List of landings on extraterrestrial bodies

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This is a list of all spacecraft landings on other planets and bodies in the Solar System, including soft landings and both intended and unintended hard impacts. The list includes orbiters that were intentionally crashed, but not orbiters which later crashed in an unplanned manner due to orbital decay.

Table of Contents

Landings[edit]

Colour key:

– Unsuccessful soft landing, intentional hard landing, or mission still in progress.

– Successful soft landing with intelligible data return. The tannish hue indicates extraterrestrial soil.

– Successful soft landing, intelligible data return, and sample return to Earth. The greenish hue indicates terrestrial return.

– Successful soft landing, data/voice/video communication, sample return to Earth, and safe astronaut landing and return to Earth.

Planets[edit]

Mercury[edit]

Mission	Country/Agency	Date of landing/impact	Coordinates	Notes
MESSENGER	United States	30 April 2015	Probably around 54.4° N, 149.9° W, near the crater Janáček	Intentionally crashed at end of mission.

Venus[edit]

Mars[edit]

Jupiter[edit]

Jupiter is a gas giant with a very large atmospheric pressure and internal temperature and thus there is no known hard surface on which to “land”. All missions listed here are impacts on Jupiter.

Mission	Country/Agency	Date of landing/impact	Notes
Galileo atmospheric probe	USA	7 December 1995	Atmospheric probe of Jupiter.
Galileo	USA	21 September 2003	Main craft was intentionally directed at Jupiter and disintegrated in Jovian atmosphere.

Saturn[edit]

Saturn is a gas giant with a very large atmospheric pressure and internal temperature and thus there is no known hard surface on which to “land”. All missions listed here are impacts on Saturn.

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Mission	Country/ Agency	Date of landing/impact	Notes
Cassini orbiter	USA	15 September 2017	Main craft was intentionally directed at Saturn and disintegrated in Saturn’s atmosphere

Planetary moons[edit]

Earth’s Moon[edit]

Moons of Mars[edit]

Phobos

Mission	Country/Agency	Date of landing/impact	Coordinates	Notes
Phobos 2^{[citation needed]}	USSR	February 1989 (planned)		Phobos landing was planned but never attempted due to loss of contact

Moons of Saturn[edit]

Titan

Other bodies[edit]

Asteroids[edit]

Comets[edit]

Body	Mission	Country/Agency	Date of landing/impact	Notes
Comet 9P/Tempel 1	Deep Impact	USA	4 July 2005	Impactor.
Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko	Rosetta	ESA	12 November 2014	Philae lander. Successful soft landing, but anchors misfired and Philae bounced multiple times before coming to rest. Philae transmitted briefly but could not maintain power due to its awkward landing.
Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko	Rosetta	ESA	29 September 2016	The Rosetta orbiter was intentionally crashed into the comet.

References[edit]

^

Brian Harvey (2007). Russian planetary exploration. Springer. pp. 98–101. ISBN 978-0-387-46343-8.
^ ^a ^b “Pioneer Venus Probes”.
^ “NSSDC Master Catalog – Venera 13 Descent Craft”. NASA National Space Science Data Center. Retrieved 13 April 2013.
^ “Mars 2, 3 (Mars M71 #1, #2, #3)”.
^ “Mars 3”. Retrieved 28 May 2010.
^ Williams, David R. Dr. (18 December 2006). “Viking Mission to Mars”. NASA. Retrieved 2 February 2014.
^ “Lost Beagle2 probe found ‘intact’ on Mars”, BBC News, 16 January 2015
^ “Schiaparelli crash site in colour”. European Space Agency. 3 November 2016. Retrieved 15 January 2017.
^ “The Sky is Falling” Archived 2010-04-02 at the Wayback Machine, NASA, April 28, 2006
^ Williams, David R. (7 December 2018). “Future Chinese Lunar Missions”. NASA. Archived from the original on 4 January 2019. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
^ Jones, Andrew (7 June 2017). “China confirms landing site for Chang’e-5 Moon sample return”. GB Times. Archived from the original on 28 March 2019. Retrieved 17 December 2017.
^ “Chang’e-5 spacecraft smashes into moon after completing mission”. SpaceNews. 8 December 2020. Retrieved 11 December 2020.
^ “NASA’s DART Mission Hits Asteroid in First-Ever Planetary Defense Test”. NASA. 27 September 2022.

[v1-1] 

Brian Harvey (2007). Russian planetary exploration. Springer. pp. 98–101. ISBN 978-0-387-46343-8.

[:0-2] “Pioneer Venus Probes”.

[3] “NSSDC Master Catalog – Venera 13 Descent Craft”. NASA National Space Science Data Center. Retrieved 13 April 2013.

[4] “Mars 2, 3 (Mars M71 #1, #2, #3)”.

[Mars3-5] “Mars 3”. Retrieved 28 May 2010.

[NASA-20061218-6] Williams, David R. Dr. (18 December 2006). “Viking Mission to Mars”. NASA. Retrieved 2 February 2014.

[7] “Lost Beagle2 probe found ‘intact’ on Mars”, BBC News, 16 January 2015

[8] “Schiaparelli crash site in colour”. European Space Agency. 3 November 2016. Retrieved 15 January 2017.

[9] “The Sky is Falling” Archived 2010-04-02 at the Wayback Machine, NASA, April 28, 2006

[Ch_5-10] Williams, David R. (7 December 2018). “Future Chinese Lunar Missions”. NASA. Archived from the original on 4 January 2019. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.

[jones-11] Jones, Andrew (7 June 2017). “China confirms landing site for Chang’e-5 Moon sample return”. GB Times. Archived from the original on 28 March 2019. Retrieved 17 December 2017.

[12] “Chang’e-5 spacecraft smashes into moon after completing mission”. SpaceNews. 8 December 2020. Retrieved 11 December 2020.

[13] “NASA’s DART Mission Hits Asteroid in First-Ever Planetary Defense Test”. NASA. 27 September 2022.