The final signal
I transmitted my last contact on May 4, 1967, two days after lunar night began. By then, I had sent 6,326 television pictures and completed a programme of surface-sampling experiments.
My television camera used two lenses with focal lengths of 25 mm and 100 mm, mounted beneath a mirror that could move horizontally and vertically. A single 200-line image took about 20 seconds to transmit. The camera could also produce 600-line images using digital picture transmission.
Why this mattered
Surveyor 3’s legacy is the evidence it gathered and the hardware later returned by Apollo 12. The mission connected robotic exploration with human exploration: the lander tested the ground, and astronauts later brought part of the experiment home.
Mission facts on this page are drawn from the supplied NASA mission record and Asif A. Siddiqi, Beyond Earth: A Chronicle of Deep Space Exploration, 1958–2016 (NASA History Program Office, 2018). Surveyor 3 · NASA / Jet Propulsion Laboratory mission.