CAPE KENNEDY: Surveyor VII, last of a series of unmanned American lunar probes, was on its way to the moon today [Jan 7] to photograph the surface and analyse the soil. Officials here said all systems on the spacecraft were working well and the flight appeared to be going as planned.

Sent aloft in the nose of an Atlas-Centaur rocket, Surveyor VII went into a coasting orbit around the earth until the centaur second stage was fired a second time, sending it out into space on a 65-hour journey to the moon.

In what is expected to be the most tricky task yet, National Aeronautics and Space Adminis­tration scientists hope to guide surveyor to a soft landing near the crater Tycho. To hit the 12-mile diametre target north of Tycho, in the moon’s southern hemisphere, two mid- course corrections, instead of the usual one, will probably be needed.

A NASA spokesman said the four previous successful surveyor missions had accomplished their task of providing detailed information in four widely separated regions in the moon’s equatorial belt, earmarked for possible future’ landing zones in the Apollo Man-on-the-Moon Programme. They showed that the surface terrain would support the weight of a manned spaceship. The terrain is very rugged but the large scientific gains are believed to be worth the estimated 40 per cent chance of complete success.

Published in Dawn, January 8th, 2018