https://www.engadget.com/2019/09/08/india-finds-missing-lunar-lander/

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“Assignment: Shoot the Moon” (1967)
NASA film HQ-167: Ranger, Surveyor, and Lunar Orbiter
https://youtu.be/5Q1CVk4Yu2o
25:26

“The Ranger spacecraft were designed to take images of the lunar surface, returning those images until they were destroyed upon impact. A series of mishaps, however, led to the failure of the first six flights. At one point, the program was called “shoot and hope”. Congress launched an investigation into “problems of management” at NASA Headquarters and Jet Propulsion Laboratory. After reorganizing the organization twice, Ranger 7 successfully returned images in July 1964, followed by two more successful missions.”

“The Surveyor Program was a NASA program that, from 1966 through 1968, sent seven robotic spacecraft to the surface of the Moon. Its primary goal was to demonstrate the feasibility of soft landings on the Moon. The mission called for the craft to travel directly to the moon on an impact trajectory, on a journey that lasted 63 to 65 hours, and ended with a deceleration of just over three minutes to a soft-landing. The program was implemented by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to prepare for the Apollo program. The total cost of the Surveyor program was officially $469 million dollars. Five of the Surveyor craft successfully soft-landed on the moon, including the first one. The other two failed: Surveyor 2 crashed at high velocity after a failed mid-course correction, and Surveyor 4 was lost to contact (possibly exploding) 2.5 minutes before its scheduled touch-down.” [“Some parts of Surveyor 3 were returned to Earth by the crew of Apollo 12, which landed near it in 1969. The camera from this craft is on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.”]

“The Lunar Orbiter program was a series of five unmanned lunar orbiter missions launched by the United States from 1966 through 1967. Intended to help select Apollo landing sites by mapping the Moon’s surface, they provided the first photographs from lunar orbit. All five missions were successful, and 99% of the Moon was mapped from photographs taken with a resolution of 60 meters or better. The first three missions were dedicated to imaging 20 potential manned lunar landing sites, selected based on Earth-based observations. These were flown at low inclination orbits. The fourth and fifth missions were devoted to broader scientific objectives and were flown in high-altitude polar orbits… All Lunar Orbiter craft were launched by an Atlas-Agena D launch vehicle.”

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=6862&view=findpost&p=245611

Apparently, April seems like a long time ago, so I messed up that one. But I also have difficulty believing that April is over — that is April of 1994, a difficult but rewarding month for me.

Edward: Israel’s failure was in April 2019, this year, not last. And I am totally unaware of a Chinese failure to reach the Moon last year. The only example I can find is the failure of one of two test cubesat lunar orbiters, designed to test that engineering on a planetary mission. While this prevented the science planned for the two spacecraft, working in unison, the other cubesat successfully beamed back pictures and demonstrated the viability of a cubesat planetary mission.

David G Lohnes wrote: “Really makes me appreciate even more what we were able to accomplish 50 years ago.”

The United States first sent unmanned crash-landers (Ranger series) in order to learn how to hit the Moon (some of them missed), and put a couple of soft landers (Surveyor series) on the surface (a couple of them crashed) before attempting the first manned landing. In addition, before the first manned landing, the U.S. sent two manned missions to the Moon, one to orbit and one to do a dry run of the equivalent of Vikram’s “rough braking” phase, which NASA called “braking phase” of “powered descent” for Apollo. Perhaps we should not be too surprised that Vikram and Apollo 11 had problems during the next phase, which ISRO called “fine braking” and NASA called “approach phase.”

How do you get to the Moon? The same way you get to Carnegie Hall: practice, practice, practice.

Space is difficult and dangerous. While disappointing, it is not surprising that India’s first soft landing attempt failed. The Soviet Union had difficulty with its early attempts to send unmanned lunar landers. Japan also had a failed orbiter, and last year both Israel and China had spacecraft failures attempting to reach the Moon.

We work much harder on safety for manned missions than unmanned ones. Our current manned spacecraft are taking longer to develop and certify than America’s early manned spacecraft, but some nasty lessons were learned in the 1960s and every couple of decades thereafter.

Landing on the Moon was no exception to the increased safety philosophy. If things had gone wrong during landing, the astronauts could abort and ride the ascent module back toward the Command-Service Module “mother ship,” which could maneuver to their abort orbit. Landing man on the Moon was still difficult, but some of the danger had been reduced.

And Modi was right now in the control room and spoke with the scientists.