Moon probeIn 1968, the Surveyor 7 space probe made a soft landing on the moon, the fifth and final spacecraft of the Surveyor series to do so. It marked the end of the American series of unmanned explorations of the lunar surface, and was to be followed by the landing of an Apollo crew. Its mission including taking TV pictures after landing, determine relative chemical element abundance and manipulate the lunar material. It was the only Surveyor craft of the series to land in a lunar highland region. In addition to touchdown dynamics data, it obtained thermal and radar reflectivity data. The spacecraft was about 3-m tall. A solar cell array produced up to 85-watts of electrical power, stored in batteries and used for communications.« |
