Moon

Events (23)

• 1178

  6/18 — Five Canterbury monks see what is possibly the Giordano Bruno crater being formed. It is believed that the current oscillations of the Moon's distance from the Earth (on the order of meters) are a result of this collision.

• 1835

  8/25 — The first Great Moon Hoax article is published in The New York Sun, announcing the discovery of life and civilization on the Moon.

• 1959

  1/4 — Luna 1 becomes the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Moon.

• 1961

  5/25 — Apollo program: U.S. President John F. Kennedy announces before a special joint session of the Congress his goal to initiate a project to put a "man on the Moon" before the end of the decade.

• 1962

  4/26 — NASA's Ranger 4 spacecraft crashes into the Moon.

• 1964

  7/31 — Ranger program: Ranger 7 sends back the first close-up photographs of the moon, with images 1,000 times clearer than anything ever seen from earth-bound telescopes.

• 1965

  5/12 — The Soviet spacecraft Luna 5 crashes on the Moon.

• 1966

  6/2 — Surveyor program: Surveyor 1 lands in Oceanus Procellarum on the Moon, becoming the first U.S. spacecraft to soft-land on another world.

• 1966

  8/23 — Lunar Orbiter 1 takes the first photograph of Earth from orbit around the Moon.

• 1967

  1/27 — United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union sign the Outer Space Treaty in Washington, D.C., banning deployment of nuclear weapons in space, and limiting use of the Moon and other celestial bodies to peaceful purposes.

• 1968

  9/15 — The Soviet Zond 5 spaceship is launched, becoming the first spacecraft to fly around the Moon and re-enter the Earth's atmosphere.

• 1968

  12/21 — Apollo program: Apollo 8 is launched from the Kennedy Space Center, placing its crew on a lunar trajectory for the first visit to another celestial body by humans.

• 1969

  5/22 — Apollo 10's lunar module flies within 8.4 nautical miles (16 km) of the moon's surface.

• 1969

  5/26 — Apollo program: Apollo 10 returns to Earth after a successful eight-day test of all the components needed for the forthcoming first manned moon landing.

• 1969

  7/16 — Apollo program: Apollo 11, the first mission to land astronauts on the Moon, is launched from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Kennedy, Florida.

• 1969

  7/20 — Apollo program: Apollo 11's crew successfully makes the first manned landing on the Moon in the Sea of Tranquility. Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the Moon (July 21 UTC).

• 1969

  11/19 — Apollo program: Apollo 12 astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean land at Oceanus Procellarum (the "Ocean of Storms") and become the third and fourth humans to walk on the Moon.

• 1970

  4/13 — An oxygen tank aboard Apollo 13 explodes, putting the crew in great danger and causing major damage to the spacecraft while en route to the Moon.

• 1971

  1/31 — Apollo program: Apollo 14: Astronauts Alan Shepard, Stuart Roosa, and Edgar Mitchell, aboard a Saturn V, lift off for a mission to the Fra Mauro Highlands on the Moon.

• 1971

  7/30 — Apollo program: Apollo 15 Mission: David Scott and James Irwin on the Apollo Lunar Module Falcon land on the Moon with the first Lunar Rover.

• 1972

  12/11 — Apollo 17 becomes the sixth and last Apollo mission to land on the Moon.

• 1977

  9/30 — Because of US budget cuts and dwindling power reserves, the Apollo program's ALSEP experiment packages left on the Moon are shut down.

• 2009

  10/9 — First lunar impact of the Centaur and LCROSS spacecrafts as part of NASA's Lunar Precursor Robotic Program.