s Zond III also obtained twenty-five long range (10,000 KM) pictures of the moon s far side. The first medium and high-resolution spacecraft pictures of the moon were taken by Ranger VII (July 31, 1964), Ranger VIII (February 20, 1965), and Ranger IX (March 24, 1965). Collectively, these three Rangers transmitted more than 17,000 pictures having varying resolution down to almost one foot.
Surveyor Lunar Flight Report, Mission D
1967
43 pages
Report
No indication
English
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