Atlas-Centaur rocket launch at Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S.A., 1968

Inside Jet Propulsion Laboratory, engineers are seen constructing one of the Surveyor lunar landers, which would be sent to the moon. Followed by the Surveyor, now in a capsule, being hoisted up towards a rocket. Later, an Atlas-Centaur rocket lifts off from the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S.A., 1968. The Atlas-Centaur was a United States expendable launch vehicle derived from the SM-65 Atlas D missile. The vehicle featured a Centaur upper stage, the first such stage to use high-performance liquid hydrogen as fuel. Launches were conducted from Launch Complex 36 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) in Florida. After a strenuous flight test program, Atlas-Centaur went on to launch several crucial spaceflight missions for the United States, including Surveyor 1, and Pioneer 10/11. The vehicle would be continuously developed and improved into the 1990s, with the last direct descendant being the highly successful Atlas II.The Surveyor program was a NASA program that, from June 1966 through January 1968, sent seven robotic spacecraft to the surface of the Moon. Its primary goal was to demonstrate the feasibility of soft landings on the Moon. The Surveyor craft were the first American spacecraft to achieve soft landing on an extraterrestrial body. The missions called for the craft to travel directly to the Moon on an impact trajectory, a journey that lasted 63 to 65 hours, and ended with a deceleration of just over three minutes to a soft landing.