 Before NASA could send men to land on the moon, it had to figure out what the moon's environment was like. I'm Amy Shearer, and today on Fated Space, we're talking about the Surveyor Program. Between May of 1966 and January of 1968, seven Surveyor missions were launched to the moon, most of them to equatorial landing sites that would be suitable for manned missions. Each spacecraft was designed to gather environmental data on the moon using small suite of instruments. There was a camera on board controlled by commands from the Earth that could image the environment around the lander. Below the camera was a scoop with a sharpened blade that could dig small trenches and deliver soil samples into the electric motor operated container. It was below the TV so technicians could image the scoop and specifically the soil before and after it was moved around. There was also an alpha scattering surface analyzer on board to gather data on the chemical composition of the lunar material. Only two of the seven Surveyor missions failed. One engine failed to ignite during a mid-course maneuver on Surveyor 2, sending the spacecraft tumbling into the moon where it crashed. On Surveyor 4, radio contact was lost during the spacecraft's terminal descent. It's likely it crashed into the moon, but it's also possible that it actually exploded before impacting the surface. We'll never know. But the rest of the missions were stunning successes and gathered a lot of the data NASA needed to plan the Apollo lunar landing missions. And a few pieces of Surveyor 3 did actually make it back to Earth. Apollo 12 landed about 600 feet from Surveyor 3's landing site. During their second EVA, Pete Conrad and Al Bean recovered the camera and scoop from Surveyor 3. The former has ended up in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and the latter at the museum at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The Apollo 12 crew also tried to bring back a little bit of glass that was on Surveyor 3, but ended up just shattering it on the surface. For daily spacey updates, most of them vintage-related, follow me on Twitter as AST Vintage Space. And don't forget to subscribe right here so you never miss another episode.