Surveyor 4

by Hamish Lindsay.

Surveyor 4.

Launched : 1153 UT (2153 AEST) Friday 14 July 1967.
Landed : Crashed onto lunar surface Monday 17 July 1967.
Location : Sinus Medii
Final LOS : Monday 17 July 1967

The fourth Surveyor mission’s spacecraft equipment included a television camera and auxiliary mirrors, a soil mechanics surface sampler, strain gauges on the spacecraft landing legs, and numerous engineering sensors.

Launch.
Surveyor 4 was launched at 11:53:29 UT (2153:29 AEST) on 14 July 1967 on an Atlas-Centaur D AC-11 booster from Launch Complex LC-36A.

Flight.
After a flawless flight to the moon, radio signals from the spacecraft ceased during the terminal descent phase on 17 July 1967, approximately 2.5 min before touchdown.

Contact with the spacecraft was never re-established, and the mission was declared to be unsuccessful.

The original planned landing target was Latitude 0.4ºN, Longitude 1.33ºW.
The accurate impact site is unknown – it is possible the spacecraft exploded before impact.

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See also:

The Missions: Surveyor 1, Surveyor 2, Surveyor 3, Surveyor 4, Surveyor 5, Surveyor 6, Surveyor 7.

Surveyor Program Results Summary, The Surveyor Spacecraft and Systems.