Moon mission success rate

The cost of learning

The first nineteen years of Moon flights were a long list of lessons. NASA's Rangers 3 to 6 failed, and Ranger 7, launched on July 28, 1964, finally returned close-up pictures. Surveyor flights succeeded 5 times in 7 tries, and Lunar Orbiter 5 times in 5. The five Lunar Orbiters returned 3,062 images, with 99 percent coverage of the Moon at a resolution of 60 meters or better. Those were the programs that scouted for Apollo. The Soviet Union flew more and lost more: all 3 N1 launches in the ledger failed.

How "partial" works

The early Moon missions are where the partial grade does most of its work. Pioneer 3 missed lunar escape but returned radiation-belt measurements, one of its scientific objectives. Luna 1 missed its intended impact but returned measurements of space near the Moon. Apollo 13 didn't land but brought its crew home. More recently, LunaH-Map, Lunar Flashlight and OMOTENASHI are graded partial, because some stated objective succeeded even though the main one didn't.

By decade

The first nineteen years of Moon flights were the costliest. Before 1977 42% of missions succeeded fully and 48% failed. After a long gap with no launches, missions since 1990 have fully succeeded far more often.

By program

The Soviet record includes 22 launch failures, 3 of them on the N1 rocket that never reached orbit with a Moon payload. China has 11 full successes, 1 partial and 0 failures from 12 graded missions.

Private companies

Missions from private companies have fully succeeded 29% of the time so far, with 2 success, 1 partial and 4 failures from 7 graded missions. That compares with 50% for all Moon missions. These are first attempts, and landing on the Moon is hard for everyone: Intuitive Machines' landers tipped over, ispace lost two landers on descent, and Astrobotic's Peregrine leaked propellant on the way.

Rates use missions with a final result and treat partial as not a full success. Missions still operating at the data date are graded once their main goals are verified; see how we count.

The pause, and the comeback

After Luna 24 in 1976, nobody launched toward the Moon for 13 years. The missions of the 1990s and 2000s were fewer and mostly worked. Clementine is graded partial, because its asteroid encounter was lost after a spacecraft fault. Lunar Prospector, SMART-1 and Kaguya succeeded, and so did China's Chang'e-1 and Chang'e-2. China has 11 full successes in 12 graded missions.

Why private landers are different

Companies' first attempts have been hard on the table. Astrobotic's Peregrine failed after a single helium pressure control valve (PCV2) lost its seal and the oxidizer tank ruptured, and the lander never reached the Moon. Intuitive Machines' Odysseus landed on February 22, 2024 and tipped over, but its instruments kept working for seven days, so the ledger grades it a success. Its small EagleCam returned no image, which is a separate failure. Firefly's Blue Ghost landed on March 2, 2025 and worked for more than 14 days. ispace's two landers crashed: the first after its software discarded an altitude jump as an error, the second after a laser rangefinder failed.

The results are a snapshot, not a verdict. Landing on the Moon was a failure for most government programs that tried first, too. The landings that worked are on every Moon landing, and how each failure ended is on Moon missions that failed.

The three biggest programs

The three programs with the most graded missions have the United States 33 successes, 9 partial and 15 failures, the Soviet Union / Russia 17 successes, 4 partial and 36 failures and China 11 successes, 1 partial and 0 failures. The ordering doesn't say who was better. It says who flew in which era, since the early losses by both the Soviet Union and the United States came when every launch was new.

The 2020s so far

Missions launched since 2020 with a final result number 26: 15 succeeded, 4 partly succeeded and 7 failed. The group is a mix of government orbiters, company landers and small satellites launched as passengers on larger rockets. Small spacecraft raise the number of attempts.

Relays and the far side

Some recent successes are the infrastructure behind other missions. China's Queqiao-2 relay satellite, launched in March 2024, supported Chang'e-6 when it landed in the Apollo Basin on June 2, 2024 (Beijing time). The sample capsule came down in China on June 25, 2024. A relay that does its job rarely makes headlines, but the far-side landings depend on it.

What the rate tells you

A success rate on this page is a count of how things went, not a measure of difficulty. The Moon is close, and its gravity is low, but a lander has no atmosphere to slow it, so every landing depends on thrusters, sensors and software working in sequence. The mission count shows how many tries each era made.

Recent partial results

Since 2000, six missions have been graded partial: Longjiang / DSLWP, Chandrayaan-2, LunaH-Map, OMOTENASHI, Lunar Flashlight and IM-2. Each met at least one stated objective, such as a technology demonstration, a measurement or a working orbiter, while losing another, which is why they sit between the success and failure columns.

Comparing eras fairly

Comparing the Space Race with today is tricky for a simple reason. The early programs launched many identical copies of the same craft, and a run of failures in one design counts many times. Modern programs send fewer, more varied missions. The percentages are accurate counts, but each era's number answers a slightly different question.

Best and worst decades

By decade of launch, the highest full-success share was in the 2000s, at 100%, and the lowest in the 1950s, at 15%. Decades with only a few missions swing widely, so a high or low number there doesn't say much on its own.