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}} ''Surveyor 1'' was the first lunar soft-lander in the unmanned Surveyor program of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA, United States). This lunar soft-lander gathered data about the lunar surface that would be needed for the manned Apollo Moon landings that began in 1969. The successful soft landing of ''Surveyor 1'' on the ''Ocean of Storms'' was the first one by an American space probe onto any extraterrestrial body, and it occurred just four months after the first Moon landing by the Soviet Union's Luna 9 probe. This was also a success on NASA's first attempt at a soft landing on any astronomical object. ''Surveyor 1'' was launched May 30, 1966, from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at Cape Canaveral, Florida, and it landed on the Moon on June 2, 1966. ''Surveyor 1'' transmitted 11,237 still photos of the lunar surface to the Earth by using a television camera and a sophisticated radio-telemetry system. The ''Surveyor'' program was managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in Los Angeles County, but the entire Surveyor space probe was designed and built by the Hughes Aircraft Company in El Segundo, California. == Mission description == The ''Surveyor'' series of space probes was designed to carry out the first soft landings on the Moon by any American spacecraft. No instrumentation was carried specifically for scientific experiments by ''Surveyor 1'', but considerable scientific data was collected by its TV camera and then returned to Earth via the Deep Space Network in 1966 - 67. These spacecraft carried two TV cameras - one for its approach — which was not used in this case — and one for taking still pictures of the lunar surface. Over 100 engineering sensors were on board each ''Surveyor''. Their TV systems transmitted pictures of the spacecraft footpad and surrounding lunar terrain and surface materials. These spacecraft also acquired data on the radar reflectivity of the lunar surface, the load-bearing strength of the lunar surface, and the temperatures for use in the analysis of the lunar surface temperatures. (Later ''Surveyor'' space probes, beginning with ''Surveyor 3'', carried scientific instruments to measure the composition and mechanical properties of the lunar "soil".) ''Surveyor 1'' was launched May 30, 1966 and sent directly into a trajectory to the Moon without any parking orbit. Its retrorockets were turned off at a height of about 3.4 meters above the lunar surface. ''Surveyor 1'' fell freely to the surface from this height, and it landed on the lunar surface on June 2, 1966, on the ''Oceanus Procellarum''. This location was at .〔 The duration of the spaceflight of ''Surveyor 1'' was about 63 hours, 30 minutes. ''Surveyor I's'' lunar launch weight was about , and its landing weight (minus expended maneuvering propellant, its solid-fueled retrorocket (which had been jettisoned), and its radar altimeter system) was about . ''Surveyor 1'' transmitted video data from the Moon beginning shortly after its landing through July 14, 1966 — but with a period of no operations during the long lunar night of June 14, 1966 through July 7, 1966. Because the Moon always presents the same face to Earth, "line-of-sight" radio communications with ''Surveyor 1'' required only changes in ground stations as the Earth rotated. However, since it was solar-powered, ''Surveyor 1'' had no electricity with which to do anything at all during the two weeks of the lunar nights. The return of engineering information (temperatures, etc.) from ''Surveyor 1'' continued through January 7, 1967, with several long interruptions during the two-week-long lunar nights. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Surveyor 1」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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