April 17, 2017 - Lunar Hop, Skip, and Jump
Lunar Hop, Skip, and Jump Fifty years ago this week, the Surveyor 3 spacecraft became the fourth spacecraft to make a successful soft landing on the Moon (following on the heels of Luna 9, Surveyor 1, and Luna 13). During its descent, its landing engines failed to shut down as intended, causing the spacecraft to bounce twice before finally settling safely onto the surface. Surveyor 3 returned thousands of images of the Moon’s surface and was the first lunar probe to use an extendable sampling arm to manipulate the lunar soil. Two and a half years after it landed, Surveyor 3 was visited by the crew of Apollo 12, which landed a few hundred meters away. They photographed the spacecraft and returned some of its instruments to Earth to study how they were affected by a long stay on the lunar surface.
Image Credit: NASA
Weekly Calendar
April 17-23, 2017
Holidays - Sky Events - Space History
Monday 17
Easter Monday (Canada)
1967: Surveyor 3 launched
1969: First X-24A lifting body glide test
1970: Apollo 13 crew returns to Earth
1998: STS-90 Columbia launched
Tuesday 18
2014: LADEE spacecraft intentionally crashed into Moon at end of mission
Wednesday 19
Last Qtr Moon 5:57 AM ET
1967: Surveyor 3 lands on Moon
1971: Salyut 1 launched, first space station.
1982: Salyut 7 launched
1993: 200th Soviet / Russian spacewalk
2001: STS-100 Endeavour launched
Thursday 20
Mercury in inferior conjunction
Pluto appears stationary
1972: Apollo 16 lands on Moon
Friday 21
Lyrid meteor shower
1997: Cremated remains of 24 people launched into orbit aboard Pegasus rocket in first space funeral
Saturday 22
Neptune 0.2° north of Moon
Lyrid meteor shower
2010: X-37B spacecraft launched
Sunday 23
Venus 5° north of Moon
1858: Max Planck born
1962: Ranger 4 launched
1963: M2-F1 lifting body first free flight
1996: Priroda module launched to Mir space station