The sign accompanying the Surveyor engineering model. It reads
Surveyor
Paving the Way for Apollo
This is an engineering model of the Surveyor. unmanned
lunar pathfinder. Surveyor
1 became America's first spacecraft to successfully soft land on
the Moon, doing so on 2 June 1966. Six more Surveyors were sent to the Moon.
The primary objectives of Surveyors were to transmit scientific and engineering
information from the lunar surface to determine if the terrain was safe for
manned lunar landings. Equipped with a survey
camera and a trenching scoop,
Surveyor transmitted images of the lunar topography as well as
tested lunar soil by using the scoop.
On 19 November 1969, Pete Conrad and Alan Bean from the crew of Apollo XII landed on the edge of
a crater within 200 yards of the Surveyor
3 spacecraft. Prior to leaving the lunar surface, they visited
the crater containing Surveyor 3 and removed the trenching
scoop and camera from the spacecraft, which had landed on the Moon almost two
years prior to their arrival. These pieces were taken back to Earth for
scientific study. The camera is now on
display at the National Air and Space
Museum. The trenching
scoop is currently on loan from NASA to the Cosmosphere and can be seen
on display in the museum's Apollo Gallery.
On loan from the National Air and Space Museum, L5115A.