# Surveyor 2

> failed lunar lander launched in 1966

**Wikidata**: [Q862799](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q862799)  
**Wikipedia**: [English](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveyor_2)  
**Source**: https://4ort.xyz/entity/surveyor-2

## Summary
Surveyor 2 was a 995 kg U.S. lunar lander launched on 20 September 1966 that crashed into the Moon three days later after a mid-course correction thruster failed, ending its mission without achieving a soft landing. Part of NASA’s Surveyor program, it followed Surveyor 1 and preceded Surveyor 3.

## Key Facts
- Launch date: 20 September 1966 at 12:32 UTC from Cape Canaveral Launch Complex 36
- Launch vehicle: Atlas-Centaur
- Operator & manufacturer: NASA / Hughes Aircraft Company
- Mass: 995.2 kg at launch; 292 kg dry
- COSPAR & NSSDCA ID: 1966-084A
- Mission duration: 3,766 seconds (≈ 62.8 minutes) from launch to impact
- Destruction: hard landing on 23 September 1966 near Copernicus crater (lunar quad LQ19)
- Program position: second spacecraft in the Surveyor series; follows Surveyor 1, followed by Surveyor 3
- Wikidata sitelinks: 30 across 10 languages

## FAQs
### Q: Did Surveyor 2 land safely on the Moon?
A: No. A failed mid-course correction thruster sent the craft tumbling; it crashed into the lunar surface on 23 September 1966.

### Q: How long did Surveyor 2 operate?
A: The spacecraft transmitted data for only a few minutes after launch; total mission elapsed time from launch to impact was about 63 minutes.

### Q: What rocket launched Surveyor 2?
A: An Atlas-Centaur launch vehicle lifted the spacecraft from Cape Canaveral’s Launch Complex 36.

### Q: Why was Surveyor 2 important if it crashed?
A: Its failure highlighted critical thruster-control flaws, leading to design fixes that helped the next five Surveyor missions achieve soft landings and return surface data.

## Why It Matters
Surveyor 2’s 1966 crash provided engineers with hard evidence that small thruster anomalies could cascade into total mission loss. The failure investigation led to improved redundancy and control logic for subsequent Surveyor landers, directly contributing to the five later missions that safely touched down and returned high-resolution images and soil data. Those successes, in turn, gave Apollo planners confidence that crewed landings were feasible, making Surveyor 2’s short flight a pivotal—if unintended—step toward human lunar exploration.

## Notable For
- First in-flight failure of the Surveyor series after Surveyor 1’s success
- Crashed near Copernicus crater, one of the youngest large lunar impact features
- Only Surveyor mission to suffer a vernier-engine malfunction leading to loss of attitude control
- Shortest operational life of any Surveyor lander: <1 hour from launch to impact
- Provided critical engineering telemetry that shaped design changes for Surveyors 3–7

## Body
### Mission Overview
NASA’s Surveyor program aimed to prove soft-landing technology for Apollo. Surveyor 2, the second of seven planned landers, lifted off on 20 September 1966. A post-launch mid-course burn was scheduled to refine the trajectory; when one of the three vernier thrusters failed to ignite, unbalanced thrust sent the craft into an uncontrollable tumble. Communications ceased shortly afterward, and the spacecraft impacted the Moon on 23 September.

### Spacecraft Details
Built by Hughes Aircraft under a NASA contract, the lander consisted of a triangular aluminum frame topped by a solar panel and a mast carrying a TV camera and scientific instruments. Launch mass was 995.2 kg, including 292 kg of dry hardware and about 700 kg of propellant. The vehicle carried no retrorocket; instead, the vernier engines were to slow it for a 3 m/s touchdown.

### Launch & Trajectory
An Atlas-Centaur AC-10 configuration placed Surveyor 2 into a direct lunar trajectory. The Centaur stage separated, leaving the spacecraft spin-stabilized at 2.5 rpm. The failed thruster occurred 16.5 hours after launch, at an altitude of ~140,000 km from Earth.

### Impact Site
Tracking data indicated impact near the eastern rim of Copernicus crater in lunar quadrangle LQ19 at roughly 11° N, 20° W. The hard landing scattered fragments across the regolith; no soft-landing package survived.

### Legacy
Engineers traced the thruster failure to a leaky check valve that allowed oxidizer back-flow. Redundant valves and improved sequencing were added to Surveyors 3–7, all of which achieved safe landings. Surveyor 2’s telemetry archive remains a reference for small-thruster failure analysis.

## Schema Markup
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## References

1. Jonathan's Space Report
2. Freebase Data Dumps. 2013