What was the first robotic probe to land on the Moon and return a sample to Earth?
Moon landing surface. Luna 16 was the first robotic probe to land on the Moon and safely return a sample of lunar soil back to Earth. It represented the first lunar sample return mission by the Soviet Union, and was the third lunar sample return mission overall, following the Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 missions. This mission was later successfully repeated by Luna 20 (1972) and Luna 24 (1976). In 1970 and 1973 two Lunokhod ("Moonwalker") robotic lunar rovers were delivered to the Moon, where they successfully operated for 10 and 4 months respectively, covering 10.5 km (Lunokhod 1) and 37 km
Sample-return mission wind. These samples were acquired through three methods: the collection of samples of Earth itself, the collection of meteorites that have fallen on Earth, and the collection of samples through sample-return missions. Samples of Moon rock from Earth's Moon were collected both from meteorites and through robotic and crewed sample-return missions. The comet Wild 2 and the asteroid 25143 Itokawa were visited by a robotic spacecraft, which returned samples to Earth. Furthermore, samples for three identified Solar System bodies were only collected by means other than sample-return missions: samples from Earth itself, samples from Vesta in the form of HED