@cosmos4u@scicomm.xyz2025-06-06 19:12:36
Some statistics about all robotic #LunarLanding attempts so far from 1965 to 2025 compiled from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_the_Moon and https://scicomm.xyz/@AkaSci@fosstodon.org/114636519291241321 in which I only count those for which descent to the surface had been initiated, not missions lost at launch or on the way - in a nutshell ~70% of all landings by government agencies went well (essentially the same rate 60 years ago and now!) but only ~30% by private companies. Here goes ...
There have been two separate periods of soft lunar landing attempts of ca. a dozen years each, from 1965 to 1976 and 2013 to 2025 (ongoing) with a huge gap between them.
In the first interval there were 20 attempts with 13 successes (Luna 9, 13, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21 and 24 and Surveyor 1, 3, 5, 6 and 7), one partial success (Luna 23, counting as 50%) and 6 failures (Luna 5, 7, 8, 15 and 18 and Surveyor 4), so the success rate was 13.5/20 = 68 %. All missions were by - the Soviet and U.S. - governments.
In the second interval there were so far 14 attempts with 6 full successes (Chang'e-3, 4, 5 and 6, Vikram 2 and Blue Ghost), three partial successes (SLIM, IM-1 and 2, counting as 75%, 50% and 25%, respectively) and 5 failures (Beresheet, Vikram 1, Hakuto-R 1 and 2 and Luna 25) so the success rate was 7.5 / 14 = 54%.
But looking only at the government missions it was 72%, slighly up from 50 years ago. While for the commercial attempts it was only 29%. In total the success rate was 19 (18 government-run) missions out of 34 (28) attempts or 62% but 69% for governments only. And if you throw in the 6 Apollo landings, the total success rate rises to 68% and the government-only rate goes even up to 75%.
