OTD In Space – January 6: Last Surveyor Spacecraft Launches To The Moon

On January 6, 1968, NASA launched the seventh and final Surveyor spacecraft on a mission to explore the moon.

Like its six predecessors, Surveyor 7 was a robotic spacecraft sent to demonstrate the feasibility of doing soft landings on the moon. Two of these missions didn't succeed with their soft landings and accidentally crash landed, but Surveyor 7 arrived in one piece, successfully wrapping up the Surveyor program. It touched down on the rim of the Tycho crater, where it collected plenty of scientific data and took over 21,000 pictures.