List of species that have landed on the Moon

Although many species have been to space, only a few have landed on the Moon. This is a list of species that have landed on the Moon, only including landings in which the payload survived. This list currently contains 10 species. Before 2019, only animals (in particular one species, Homo sapiens) landed on the Moon; in January 2019, plants and fungi also landed on the Moon.

List

Species	Quantity	Mission(s)	First landing date	References
Human	12	Apollo 11, Apollo 12, Apollo 14, Apollo 15, Apollo 16, Apollo 17	20 July 1969	[1][2][3][4]
Silkworm	1+	Chang'e 4	3 January 2019	[5][6][7][8]
Fruit fly	1+	Chang'e 4	3 January 2019	[5][6][7][8]
Arabidopsis	1+	Chang'e 4	3 January 2019	[5][6][7][8]
Cotton	1+	Chang'e 4	3 January 2019	[5][6][7][8]
Potato	1+	Chang'e 4	3 January 2019	[5][6][7][8]
Rapeseed	1+	Chang'e 4	3 January 2019	[5][6][7][8]
Yeast	1+	Chang'e 4	3 January 2019	[5][6][7][8]
Bacteria	1+	Chang'e 4	3 January 2019	[5][6][7][8]
Tardigrade	1000+	Beresheet	11 April 2019	[9][10][11]

Future missions

These are future missions that plan to send additional organisms to the Moon.

Artemis 3

Main article: Artemis 3

In 2025, NASA plans to send four astronauts to the Moon, would include the first woman and the first person of color to land on the Moon. They would be the first human landing on the Moon in more than 50 years, since the 1972 Apollo 17 mission.^[12] In January 2024, NASA officially delayed the Artemis 3 mission to no earlier than September 2026.^[13]

ALEPH-1

Main article: Beresheet 2

After the failed landing of Beresheet in 2019, which resulted in a crash, spilling thousands of tardigades onto the Moon, Lunaria One, an Australian organization, plans to send plants such as resurrection grass with the Israeli spacecraft Beresheet 2 to the Moon in 2025.^[14][15]

Species that have orbited or circled the Moon without landing

Humans and other animals have orbited or circled the Moon without landing. These include tortoises on Zond 5 (September 1968), Zond 6 (November 1968), and Zond 7 (August 1969), fruit flies on Zond 5, and five mice, Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum, and Phooey, who traveled in the 1972 Apollo 17 Command Module America and, along with astronaut Ronald Evans, still hold the record for the most orbits of the Moon (75).

See also

• Animals in space
• Colonization of the Moon
• List of space travelers by nationality
• List of Apollo astronauts
• Plants in space
• Tardigrades in space

Notes

1. Some species are not specified due to inadequate information.
2. The number of some species is not specified due to inadequate information.
3. ALEPH-1 is the mission, Beresheet 2 is the spacecraft.

References

1. "Apollo 11 Mission Overview – NASA". 2015-04-17. Retrieved 2023-10-19.
2. "Who Has Walked on the Moon? – NASA Science". science.nasa.gov. Retrieved 2023-10-19.
3. "Apollo 11 | History, Mission, Landing, Astronauts, Pictures, Spacecraft, & Facts". britannica.com. Retrieved 2023-10-19.
4. "Timeline of the Apollo Space Missions". britannica.com. Retrieved 2023-10-20.
5. "NASA – NSSDCA – Spacecraft – Details". nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov. Retrieved 2023-10-19.
6. "Comsat Launch Bolsters China's Dreams for Landing on the Moon's Far Side – Scientific American". Scientific American. 2018-11-29. Archived from the original on 2018-11-29. Retrieved 2023-10-19.
7. "China Moon mission lands Chang'e-4 spacecraft on far side". BBC News. 2019-01-02. Retrieved 2023-10-20.
8. "Chang'e 4 landing marks start of new China-US space race". South China Morning Post. 2019-01-03. Retrieved 2023-10-20.
9. "Beresheet – NASA Science". science.nasa.gov. Retrieved 2023-10-19.
10. "Tardigrades: 'Water bears' stuck on the moon after crash". BBC News. 2019-08-07. Retrieved 2023-10-19.
11. Resnick, Brian (2019-08-06). "Tardigrades, the toughest animals on Earth, have crash-landed on the moon". Vox. Retrieved 2023-10-19.
12. "Artemis III: NASA's First Human Mission to the Lunar South Pole – NASA". 2023-01-13. Retrieved 2023-10-20.
13. Foust, Jeff (2024-01-09). "NASA delays Artemis 2 and 3 missions". SpaceNews. Retrieved 2024-01-29.
14. Elizabeth Rayne (2022-10-20). "Seeds launching to the moon in 2025 will test plant resilience". Space.com. Retrieved 2023-10-20.
15. "Australia seeks to grow plants on moon by 2025". phys.org. Retrieved 2023-10-20.