Astronomy:Deliberate crash landings on extraterrestrial bodies

Short description: List of deliberate crash landings on extraterrestrial bodies

Deep Impact at Comet 9P/Tempel 1

Dart Impact at Dimorphos

Mars 2020 Skycrane descend stage crash smoke plume in the distance

These are tables of space probes (typically orbiters or components thereof) which have been deliberately destroyed at their objects of study, typically by hard landings or crash landings at the end of their respective missions and/or functionality. This endeavor not only precludes the hazards of orbital space debris and planetary contamination, but also provides the opportunity in some cases for terminal science given that the transient light released by the kinetic energy may be available for spectroscopy; the physical ejecta remains in place for further study. Even after soft landings had been mastered, NASA used crash landings to test whether Moon craters contained ice by crashing space probes into craters and testing the debris that got thrown out.^[1]

Several rocket stages utilized during the Apollo space program were deliberately crashed on the Moon to aid seismic research, and four of the ascent stages of Apollo Lunar Modules were deliberately crashed onto the Moon after they had fulfilled their primary mission. In total at least 47 NASA rocket bodies have impacted the Moon.

A recent impactor, the unusual double-crater of which was photographed on March 4, 2022 by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, is of unknown provenance; no space program has taken credit for it.^[2] The Deep Impact mission had its own purpose-built impactor which hit Comet 9P/Tempel 1. Terminal approaches to gas giants which resulted in the destruction of the space probe count as crash landings for the purposes of this article. The crash landing sites themselves are of interest to space archeology.

Luna 1, not itself a lunar orbiter, was the first spacecraft designed as an impactor. It failed to hit the Moon in 1959, however, thus inadvertently becoming the first man-made object to leave geocentric orbit and enter a heliocentric orbit, where it remains to this day.

Mercury

Mission	Country/Agency	Date of landing/impact	Coordinates	Notes
MESSENGER	United States	30 April 2015	Probably around 54.4° N, 149.9° W, near the crater Janáček	Intentionally crashed at end of mission.

Moon

Mission	Country/Agency	Date of landing/impact	Coordinates	Notes
Luna 2	Soviet Union	13 September 1959	[ ⚑ ] 29°06′N 0°00′W / 29.1°N 0°W / 29.1; -0	Intentional hard impact.
Ranger 4	United States	26 April 1962	[ ⚑ ] 15°30′S 130°42′W / 15.5°S 130.7°W / -15.5; -130.7	Intentional hard impact; hit lunar far side due to failure of navigation system.
Ranger 6	United States	2 February 1964	[ ⚑ ] 9°24′N 21°30′E / 9.4°N 21.5°E / 9.4; 21.5	Intentional hard impact.
Ranger 7	United States	31 July 1964	[ ⚑ ] 10°21′S 20°35′W / 10.35°S 20.58°W / -10.35; -20.58	Intentional hard impact.
Ranger 8	United States	20 February 1965	[ ⚑ ] 2°43′N 24°37′E / 2.72°N 24.61°E / 2.72; 24.61	Intentional hard impact.
Ranger 9	United States	24 March 1965	[ ⚑ ] 12°50′S 2°22′W / 12.83°S 2.37°W / -12.83; -2.37	Intentional hard impact.
Lunar Orbiter 1	United States	29 October 1966		Lunar orbiter, intentionally crashed at end of mission.
Hiten	Japan	10 April 1993		Lunar orbiter, intentionally crashed at end of mission.
Lunar Prospector	United States	31 July 1999	[ ⚑ ] 87°42′S 42°06′E / 87.7°S 42.1°E / -87.7; 42.1	Lunar orbiter, intentionally crashed into polar crater at end of mission to test for liberation of water vapour (not detected).
SMART-1	ESA	3 September 2006		Lunar orbiter, intentionally crashed at end of mission.
Chandrayaan-1 Moon Impact Probe	India	14 November 2008		Impactor. Water found.
SELENE Rstar (Okina)	Japan	12 February 2009		Lunar orbiter, intentionally crashed at end of mission.
Chang'e 1	China	1 March 2009		Lunar orbiter, intentionally crashed at end of mission.
Kaguya	Japan	10 June 2009		Lunar orbiter, intentionally crashed at end of mission.
LCROSS (Centaur)	United States	9 October 2009	[ ⚑ ] 84°40′30″S 48°43′30″W / 84.675°S 48.725°W / -84.675; -48.725 [ ⚑ ] 84°43′44″S 49°21′36″W / 84.729°S 49.360°W / -84.729; -49.360	Impactors: main craft flew through the plume of lunar dust created by its own upper rocket stage gathering data. Water confirmed.
Longjiang 2	China	31 July 2019	[ ⚑ ] 16°41′44″N 159°31′01″E / 16.6956°N 159.5170°E / 16.6956; 159.5170^[3]	Micro-satellite, intentionally crashed at end of mission.
Chang'e 5 ascender	China	7 December 2020	[ ⚑ ] 30°S 0°E / 30°S 0°E / -30; 0	Intentional impact of ascent stage after delivering sample to orbiter.

Mars and beyond

Mission	Country/Agency	Date of landing/impact	Coordinates	Notes
Mars
Mars Science Laboratory Sky crane	United States	6 August 2012	Bradbury Landing [ ⚑ ] 4°35′09″N 137°25′52″E / 4.5859°N 137.4312°E / 4.5859; 137.4312	Debris field created by the heat shield, sky crane, and other components.
Mars 2020 Sky crane	United States	18 February 2021	Octavia E. Butler Landing [ ⚑ ] 18°27′11″N 77°27′01″E / 18.453°N 77.4504°E / 18.453; 77.4504	Debris field created by the heat shield, sky crane, and other components.
Comets
Deep Impact	United States	4 July 2005	Tempel 1	The "Smart Impactor" had a payload of 100 kg of copper, which at its closing velocity of 10.2 km/s had the kinetic energy equivalent to 4.8 tonnes of TNT.
Rosetta	ESA	30 September 2016	67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko	Intentionally crashed at end of mission.
Asteroids
Double Asteroid Redirection Test (Dart)	United States	26 September 2022	Dimorphos	First attempt in history to redirect an asteroid.
Jupiter
Galileo atmospheric probe	United States	7 December 1995		Functioned for 57.6 minutes.
Galileo	United States	21 September 2003		Disintegrated in the Jovian atmosphere.
Saturn
Cassini orbiter	United States	15 September 2017	9.4°N. 53°W.	30 seconds of terminal data, more than anticipated, were received prior to Cassini's disintegration in Saturn's atmosphere.