Surveyor 2: Things Don’t Always Go As Planned

Sun, 20 Sep 2026 16:23:32 +0000

For those who follow the world’s space programs, it is well known that things do not always go as planned. A mission can go very wrong with no warning leaving engineers and scientists scrambling to figure out what has happened and, if possible, correct the problem. While the history of space exploration is filled with instances where the brilliant efforts of ground controllers pay off and they are able to salvage a mission from the jaws of failure, sometimes that does not prove to be possible. One little-known and unfortunate example of the latter is NASA’s Surveyor 2 mission which was suppose to soft land on the Moon in September 1966 after its predecessor managed to do the same thing in the program’s first try less than four months earlier.

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Surveyor 2: Things Don’t Always Go As Planned