Surveyor 7

"Surveyor-G"
NSSDC ID:1968-001A

Description:
Surveyor 7 was the fifth and final spacecraft of the Surveyor series
to achieve a lunar soft landing. The objectives for this mission were
to: (1) perform a lunar soft landing (in an area well removed from the
 maria to provide a type of terrain photography and lunar sample
significantly different from those of other surveyor missions); (2)
obtain postlanding tv pictures; (3) determine the relative abundances
 of chemical elements; (4) manipulate the lunar material; (5) obtain
touchdown dynamics data; and, (6) obtain thermal and radar
reflectivity data. This spacecraft was similar in design to the
previous Surveyors, but it carried more scientific equipment
including a television camera with polarizing filters, an alpha-
scattering instrument, a surface sampler, bar magnets on two
footpads, two horseshoe magnets on the surface scoop, and
auxiliary mirrors. Of the auxiliary mirrors, three were used to
observe areas below the spacecraft, one to provide stereoscopic 
iews of the surface sampler area, and seven to show lunar material
deposited on the spacecraft. The spacecraft landed on the lunar
surface on January 10, 1968, on the outer rim of the crater Tycho.
Operations of the spacecraft began shortly after the soft landing
and were terminated on January 26, 1968, 80 hours after sunset.
Operations on the second lunar day occurred from February 12--21,
 1968. The mission objectives were fully satisfied by the spacecraft
operations.