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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.

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