Human history has seen 129 attempts to reach the moon, in a bid to know more about our earth's nearest neighbour in space. The success rate is just 51%.
Exploration of the Moon began in 1959, when the former Soviet Union’s Luna 2 probe became the first man-made object to reach moon surface.
American astronaut Neil Armstrong was the first man to set foot on the Moon. That was in 1969, and it also marked the first time humans stood physically on a celestial object other than Earth.
The European Space Agency’s first mission to the moon ended when the Smart One lunar space probe completed its 3-year voyage after it impacted an open plain on moon’s surface.
And Japan’s first success was in 2009, when its first lunar probe made a controlled crash landing on the moon, it had aimed to map the moon’s surface and study its mineral distribution while orbiting the moon.
Source: CCTV
