From the start of space activity, scientists recognized that spacecraft could gather scientifically valuable data about the various planets, moons, and smaller bodies in the solar system. Both the United States and the U.S.S.R. attempted to send robotic missions to the Moon in the late 1950s. The first four U.S. Pioneer spacecraft, Pioneer 0–3, launched in 1958, were not successful in returning data about the Moon. The fifth mission, Pioneer 4 (1959), was the first U.S. spacecraft to escape Earth’s gravitational pull; it flew by the Moon at twice the planned distance but returned some useful data. Three Soviet missions, Luna 1–3, explored the vicinity of the Moon in 1959, confirming that it had no appreciable magnetic field and sending back the first-ever images of its far side. Luna 1 was the first spacecraft to fly past the Moon, beating Pioneer 4 by two months. Luna 2, in making a hard landing on the lunar surface, was the first spacecraft to strike another celestial object. Later, in the 1960s and early 1970s, Luna and Lunokhod spacecraft soft-landed on the Moon, and some gathered soil samples and returned them to Earth.
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