Mission Summary
Surveyor 7 was the final mission of the Surveyor program and the only one sent purely for science rather than to scout Apollo landing sites. Launched January 7, 1968, with the earlier Surveyors having already cleared the way for Apollo, NASA aimed this last lander at rugged, scientifically rich terrain: the bright ejecta blanket surrounding the Tycho crater in the lunar south.
It set down on January 10, 1968, about 29 kilometers from Tycho’s rim, on ground far rougher than the smooth maria where its predecessors had landed. When the alpha-backscatter instrument, lowered to sample the soil chemistry, jammed partway down, controllers improvised, using the robot arm to push it into place and then move it to fresh spots for further readings.
Over two lunar days Surveyor 7 returned more than 21,000 photographs, dug trenches and ran bearing tests with its scoop, and gathered chemical data from undisturbed soil, a rock, and a dug pit. It also served as a target for laser beams fired from Earth to help measure the distance to the Moon. The mission closed out the Surveyor program on a high note.
Sources and notes can be found on the Sources page.
