Surveyor 4

Description

This spacecraft was the fourth in a series designed to achieve a soft landing on the moon and to return photography of the lunar surface for determining characteristics of the lunar terrain for Apollo lunar landing missions. Equipment on board included a television camera and auxiliary mirrors, a soil mechanics surface sampler, strain gauges on the spacecraft landing legs, and numerous engineering sensors. After a flawless flight to the moon, radio signals from the spacecraft ceased during the terminal-descent phase, approximately 2.5 min before touchdown. Contact with the spacecraft was never reestablished, and the mission was unsuccessful. The Surveyor program involved building and launching 7 Surveyor spacecraft to the Moon at a total cost of $469 million.