On this day in space! June 2, 1966: Surveyor 1 becomes 1st American spacecraft to soft-land on the Moon

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On June 2, 1966, NASA's Surveyor 1 reached the lunar surface and became the first American spacecraft to successfully execute a soft landing on the moon.

On June 2, 1966, NASA's Surveyor 1 reached the lunar surface and became the first American spacecraft to successfully execute a soft landing on the moon.

Surveyor 1 took more than 11,000 photos of the moon along with other measurements, but, more importantly, proved that NASA's soft-landing technique and spacecraft designs were sound.

Surveyor 1: NASA's 1st Lunar Landing Success in Pictures

The lunar surface near Surveyor 1, taken June 11, 1966. (Image credit: NASA/University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory)

NASA scientists thought that the landing of a space probe would've taken many tries, but were surprised by its success on the first. This came as a delightful shock as only four months earlier, the Soviet Union ultimately reached a successful landing of their Luna 9 probe after multiple failed attempts.

The mission set the stage for the first crewed lunar landing by Apollo 11 just three years later in 1969.

On This Day in Space: See our full 365-day video archive!

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Hanneke Weitering
Hanneke Weitering
Contributing expert

Hanneke Weitering is a multimedia journalist in the Pacific Northwest reporting on the future of aviation at FutureFlight.aero and Aviation International News and was previously the Editor for Spaceflight and Astronomy news here at Space.com. As an editor with over 10 years of experience in science journalism she has previously written for Scholastic Classroom Magazines, MedPage Today and The Joint Institute for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After studying physics at the University of Tennessee in her hometown of Knoxville, she earned her graduate degree in Science, Health and Environmental Reporting (SHERP) from New York University. Hanneke joined the Space.com team in 2016 as a staff writer and producer, covering topics including spaceflight and astronomy. She currently lives in Seattle, home of the Space Needle, with her cat and two snakes. In her spare time, Hanneke enjoys exploring the Rocky Mountains, basking in nature and looking for dark skies to gaze at the cosmos.