US Surveyor 6 made first lunar liftoff on this day in 1967; read more about the spacecraft

The sixth lunar lander of the America’s Surveyor programme, Surveyor 6, made the first lunar liftoff on this day, i.e., November 17, in 1967. The spacecraft was the firth of the Surveyor series to successfully achieve a soft landing on the Moon, obtain post landing television pictures, determine the abundance of the chemical elements in the lunar soil, obtain touchdown dynamic data, obtain therms and radar reflectivity data and conduct a Vernier engine erosion experiment. It landed on November 10, 1967 and in the following days it made the first lunar liftoff. 

(Image: NASA_Joshnson/Twitter)

Surveyor 6’s engines were restarted and burned for 2.5 seconds in the first liftoff. This created 700 N of thrust and lifted the vehicle 12 feet from the lunar surface. After moving west eight feet, the spacecraft even managed to again successfully softly land and continue functioning as designed. 

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The American spacecraft made history as it was the first to liftoff from another celestial body. It was monitored by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena and it used its liquid-furled vernier engines to lift itself from its original landing site to a position some 10 feet away. The spacecraft accomplished all planned activities and the successful completion of the this mission satisfied the Surveyor programme’s obligation to the Apollo project. 

On November 24, 1967, the spacecraft was shut down for the two-week lunar night and contact was made on December 14, however, no useful data was obtained. Lunar soil surveys was completed using photographic and alpha particle backscattering methods and a similar instrument was used onboard several Mars mission. 

(Image: NASAhistory/Twitter)

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Surveyor 6’s performance was ‘virtually flawless’ 

According to Lunar Science and Exploration, the performance of Surveyor 6 on the lunar surface was “virtually flawless”. From touchdown until a few hours after sunset, the spacecraft transmitted nearly 30,000 television pictures and the alpha-scattering instrument acquired 30 hours of data on the chemical composition of the lunar material. The spacecraft performed a “hop” manoeuvre, which provided excellent views of the surface disturbances produced by the initial landing and the effects of firing rocket engines close to the lunar surface. The photos obtained after the hop contributed to the soil mechanics investigation.

(Image: Cosmonautic_Day/Twitter)

The website informed, “The landing site chosen for this mission was in Sinus Medii, in the center of of the Moon’s visible hemisphere, the last of four potential Apollo landing areas designated for investigation by the Surveyor program. The spacecraft came to rest on a nearly flat, heavily cratered mare area, about 200 meters northwest of the base of a ridge about 30 meters high”. 

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