The first partially successful lunar mission was Luna 1 (January 1959), the first probe to leave Earth and fly past another astronomical body.

The far side of the Moon, which is always facing away from Earth due to tidal locking, was seen for the first time by Luna 3 in (7 October 1959).

[3] The first crewed missions to the Moon were pursued by the Soviet Union and the United States, becoming the climax of the Space Race.

Since then the following nations and organisations (in chronological order) have visited the Moon, after the Soviet Union and the United States: Japan, the European Space Agency, China, India, Luxembourg, Israel, Italy, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, Russia, Mexico, and Pakistan.

In 2018 the far side of the Moon was for the first time landed on by the Chang'e 4 mission at the Aitken basin on 3 January 2019 and deployed the Yutu-2 rover.

The Moon has also been visited by five spacecraft not dedicated to studying it; four of these spacecraft have flown past for the purpose of gravity assistance, and a radio telescope, Explorer 49, was placed into selenocentric orbit in order to use the Moon to block interference from terrestrial radio sources.

Recorded is the first spacecraft from each respective country to accomplish each milestone, regardless of mission type or intended outcome.