Surveyor 6
| Surveyor 6 | ||||||||||
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 Surveyor 6 on Earth |
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| NSSDC ID | 1967-112A | |||||||||
| Mission goal | Preparation of manned moon landings | |||||||||
| Client |
 NASA
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| Launcher | Atlas - Centaur | |||||||||
| Course of the mission | ||||||||||
| Start date | November 7, 1967, 07:39 UTC | |||||||||
| launch pad | Cape Canaveral , LC-36 | |||||||||
| End date | December 14, 1967 | |||||||||
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Surveyor 6 was the sixth probe of the US space agency NASA as part of the Surveyor program . The Surveyor program was the successor to the Ranger program . The results of the program should prepare the first manned moon landing . Surveyor 6 was supposed to land undamaged on the moon and from there transmit images and data to earth. Like Surveyor 5, it was equipped with an alpha particle X-ray spectrometer and extended instrumentation. So she had a magnet to check whether the moon rocks react magnetically. Surveyor 6 was the fourth US probe to land softly on the moon and transmit data and images.
mission
Surveyor 6 was launched Nov. 7, 1967 aboard an Atlas - Centaur rocket from the launch pad LC-36 of the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station .
A course correction that was carried out on November 8th went smoothly. On November 10, the probe landed in the Sinus Medii , only five kilometers from the planned touchdown point. By November 17, the probe had transmitted 14,500 images of the lunar surface. Later that day, the Vernier engines were started for 2.5 seconds. As a result, Surveyor 6 reached a height of approximately four meters and landed again 2.4 meters west. This “hop” represented the first take-off from the lunar surface. This maneuver was intended to enable investigations into the primary landing site and the reaction of the lunar surface to engine ignitions. In addition, shifting the camera position allowed stereoscopic images of the surface for the first time . The spectrometer used gave results similar to those of Surveyor 5.
On November 14th, the probe measured a temperature of +120 ° C on the surface. That was the highest measured temperature on the surface of the moon so far. The last data was transmitted on December 14 at 19:14 UTC. In total, the probe returned 29,952 images and approximately 20 hours of data from the spectrometer.
The mission was a success.
