Exploration of the Moon and indeed of human history in general. The first man-made object to reach the Moon was the unmanned Soviet probe Luna 2, which made a hard landing on September 14, 1959, at 21:02:24 Z. The far side of the Moon was first photographed on October 7, 1959, by the Soviet probe Luna 3. Though vague by today's standards, the photos showed that the far side of the Moon almost completely lacked maria. In an effort to compete with these Soviet successes, U.S. President John F. Kennedy proposed the national goal of landing a human on the Moon. Speaking to a
Deliberate crash landings on extraterrestrial bodies purposes of this article. The crash landing sites themselves are of interest to space archeology. Luna 1, not itself a lunar orbiter, was the first spacecraft designed as an impactor. It failed to hit the Moon in 1959, however, thus inadvertently becoming the first man-made object to leave geocentric orbit and enter a heliocentric orbit, where it remains to this day. ! style="text-align:left" width=" |Mission ! style="text-align:left" width=" |Country/ Agency ! style="text-align:left" width=" |Date of landing/impact ! style="text-align:left" width=" |Notes Deliberate crash landings on extraterrestrial bodies These are tables of space probes (typically orbiters or components thereof) which have been