Soft Landing First Wall Art

Soft Landing First — 2 museum-grade prints that set the mood. NEAR Shoemaker proved that small bodies could be orbited and landed upon with 1990s technology — a direct precursor to OSIRIS-REx, Hayabusa, and DART. Eugene Shoemaker, the mission's namesake, pioneered planetary impact cratering theory and lunar geology training for Apollo astronauts; his ashes would later reach the Moon aboard Lunar Prospector. Luna 9 soft-landed in Oceanus Procellarum on 3 February 1966 — the first spacecraft to survive lunar touchdown and transmit images from the surface. The four-petal inflatable lander design became an icon of Soviet lunar engineering and preceded NASA's Surveyor 1 soft landing by four months.

Updated 14 Jun 2026