Ranger (1964 - 1965)
The Ranger series was the first U.S. attempt to obtain close-up images of the Lunar surface.
The Ranger spacecraft were designed to fly straight down towards the Moon and send images back until
the moment of impact. Shown above is the Ranger spacecraft and an image of the Moon taken by
the Ranger 7 A series camera immediately before impact. This image has a resolution of .5 meters.
Ranger 7 impacted in mare terrain modified by crater rays. Ranger 8 also impacted in
mare terrain, but this area contained a complex system of ridges. Ranger 9 impacted
in a large crater in the lunar highlands.
Below is the first image of the Moon taken by Ranger 7, about 17 minutes before impact.
Click on the spacecraft name for information on the mission, experiments, and
data held at NSSDC.
Launched 28 July 1964
Impacted Moon 31 July 1964 at 13:25:49 UT
Latitude 10.35 S, Longitude 339.42 E - Mare Cognitum (Sea of Clouds)
Ranger 7 images of the Moon
Launched 17 February 1965
Impacted Moon 20 February 1965 at 09:57:37 UT
Latitude 2.67 N, Longitude 24.65 E - Mare Tranquillitatis (Sea of Tranquility)
Ranger 8 images of the Moon
Launched 21 March 1965
Impacted Moon 24 March 1965 at 14:08:20 UT
Latitude 12.83 S, Longitude 357.63 E - Alphonsus
Ranger 9 images of the Moon
Each Ranger spacecraft had 6 cameras on board. The cameras were fundamentally
the same with differences in exposure times, fields of view, lenses, and scan rates.
The camera system was divided into two channels, P (partial) and F (full).
Each channel was self-contained with separate power supplies, timers, and transmitters.
The F-channel had 2 cameras: the wide-angle A-camera and the narrow angle B-camera.
The P-channel had four cameras: P1 and P2 (narrow angle) and P3 and P4 (wide angle).
The final F-channel image was taken between 2.5 and 5 sec before impact
(altitude about 5 km) and the last P-channel image 0.2 to 0.4 sec before impact
(altitude about 600 m). The images provided better resolution than was
available from Earth based views by a factor of 1000. These highly detailed images
showed Apollo planners that finding a smooth landing site was not going to
be easy.
Images taken by Ranger 7 one second before impact
More information on Ranger missions and cameras
Lunar images from Ranger and other missions
Lunar home page
Planetary home page
Questions and comments about this page should be addressed to:
Dr. David R. Williams, dwilliam@nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov, (301) 286-1258
NSSDC, Mail Code 633, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771
NASA Official: J. H. King, king@nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov
Last Updated: 23 June 1997, DRW