Lunokhod was a series of Soviet robotic lunar rovers designed to land on the Moon between 1969 and 1977. Lunokhod 1 was the first roving remote-controlled robot to land on an extraterrestrial body.
Lunokhod 1, also known as Аппарат 8ЕЛ № 203 was the first robotic rover on the Moon and the first to freely move across the surface of an astronomical object beyond the Earth. Sent by the Soviet Union it was part of the robotic rovers Lunokhod program. The Luna 17 spacecraft carried Lunokhod 1 to the Moon in 1970. Lunokhod 0 (No.201), the previous and first attempt to land a rover, launched in February 1969 but failed to reach Earth orbit.
Lunar Laser Ranging (LLR) is the practice of measuring the distance between the surfaces of the Earth and the Moon using laser ranging. The distance can be calculated from the round-trip time of laser light pulses travelling at the speed of light, which are reflected back to Earth by the Moon's surface or by one of several retroreflectors installed on the Moon. Three were placed by the United States' Apollo program, two by the Soviet Lunokhod 1 and 2 missions, and one by India's Chandrayaan-3 mission.
The Apache Point Observatory Lunar Laser-ranging Operation, or APOLLO, is a project at the Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico. It is an extension and advancement of previous Lunar Laser Ranging experiments, which use retroreflectors on the Moon to track changes in lunar orbital distance and motion.
A lunar lander or Moon lander is a spacecraft designed to land on the surface of the Moon. As of 2023, the Apollo Lunar Module is the only lunar lander to have ever been used in human spaceflight, completing six lunar landings from 1969 to 1972 during the United States' Apollo Program. Several robotic landers have reached the surface, and some have returned samples to Earth.
Third-party evidence for Apollo Moon landings is evidence, or analysis of evidence, about the Moon landings that does not come from either NASA or the U.S. government, or the Apollo Moon landing hoax theorists. This evidence provides independent confirmation of NASA's account of the six Apollo program Moon missions flown between 1969 and 1972.
Planetary Transportation Systems (PTS), formerly known as PTScientists and Part-Time Scientists, is a Berlin-based aerospace company. They developed the robotic lunar lander "ALINA" and seek to land on the Moon with it. They became the first German team to officially enter the Google Lunar X-Prize competition on June 24, 2009, but failed to reach the finals in 2017 for lack of a launch contract. During the summer of 2019, the company filed for bankruptcy, and the ALINA project was put on hold. In July 2021, PTS was selected with ArianeGroup to build ESA's ASTRIS kick-stage.
Moon Express is an American privately held company formed in 2010 by a group of Silicon Valley and space entrepreneurs. It had the goal of winning the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize, and of ultimately mining the Moon for natural resources of economic value. The company was not able to make a launch attempt to reach the Moon by March 31, 2018, the deadline for the prize.
Luna 27 is a planned lunar lander mission by the Roscosmos with collaboration by the European Space Agency (ESA) to send a lander to the South Pole–Aitken basin, an area on the far side of the Moon. Its objective will be to detect and characterise lunar polar volatiles. The mission is a continuation of the Luna-Glob programme.
Luna 25 was a failed Russian lunar lander mission by Roscosmos in August 2023 that planned to land near the lunar south pole, in the vicinity of the crater Boguslawsky.
The International Lunar Observatory (ILO) is a private scientific and commercial lunar mission by International Lunar Observatory Association of Kamuela, Hawaii to place a small observatory near the South Pole of the Moon to conduct astrophysical studies using an optical telescope and possibly include an antenna dish. The mission aims to prove a conceptual design for a lunar observatory that would be reliable, low cost, and fast to implement. A precursor mission, ILO-X consisting of two small imagers, launched on 15 February 2024 aboard the Intuitive Machines IM-1 mission to the Moon south pole region. It is hoped to be a technology precursor to a future observatories on the Moon, and other commercial initiatives.
Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) is a NASA program to hire companies to send small robotic landers and rovers to the Moon's south polar region, mostly with the goals of scouting for lunar resources, testing in situ resource utilization (ISRU) concepts, and performing lunar science to support the Artemis lunar program. CLPS is intended to buy end-to-end payload services between Earth and the lunar surface using fixed-price contracts. The program was extended to add support for large payloads starting after 2025.
The Intuitive Machines Nova-C, or simply Nova-C, is a class of lunar landers designed by Intuitive Machines to deliver small payloads to the surface of the Moon. Most locations on the lunar surface remain sunlit for approximately fourteen consecutive Earth days; Nova-C landers are expected to remain operational while in sunlight and are not designed to withstand the cold temperatures of a lunar night.
Intuitive Machines, Inc. is a publicly-traded American company headquartered in Houston, Texas. It was founded in 2013 by Stephen Altemus, Kam Ghaffarian, and Tim Crain.
Beresheet was a demonstrator of a small robotic lunar lander and lunar probe operated by SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries. Its aims included inspiring youth and promoting careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), and landing its magnetometer, time capsule, and laser retroreflector on the Moon. The lander's gyroscopes failed on 11 April 2019 causing the main engine to shut off, which resulted in the lander crashing on the Moon. Its final resting position is 32.5956°N, 19.3496°E.
The Commercial Lunar Mission Support Services (CLMSS), also called Lunar Mission Support Services (LMSS) is a collaboration between Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) and the European Space Agency (ESA) to develop lunar telecommunications and navigation infrastructure to support lunar scientific and economic development.
Chandrayaan-3 is the third mission in the Chandrayaan programme, a series of lunar-exploration missions developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The mission consists of a lunar lander named Vikram and a lunar rover named Pragyan, similar to those launched aboard Chandrayaan-2 in 2019.
The Laser Ranging Retroreflector (LRRR) was the first ever deployable lunar laser ranging experiment. It was carried on Apollo 11 as part of the Early Apollo Scientific Experiments Package, and on Apollo 14 and Apollo 15 as part of the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP). The LRRR consists of a series of corner reflectors set within a panel. Laser beams sent from Earth are bounced off the retroreflector and the timing of the return signal can be used to measure the distance from the signal source to the reflector. The reflector was conceived by James E. Faller in 1961. The experiment's principal investigator was initially Carroll Alley of the University of Maryland who was eventually succeeded by Faller.
