Talk:List of missions to the Moon

Spelling
To clarify, I placed the Use British English, Use DMY dates and British English tags on this article and its talk page respectively, to reflect a matter of fact - that the page was started in, and has evolved in, British English with DMY dates - since an inexperienced editor had started using other spellings. Since the article doesn't cover any specific country there are no national ties to justify changing, so WP:ENGVAR and MOS:TIES state that this should not be changed. True, the United States has conducted missions to the Moon, but they do not have a monopoly on the subject. In any case undiscussed changes of dialect are considered disruptive editing. -- W.  D.   Graham  00:45, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Seems like you started the article. Alright then, keep it in BrE per WP:ENGVAR. - M0rphzone (talk) 07:28, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

Destination is different to study objective
The list in the Moon exploration article tries to include all missions that were conceived to perform scientific studies either of the Moon itself or physical and/or biological impact of the satellite environment; it excludes missions such as ISEE-3 that approached the Moon due to orbital dynamics requirements to fulfil its mission that are present in the List of missions to the Moon article. So I think these lists should not be merged as they have different goals. Tom Paine (talk) 02:20, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I removed the merger proposal from 2013 (hatnote). I assume that the above post is a reply to said proposal. Unfortunately, there seems to be no proper post that explains why the list in Exploration_of_the_Moon §&thinsp;Timeline of Moon exploration should have been merged into article List of missions to the Moon in the first place. For the future, I strongly recommend to removed carelessly added hatnotes (i.e. merger-proposals without link to a post on a talkpage) within weeks, not years.   R fassbind  – talk   09:53, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Merger proposal
I propose that List of proposed missions to the Moon be merged into this article. Because both articles are about missions to the Moon its better to have their content in the same article. MartinZ02 (talk) 12:35, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Unexplained removal of sourced information
has removed relevant sourced information   without explanation. Please restore it or explain your actions here, otherwise (I am sure) others will revert you (discussion courtesy of WP:3RR) – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 17:51, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Merge with List of lunar probes
Most of the information about lunar exploration programs is duplicated between those two lists. The main differences are: For #1, I have no strong preference, we should pick a style as is or maybe start with one of the lists and incorporate extra information from the other. I'm just opening the discussion. For #2, I don't see the need for a separate list of robotic probes: on the contrary, lunar probes during the Space Race were precursors to manned missions or rehearsals thereof, so grouping them in the same article is more historically relevant. Comments welcome. — JFG talk 14:00, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
 * 1) formatting of the table and choice of columns
 * 2) presence of manned missions
 * Support, if done well. I really like the Zond 5 mission, which orbited and returned the first Earth life forms to reach and orbit the moon. Randy Kryn 22:52, 13 November 2016 (UTC)


 * we shouldnt — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.153.137.255 (talk) 09:49, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Support. Dobrichev (talk) 17:05, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Oppose It's clearer if we keep these lists separate. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:49, 5 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Oppose, both templates have faired well. Randy Kryn (talk) 21:50, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Closing, given the lack of consensus for a merge despite more than 18 months. Klbrain (talk) 20:59, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

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ESA Aurora
The Aurora programme article lists a manned mission to the moon in 2024. So, why is it not listed here? Kidburla (talk) 15:24, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
 * They did some noise early this century stating that date but they did not develop any mission. Rowan Forest (talk) 22:45, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

Manned missions?
Which of these missions were manned? How does one go about requesting a new column be added? Matthewmorrone1 (talk) 22:42, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
 * The table already indicates manned missions; I don't think a special column is necessary, given that very few missions were manned. Perhaps a color highlight? Recent trend is to call them "crewed", btw, but this article has not been modified yet. — JFG talk 23:02, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
 * The feedback I got was to use the old terminology (manned) for missions 1970-1990s as the space agencies used such language. After that, the terminology became "crewed", which is what we use now in Wikipedia. It is difficult to use both terms in this List, as it includes all crewed/manned spacecraft ever sent. I'd like to use "crewed" throughout this List, but their respective parent articles may retain the historic (manned) term. Cheers, Rowan Forest (talk) 01:30, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
 * We should only use manned in quotes and crewed otherwise (or similarly neutral terms).  Kees08  (Talk)   02:30, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
 * "Manned" is fine for now, in any definition. Only males have been to the moon or have circled the moon. That's one of the main reasons that "we" should go back to the moon, to get a woman there. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:29, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

It says "astronauts" for the planned Chinese crewed lunar mission 1. Is there a consensus on wikipedia whether the word "astronaut(s)" or "taikonaut(s)" should be applied when refering to Chinese space crews? 08:54, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Partial failure
KevWang and I had a disagreement over the assessment of Chinese Yutu rover mission (partial vs mostly successful). : I admit KevWang's idea that it is inadequate to use the same assessment 'partial failure / partial success' to describe this mission and Soviet Mars 3 lander. It seems that the term 'partial failure' is ill-defined and susceptible to be abused.

There is a list of possibly disputed robotic science missions: 1. ExoMars EDM lander: crash-landed. ESA declared the mission 'a success'. My opinion: Failure. 2. Mars 3 lander and Hitomi telescope: very limited useful data returned to earth. My opinion: Failure. Or a new category named 'minimally successful' (as opposed to 'mostly successful') should be created. 3. Yutu rover: stranded and worked as a quasi-stationary lander for a significant portion of the primary mission. My opinion: Partial failure. 4. Akatsuki: inserted into a highly elliptical orbit and suffered an electronic failure disabled two instruments out of five. My opinion: Partial failure.

Pinging some contributors to spaceflight topics:

please comment and (if necessary) vote. -PSR B1937+21 (talk) 03:31, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
 * It's been sometimes tricky to assess the difference between a "partial success" and a "partial failure". When a space agency claims "success" for an obviously failed mission (Schiaparelli), we should mark it failed while adding a qualifier that some of the mission objectives were nonetheless fulfilled (and quote the space agency for that). Hopefully the majority of sources in that case still call it a failure. Hitomi is another class of events: launch success rapidly followed by spacecraft failure. Sometimes the situation is not clarified until a few days or weeks, as specialists try to salvage the mission (for example AngoSat 1). When a satellite is launched into a less-than-optimal orbit but makes up for it on its own fuel, what do we call it? Yes, VA-241 I'm looking at you. And when a mission is simultaneously communicated as a total success and a total failure (Zuma), we're stuck with echoing both points of view, duly attributed. To the specific cases you highlight, I'd say Schiaparelli failed, Mars 3 was a partial failure, Hitomi failed, Yutu succeeded (it did move for a couple days, and it lived and performed observations well beyond its design objective of three months), Akatsuki partial failure. But our opinions are not relevant: we must report what the majority of sources say about those missions. — JFG talk 05:38, 29 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Proposal - It is an issue I always kept away from because two words cannot describe whether the partial 'whatever' was due to engineering, the science payload, fuel, or if a mouse chewed on the yellow wire. Who is to interpret if an engineering success -or failure- of a probe has precedent over the launcher performance, or its science payload, or the calculations of the orbit, etc. This has resulted in edit conflicts, and will continue for the foreseeable future. I propose that the Wikipedia Spaceflight Project members choose a standard entry to be used in case of a partial success/failure, such a "Partial success", possibly followed by "X failure" (X being a single word such as: launcher, propulsion, power, landing system, communications, deployment, payload, etc.) Cheers, Rowan Forest (talk) 19:14, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Cancelled USA missions
Constellation specifically says the Obama administration cancelled it; Resource Prospector just says it was cancelled. Either we should always identify the administration or never. I would lean towards saying it was cancelled and leave the administration out, although I do not have strong opinions. Thoughts?  Kees08  (Talk)   18:55, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
 * We do not need to "always or never" mention the administration. In the case of Constellation, the Obama admin made a point of changing NASA's approach, with the Augustine Commission, the 2008 financial crisis, and lots of political talk reported for several months in sources, so it's legitimate to name them. For Resource Prospector, it sounds like a non-political decision applied to a project with a relatively low budget, so politicians can be left out. — JFG talk 19:52, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

EM-1 ride share
The EM-1 is a ride-share launch. It carries several independent lunar spacecraft with independent missions unrelated to the Orion test so they are not just "components" of it. Each of the secondary spacecraft is an individual lunar mission from a variety of institutions, with individual goals, and therefore their deletion from this list was not valid. Cheers, Rowan Forest (talk) 14:51, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Your reverts are not compelling arguments. Take a break, and read about the mission of each CubeSat in this rideshare.


 * 1) It is a rideshare flight. The primary payload is Orion, the secondary payloads are the CubeSats.
 * 2) Secondary spacecraft is not a synonym of "secondary components" of the Orion test
 * 3) Each secondary spacecraft is an independent and unrelated spacecraft mission to the Moon.
 * Rowan Forest (talk) 21:53, 8 December 2018 (UTC)


 * This is a list of missions. Not a list of spacecraft. And if you want to make a list of spacecraft (again: which this is not), then every craft of every mission should be included in stead of only EM-1's. The extended coverage of EM-1 as it was before is either out of place (which is obvious given the title of this very paragraph and the article as a whole), or of biased quality. The secondary payload are not different missions, as you can find in NASA's EM-1 flyer and the EM-1 mission page . It's all part of one mission and one mission only: EM-1.
 * Frankly I find that quite compelling. I don't understand why you keep denying that these are all one mission when: 1. This is the case for other, similar missions 2. NASA says so repeatedly 3. There isn't any logical reason to assume the opposite is true. I'd be interested to hear why you think my rebutal is incorrect. For now I'll assume my sources are correct and restore my previous change; please discuss before reverting. --SabasNL (talk) 04:01, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

Flag icons
Since Beresheet was a private enterprise, not national, should the national flag icon be displayed at missions to date? Doing so seems contrary to MOS:FLAG which says the flag may be used "where the subject actually represents that country or nationality". The same argument applies to SpaceX's row under future crewed missions. Bri.public (talk) 17:20, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Telemetry vs commands
, telemetry communication is not the same as commands. Vikram had an automated landing system:
 * "Even a minute mistake can lead to the failure of the lunar surface exploration part of the mission. Though experts believe that there are negligible chances of failure as most of the system are automated and computerised."
 * "Contact was lost minutes after the automated powered descent phase began."
 * "All systems were operating normally during the initial period of the automated powered descent phase".
 * Nobody was driving the lander by radio as you insist. An interruption in the telemetry transmission from an automated lander does not cause a crash. Falling at 209 km/h (58 m/s) at only 330 m from the surface can do the trick nicely, as shown by the last telemetry received on Earth and shown live on TV:
 * "Powered descent included four stages. The first three phases were executed nicely, but the last one was not executed in a nice way and we lost the link with the lander." -K. Sivan. Translation: The final burn failed. The lander crashed. No lander, no communication. [https://earthsky.org/space/india-chandrayaan-2-vikram-loss-of-contact-what-next
 * Your hoping the lander will phone home is sad. It is silent because it was destroyed. Gravity sucks. Let it go. Rowan Forest (talk) 00:18, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Update info about robotic mission
Proposal: add info about first UK's moon mission (spacebit mission one), which explore lunar caves use spider-like moon rovers. I think, it's relevant for wiki about space. I've already done the editing, but there's no page on this mission. Do you think the mission deserves a separate page? --Serhii Harbaruk (talk) 11:56, 23 January 2020 (UTC) 23.01.2020, Serhii Harbaruk

Turkish Space Agency (TUA) just announced their space program with includes two moon missions. First attempt will be a hard landing at late 2023. Second attempt will be a soft landing at 2028.

https://tua.gov.tr/en — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.104.14.34 (talk) 21:39, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Spelling of Agency seems off.
"Two separate spacecraft for the Canadian Space Agencys LEAP program "

DOGE-1
Should DOGE-1 be listed ? I am not quite sure whether this is for real or if it is an elaborate prank by Elon Musk. 131.176.243.9 (talk) 07:14, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
 * It was just a nonsensical pump attempt of a shitcoin. Deserves no attention until they actually arrive with something material to the launch pad (and chances for that are basically zero). SkywalkerPL (talk) 08:52, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

Lock the page
I'd recommend locking the page or using some other administrative tactic to protect this page. I just reversed an edit that inserted moon landing denier nonsense Science Is My Life (talk) 20:24, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Page protection may be requested at WP:RFPP. 331dot (talk) 20:25, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Need a new section on table
u Mr Unknown233 (talk) 07:04, 22 March 2023 (UTC) why there is not launch vehicle section in category proposed but full funding still unclear ?


 * Generally these missions don't have a fixed launch vehicle yet. A column with all TBD isn't very useful. mfb (talk) 19:00, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Lunar Flashlight
Shouldn't Lunar Flashlight be a partial failure, given that we already know the mission failed to achieve planned objective of entering the lunar orbit? SkywalkerPL (talk) 08:49, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

Years in milestone table
An IP started adding some years (permalink), Footy2000 removed them. I like them and propose to add them again and complete the table. It adds relevant information and it doesn't interfere with the current information content of the table. --mfb (talk) 18:58, 23 August 2023 (UTC)


 * It is a table of major milestones either achieved or not by the nations and it is not a timeline of events. Adding years will make it look chaotic and hard to follow while the same information can be found in the missions by date table. Also, how do you differentiate a milestone from other if you are considering them as a seperate dated achievements? for example UAE's rover which was carried by Japan's spacecraft had achieved a flyby, orbit and crash landing in the same year. This leads to a lot of redundant and less useful data in my opinion, again when the same information is available right below this table. Footy2000♡; 19:33, 23 August 2023 (UTC)


 * I started to add the year to the table because I thought it would show a fast summary of the events as they occured. The green box is useful, but the year adds more information in the same chart and shows how, of example, the USSR was first on most things, but the US was first in landing a crew on the moon. It also shows, how other countries started exploring the moon must later. I still believe that the years are would add to the summary chart, but I will leave it to others to decide.

BTW, if a country achieve multiple event in one year, I will still enter the year for each event. The redundancy would highlight the significance of that year.

user:mnw2000 12:13, 27 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Being against an inclusion because it's currently not included is a circular argument. It is possible to extract the same information from the list of missions but it's time-consuming because you might have to look through the whole list. How can it possibly be hard to follow? The years don't obstruct the cell color in any way. If the same mission achieved multiple milestones then they'll get the same year. No problem with that. Currently two in favor of inclusion and one against, hope to get more opinions here. --mfb (talk) 16:32, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Vandalism of Country Table
Anonymous user turned all US entries to red, "not achieved." Reverted changes. 2600:4041:20F:B400:B0A8:525C:4A84:9D5 (talk) 21:48, 23 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Thanks for solving this! Dg21dg21 (talk) 22:59, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Why isn't the USSR flag shown?
I understand that the Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore, but it's achievements for the Menkind will last forever (as you couldn't hide it in the long list of missions). I just find the omission unethical. Just give the deserved credits to the Soviets and show some respect to their successors - The Russian Federation. Amen! 197.218.119.116 (talk) 22:01, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
 * It is shown at least three times in first three sections (I stopped looking after the third) Moons of Io (talk) 11:19, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

Splitting up missions by date table
The current table that lists the missions does not seem to be easily navigable. Lots of scrolling just to see the latest missions makes it less user friendly. With split in two sections, namely: Missions in 20th century and Missions in 21st century can make it easier to access older missions as well as the latest ones. Footy2000♡; 14:45, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Clarification about "Missions by organization/company" stats
I'm quite confused about how those figures have been counted and, even more, if the method used will still be a good fit in the upcoming era of commercial space exploration. The total seems to be less than the total number of launches (149 as of today) but at the same time some launches are counted multiple counts (multiple cases cooperation between different agencies, or hosted payloads from different countries like in the Hakuto/Rashid case) so I'm really struggling to find a logic in there. Maybe it's time to settle the issue and decide what should be counted exactly and why in order to repeat the count and have consistent figures.

I'm personally fine with counting not just every launch but every spacecraft (on the long term it seems the best working option), and also to count multiple times spacecrafts built by multiple companies/agencies from different countries, but a hidden comment should be added to keep track fo these latter cases. Fm3dici97 (talk) 19:28, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Order of countries to reach the surface - solved
I am confused about the order of countries to reach the surface, article lists China as 6th then India as 5th, then Luxembourg as 8th followed by Israel as 7th. Earnsthearthrob (talk) 18:03, 24 January 2024 (UTC)


 * nm I am an idiot. Impact/landing dates not launch dates. Pls disregard. Earnsthearthrob (talk) 18:06, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Landing orientation and success
Whether a lander ended up on its side, nose, or facing an unexpected direction are not inherently criteria of mission success. The criteria are whether each payload was enabled to perform its designed function. (— 𝐬𝐝𝐒𝐝𝐬 — - talk) 05:07, 24 February 2024 (UTC)


 * LOL. White Pride kicks in, eh? Nice Propaganda on this page by you. Had you seen a single Black in the IM Mission Control room, you would have blamed "DEI" like Republicans are doing in the case of Boeing without any evidence. In fact, you can safely bet that the Boeing engineers and mechanics are Whites. I digress. Coming back to the topic, crash landing on the side with a broken leg should be considered spectacular success? LOL. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.1.63.216 (talk) 01:46, 5 April 2024 (UTC)


 * No also the criteria prescribed by space agency —🪦 VSVN  B1058 (2020-2023) (TALK) 15:36, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
 * @Sdsds SLIM lander main objective is landing so successful. Though im-1 has landed tilted here your statement comes that payloads must work. Moon Phases Art installation blocked is passive and rest payloads are working. Communication bleak signals say, itsa case of priority to get max Scientific results, so delay. Thus like for some virgin Galactic flights are suborbital at 85+km, landing givea mission success designation. —🪦 VSVN  B1058 (2020-2023) (TALK) 15:43, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
 * @Sdsds SLIM is not dead yet. Hurrah —🪦 VSVN  B1058 (2020-2023) (TALK) 05:35, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

No IM-1 on the map
please edit the map in the statistics of successful landings LakhnawiNawab (talk) 11:18, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

Australian Space Agency - Roo-ver Manifest
Under Future Missions, and under Artemis 3 Starship HLS delivery, the Roo-ver mission is incorrectly manifested on this mission.

The Australian space agency "Roo-ver" rover mission is not yet manifested, but will fly on an unspecified CLPS lander, not HLS. 131.170.239.14 (talk) 01:38, 15 March 2024 (UTC)