This is a list of uncrewed spacecraft which have been intentionally destroyed at their objects of study, typically by hard landings or crash landings at the end of their respective missions and/or functionality. This list only includes spacecraft specifically instructed to crash into the surface of an astronomical body other than the Earth, and also does not include unintentionally crashed spacecraft, derelict spacecraft, or spacecraft designed as landers. Intentionally crashing spacecraft not only removes the possibility 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 can be used 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 intentionally crashed on the Moon to aid seismic research, and four of the ascent stages of Apollo Lunar Modules were intentionally 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] although a later study attributed it to a spent upper stage from the Chang'e 5-T1 mission.[3]
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.
| Mission | Country/Agency | Date of landing/impact | Coordinates | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Soviet Union | 1 March 1966 | 20°N 80°W | First manmade object to hit another planet. Failed to transmit data. | ||
| Soviet Union | 18 October 1967 | First probe to transmit data from another planet's atmosphere. Succumbed after 53 minutes, within 26km (16miles) from the surface. | |||
| Soviet Union | 16 May 1969 | Succumbed after 51 minutes, within 26km (16miles) from the surface. | |||
| Soviet Union | 17 May 1969 | Succumbed after 51 minutes, within 11km (07miles) from the surface. | |||
| Soviet Union | 15 December 1970 | Unexpectedly survived impact and generated extremely weak signal after landing. | |||
 United States | 9 December 1978 | Stopped transmitting on impact with surface. | |||
| United States | 9 December 1978 | Stopped transmitting on impact with surface. | |||
| United States | 9 December 1978 | Unexpectedly survived impact and transmitted for another 68 minutes. | |||
| United States | 9 December 1978 | Unexpectedly survived impact and transmitted for another 2 seconds. | |||
| United States | 9 December 1978 | Stopped transmitting within 110km (70miles) from the surface. | |||
| United States | 22 October 1992 | intentionally held to lower orbit to facilitate orbital decay. | |||
| United States | 13 October 1994 | Controlled entry into Venus upon conclusion of mission. |
| Mission | width=100pt | Country/Agency | Date of landing/impact | width=180pt | Coordinates | class=unsortable | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 6 August 2012 | Bradbury Landing 4.5859°N 137.4312°W | Debris field created by the heat shield, sky crane, and other components. | ||||
| United States | 18 February 2021 | Octavia E. Butler Landing 18.453°N 77.4504°W | Debris field created by the heat shield, sky crane, and other components. |
| Mission | Country/Agency | Date of landing/impact | Coordinates | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Functioned for 57.6 minutes, disintegrated in the Jovian atmosphere | |||||
| Disintegrated in the Jovian atmosphere. |
| Mission | width=100pt | Country/Agency | Date of landing/impact | width=180pt | Coordinates | class=unsortable | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Soviet Union | 13 September 1959 | Intentional hard impact. | |||||
| United States | 26 April 1962 | Intentional hard impact; hit lunar far side due to failure of navigation system. | |||||
| United States | 2 February 1964 | Intentional hard impact. | |||||
| United States | 31 July 1964 | Intentional hard impact. | |||||
| United States | 20 February 1965 | Intentional hard impact. | |||||
| United States | 24 March 1965 | Intentional hard impact. | |||||
| United States | 29 October 1966 | Lunar orbiter, intentionally crashed at end of mission. | |||||
 Japan | 10 April 1993 | Lunar orbiter, intentionally crashed at end of mission. | |||||
| United States | 31 July 1999 | Lunar orbiter, intentionally crashed into polar crater at end of mission to test for liberation of water vapour (not detected). | |||||
| 3 September 2006 | Lunar orbiter, intentionally crashed at end of mission. | ||||||
| 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 | -84.675°N -48.725°W -84.729°N -49.36°W | Impactors: main craft flew through the plume of lunar dust created by its own upper rocket stage gathering data. Water confirmed. | |||
| 31 July 2019 | [4] | Micro-satellite, intentionally crashed at end of mission. | |||||
| Chang'e 5 ascender | 7 December 2020 | Intentional impact of ascent stage after delivering sample to orbiter. | |||||
| Chang'e 6 ascender | 6 June 2024 | Intentional impact of ascent stage after delivering sample to orbiter. |
| Mission | Country/Agency | Date of landing/impact | Coordinates | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Slow impact with asteroid surface, spacecraft operated for another two weeks on asteroid surface. | |||||
| Hayabusa 2 Small Carry-On Impactor (SCI) | Copper projectile shot at surface with explosive charge to expose asteroid subsurface. | ||||
| Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) | First attempt in history to redirect an asteroid. |
| Mission | Country/Agency | Date of landing/impact | Coordinates | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 | 30 September 2016 | Intentionally crashed at end of mission. |