Five stories
The Soviet Union
The Soviet Union landed first and built the longest robotic record: 8 soft landings, from Luna 9 on February 3, 1966 to Luna 24 in 1976. They include sample returns, such as Luna 16's 101 grams and Luna 24's 170 grams, and the Lunokhod rovers. Lunokhod 1 roved 10.5 kilometers over 322 days. Russia's one try since, Luna 25, crashed on August 19, 2023.
The United States
The United States made 14 soft landings: the Surveyors scouted, Apollo put people on the surface, and commercial partners have landed since. Surveyor 1 was the first, on June 2, 1966, and Apollo 12's lunar module landed 155 meters from Surveyor 3. The Apollo count and crews are on the Apollo page.
China
China has 4 soft landings, all graded successes. Chang'e-3 was the first on the Moon since 1976, on December 14, 2013, and Chang'e-4 the first on the far side, on January 3, 2019. Chang'e-5 returned 1,731 grams of samples, and Chang'e-6 collected 1,935.3 grams from the far side.
India and Japan
India's Chandrayaan-3 landed on August 23, 2023, and became the first to land near the southern polar region. Japan's SLIM landed on January 20, 2024 (JST), about 55 meters east of its target, although it most likely lost thrust from one of its two main engines at 50 meters up. Each program's earlier attempt is covered on the success rate page: India's Chandrayaan-2 lander crashed in 2019.
The five programs
| Program | Soft landings | First (UTC) | Latest (UTC) | Crewed landings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Soviet Union / Russia | 8 | February 3, 1966 (Luna 9) | August 18, 1976 | 0 |
| United States | 14 | June 2, 1966 (Surveyor 1) | March 6, 2025 | 6 |
| China | 4 | December 14, 2013 (Chang'e-3 / Yutu) | June 1, 2024 | 0 |
| India | 1 | August 23, 2023 (Chandrayaan-3) | August 23, 2023 | 0 |
| Japan | 1 | January 19, 2024 (SLIM) | January 19, 2024 | 0 |
The Soviet Union's Luna program made the first soft landing and the first robotic sample return. China's Chang'e landers are the only ones to reach the far side, and the only ones since 1976 to bring samples home. India landed near the south pole in 2023, and Japan's SLIM made a precision landing in 2024.
Private landers
NASA now buys rides to the Moon from companies. Of the 7 missions we count from Astrobotic, Intuitive Machines, Firefly, ispace and SpaceIL, 3 landed softly: IM-1 and IM-2 from Intuitive Machines, and Blue Ghost 1 from Firefly. Both Intuitive Machines landers tipped over. Astrobotic's Peregrine never reached the Moon, ispace's two landers crashed, and SpaceIL's Beresheet crashed in 2019. Across these companies the result so far is 2 success, 1 partial and 4 failures.
Intuitive Machines and Firefly are counted under the United States, and ispace under Japan, because those are the countries behind the missions.
Tried and not yet landed
Israel has reached the Moon with a lander and crashed, without a soft landing yet. Russia's Luna 25 crashed in 2023, but the Soviet program it follows made eight soft landings.
How the company landers came to rest
Intuitive Machines' Odysseus touched down on February 22, 2024, in a one-kilometer crater, on a slope of about 12 degrees, and came to rest at about 30 degrees. Firefly's Blue Ghost followed on March 2, 2025, in Mare Crisium, and ran for more than 14 days of surface operations. Intuitive Machines' second lander, on March 6, 2025, ended on its side about 820 feet from its target. The ledger counts 3 of the 7 private missions as soft landings.
Orbiters but not landers
Some programs have reached the Moon without landing. The ledger lists ESA, South Korea and Pakistan among the operators whose missions flew to the Moon, and none has put a lander down. How many missions each has launched is on how many missions have gone to the Moon, and the distance a spacecraft has to cover is on the travel time page.
How long each program has been landing
Measured from first to latest landing, the spans are the Soviet Union / Russia from 1966 to 1976, the United States from 1966 to 2025, China from 2013 to 2024, India in 2023 and Japan in 2024. The Soviet and American runs overlap in the 1960s and 1970s, and the Chinese run starts in the 2010s. Nobody landed between 1976 and 2013, which is why the early programs and the recent ones barely overlap.
Sample returns
Bringing material home is a separate achievement from landing. The Soviet Union's Luna 16 brought back about 101 grams, and Luna 24 170 grams. Apollo returned far more, as the Apollo numbers show. China's Chang'e-5 returned 1,731 grams, and Chang'e-6 collected 1,935.3 grams from the far side, a preliminary measurement. Its capsule came down in China on June 25, 2024.
The far side
Only China has landed on the far side, which faces away from Earth and needs a relay satellite to keep a lander in contact. Chang'e-4 did it on January 3, 2019, in Von Karman crater, inside the South Pole-Aitken basin, with the Queqiao relay already in a halo orbit around the Earth-Moon L2 point since June 2018. Chang'e-6 did it again, in the Apollo Basin, on June 2, 2024 (Beijing time), supported by the Queqiao-2 relay.
The order of first landings
By the year of its first soft landing, the order is the Soviet Union / Russia (1966), the United States (1966), China (2013), India (2023) and Japan (2024). The Soviet Union and the United States landed within four months of each other in 1966. Then nobody else landed for almost half a century. China arrived in 2013, India in 2023 and Japan in 2024, so three of the five programs landed for the first time in the last thirteen years.
What "landed" doesn't mean
The table counts soft landings, meaning the craft touched down in one piece. It doesn't mean the mission went well afterward. Japan's SLIM landed but most likely lost thrust from one of its two main engines on the way down, and both Intuitive Machines landers ended up tipped over. The results are graded on the success rate page, not here.