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Mission type | Lunar impactor | ||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Operator | NASA | ||||||||||
Harvard designation | 1962 Mu 1 | ||||||||||
COSPAR ID | 1962-012A | ||||||||||
SATCAT no. | 280 | ||||||||||
Mission duration | 10 hours (operational) 64 hours (to impact) | ||||||||||
Spacecraft properties | |||||||||||
Manufacturer | Jet Propulsion Laboratory | ||||||||||
Launch mass | 331.1 kg (730 lb) | ||||||||||
Dimensions | 1.52 m × 2.51 m (5.0 ft × 8.2 ft) | ||||||||||
Power | 135 W | ||||||||||
Start of mission | |||||||||||
Launch date | April 23, 1962, 20:50:00 UTC | ||||||||||
Rocket | Atlas LV-3 Agena-B | ||||||||||
Launch site | Cape Canaveral LC-12 | ||||||||||
Lunar impactor | |||||||||||
Impact date | April 26, 1962, 12:49:53 UTC Failed before impact | ||||||||||
Impact site | 15°30′S130°42′W / 15.5°S 130.7°W | ||||||||||
| |||||||||||
Ranger 4 was a spacecraft of the Ranger program, launched in 1962. It was designed to transmit pictures of the lunar surface to Earth stations during a period of 10 minutes of flight prior to crashing upon the Moon, to rough-land a seismometer capsule on the Moon, to collect gamma-ray data in flight, to study radar reflectivity of the lunar surface, and to continue testing of the Ranger program for development of lunar and interplanetary spacecraft.
An onboard computer failure caused failure of the deployment of the solar panels and navigation systems; as a result the spacecraft crashed on the far side of the Moon without returning any scientific data. It was the first spacecraft of the United States to reach another celestial body [2] [3] [4] and the first of any nation to reach the surface of the far side of the Moon.
Ranger 4 was a Block II Ranger spacecraft virtually identical to Ranger 3. The basic vehicle was 331 kg (730 lb), 3.1 m (10 ft) high and consisted of a lunar capsule covered with a balsawood impact-limiter, 0.65 m (26 in) in diameter, a mono-propellant mid-course motor, a 22.6 kN (5,080 lbf) thrust retrorocket, and a gold- and chrome-plated hexagonal base 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in) in diameter. A large high-gain dish antenna was attached to the base. Two wing-like solar panels (5.2 m (17 ft) across) were attached to the base and deployed early in the flight.
Power was generated by 8,680 solar cells contained in the solar panels which charged an 11.5 kg (25 lb) 1 kWh capacity AgZn launching and backup battery. Spacecraft control was provided by a solid-state computer and sequencer and an Earth-controlled command system. Attitude control was provided by Sun and Earth sensors, gyroscopes, and pitch and roll jets. The telemetry system aboard the spacecraft, consisting of two 960 MHz transmitters, one at 3 W power output and the other at 50 mW power output, the high-gain antenna, and an omnidirectional antenna. White paint, gold and chrome plating, and a silvered plastic sheet encasing the retrorocket furnished thermal control. [2]
Because heat sterilization was suspected to have caused the malfunction of Ranger 3's computer, this procedure was dropped on Ranger 4. The seismometer capsule was also painted with a sawtooth pattern for better thermal protection. [2]
The experimental apparatus included: (1) a vidicon television camera, which employed a scan mechanism that yielded one complete frame in ten seconds; 2) a gamma-ray spectrometer mounted on a 1.8 m (5 ft 11 in) boom; (3) a radar altimeter; and (4) a seismometer to be rough-landed on the lunar surface. The seismometer was encased in the lunar capsule along with an amplifier, a 50-milliwatt transmitter, voltage control, a turnstile antenna, and six silver-cadmium batteries capable of operating the lunar capsule transmitter for 30 days, all designed to land on the Moon at 130 to 160 km/h (80 to 100 mph). The radar altimeter would be used for reflectivity studies, but was also designed to initiate capsule separation and ignite the retro-rocket. [2]
Atlas 133D and Agena 6004 arrived at Cape Canaveral in March and began preflight checkouts. Unlike with previous Ranger launches, no serious difficulties were encountered in readying the launch vehicle for flight and the probe also passed all systems tests with ease. On April 20, Ranger 4 was stacked atop the booster and liftoff took place at 3:50 pm EST on April 23. [5] [6] Launch proceeded perfectly this time and there were no anomalies with either the Atlas or the Agena, which performed its second burn to send Ranger 4 on a translunar trajectory.
After separation from the Agena, it was apparent that something was seriously amiss when tracking stations picked up Ranger 4's radio transmitter, but there was no telemetry data being returned or any response when commands were sent to the computer. Without telemetry, it could not be confirmed that the probe's solar panels had unfolded, but the fluctuating radio transponder indicated that Ranger 4 was tumbling and that the solar panels and high-gain antenna were not deployed either.
The Atlas and Agena had both performed perfectly, in fact so well that Ranger 4 would not even need a midcourse correction burn to impact the Moon. However, this was all futile if the spacecraft was inoperative. Ground controllers sent commands to the probe to unfurl the solar panels and high-gain antenna and manually use the attitude control system to stop the rolling motion it was in, but the probe was unresponsive. The Spacecraft Data Analysis Team at JPL concluded that the main timer in Ranger 4's computer had stopped, which disabled the telemetry system, preprogrammed events such as solar panel deployment, and also made the probe completely unresponsive to manual commands. Even though lunar impact would occur as planned, the mission was for all intents and purposes a failure. Making it a more bitter pill to swallow was the nearly-flawless launch vehicle performance. The booster problems that affected Rangers 1-3 had been resolved, only for the probe itself to completely fail, as unlike the previous missions, Ranger 4 did not return any useful data. Finding the cause of the timer malfunction could also be difficult since it had occurred during the coasting phase prior to trans-lunar injection when Ranger 4 was passing between tracking stations in the Caribbean and South Africa.
Without solar power, Ranger 4's batteries ran down on the morning of April 26 and the radio transponder ceased operating. The tiny transmitter in the seismometer capsule continued sending out a 50-milliwatt signal. According to the NASA, Ranger 4 impacted the far side of the Moon (229.3 degrees E, 15.5 degrees S) at 9,600 km/h (5,970 mph) at 12:49:53 UT on April 26, 1962, after 64 hours of flight. [2] [3] [4] However, the coordinates were ″guesstimated" and the crater of the impact could not be identified by high-resolution images of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. [7]
NASA officials tried to put a positive spin on the mission, [4] noting that it was the first time an American spacecraft had reached the surface of the Moon and that the probe was "far more sophisticated" than the Soviet Luna 2 space probe in 1959, which had been little more than a pressurized sphere designed to deposit pennants on the surface at impact. The excellent performance of the Atlas-Agena booster had also raised morale.
This spacecraft, similar in design to Ranger 3, was the first American spacecraft to reach another celestial body. It was also the first spacecraft to impact the far side of the Moon. Although the spacecraft did not achieve its primary objective, the Atlas-Agena-Ranger combination performed without fault for the first time. [8]
The Mariner program was conducted by the American space agency NASA to explore other planets. Between 1962 and late 1973, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) designed and built 10 robotic interplanetary probes named Mariner to explore the inner Solar System – visiting the planets Venus, Mars and Mercury for the first time, and returning to Venus and Mars for additional close observations.
Mariner 2, an American space probe to Venus, was the first robotic space probe to report successfully from a planetary encounter. The first successful spacecraft in the NASA Mariner program, it was a simplified version of the Block I spacecraft of the Ranger program and an exact copy of Mariner 1. The missions of the Mariner 1 and 2 spacecraft are sometimes known as the Mariner R missions. Original plans called for the probes to be launched on the Atlas-Centaur, but serious developmental problems with that vehicle forced a switch to the much smaller Agena B second stage. As such, the design of the Mariner R vehicles was greatly simplified. Far less instrumentation was carried than on the Soviet Venera probes of this period—for example, forgoing a TV camera—as the Atlas-Agena B had only half as much lift capacity as the Soviet 8K78 booster. The Mariner 2 spacecraft was launched from Cape Canaveral on August 27, 1962, and passed as close as 34,773 kilometers (21,607 mi) to Venus on December 14, 1962.
Mariner 1, built to conduct the first American planetary flyby of Venus, was the first spacecraft of NASA's interplanetary Mariner program. Developed by Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and originally planned to be a purpose-built probe launched summer 1962, Mariner 1's design was changed when the Centaur proved unavailable at that early date. Mariner 1, were then adapted from the lighter Ranger lunar spacecraft. Mariner 1 carried a suite of experiments to determine the temperature of Venus as well to measure magnetic fields and charged particles near the planet and in interplanetary space.
Mariner 3 was one of two identical deep-space probes designed and built by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for NASA's Mariner-Mars 1964 project that were intended to conduct close-up (flyby) scientific observations of the planet Mars and transmit information on interplanetary space and the space surrounding Mars, televised images of the Martian surface and radio occultation data of spacecraft signals as affected by the Martian atmosphere back to Earth.
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.
Pioneer P-3 was intended to be a lunar orbiter probe, but the mission failed shortly after launch. The objectives were to place a highly instrumented probe in lunar orbit, to investigate the environment between the Earth and Moon, and to develop technology for controlling and maneuvering spacecraft from Earth. It was equipped to take images of the lunar surface with a television-like system, estimate the Moon's mass and topography of the poles, record the distribution and velocity of micrometeorites, and study radiation, magnetic fields, and low frequency electromagnetic waves in space. A mid-course propulsion system and injection rocket would have been the first United States self-contained propulsion system capable of operation many months after launch at great distances from Earth and the first U.S. tests of maneuvering a satellite in space.
Pioneer P-31 was intended to be a lunar orbiter probe, but the mission failed shortly after launch. The objectives were to place a highly instrumented probe in lunar orbit, to investigate the environment between the Earth and Moon, and to develop technology for controlling and maneuvering spacecraft from Earth. It was equipped to take images of the lunar surface with a television-like system, estimate the Moon's mass and topography of the poles, record the distribution and velocity of micrometeorites, and study radiation, magnetic fields, and low frequency electromagnetic waves in space. A midcourse propulsion system and injection rocket would have been the first United States self-contained propulsion system capable of operation many months after launch at great distances from Earth and the first U.S. tests of maneuvering a satellite in space.
Ranger 1 was a prototype spacecraft launched as part of the Ranger program of uncrewed space missions. Its primary mission was to test the performance of those functions and parts necessary for carrying out subsequent lunar and planetary missions; a secondary objective was to study the nature of particles and fields in the space environment. Due to a launch vehicle malfunction, the spacecraft could reach only Low Earth orbit, rather than the high Earth orbit that had been planned, and was only able to complete part of its mission.
Ranger 2 was a flight test of the Ranger spacecraft system of the NASA Ranger program designed for future lunar and interplanetary missions. Ranger 2 was designed to test various systems for future exploration and to conduct scientific observations of cosmic rays, magnetic fields, radiation, dust particles, and a possible hydrogen gas "tail" trailing the Earth.
Ranger 3 was a space exploration mission conducted by NASA to study the Moon. The Ranger 3 robotic spacecraft was launched January 26, 1962 as part of the Ranger program. Due to a series of malfunctions, the spacecraft missed the Moon by 22,000 mi (35,000 km) and entered a heliocentric orbit.
Ranger 5 was a spacecraft of the Ranger program designed to transmit pictures of the lunar surface to Earth stations during a period of 10 minutes of flight prior to impacting on the Moon, to rough-land a seismometer capsule on the Moon, to collect gamma-ray data in flight, to study radar reflectivity of the lunar surface, and to continue testing of the Ranger program for development of lunar and interplanetary spacecraft. Due to an unknown malfunction, the spacecraft ran out of power and ceased operation. It passed within 725 km of the Moon.
The Ranger program was a series of uncrewed space missions by the United States in the 1960s whose objective was to obtain the first close-up images of the surface of the Moon. The Ranger spacecraft were designed to take images of the lunar surface, transmitting those images to Earth until the spacecraft were destroyed upon impact. A series of mishaps, however, led to the failure of the first six flights. At one point, the program was called "shoot and hope". Congress launched an investigation into "problems of management" at NASA Headquarters and Jet Propulsion Laboratory. After two reorganizations of the agencies, Ranger 7 successfully returned images in July 1964, followed by two more successful missions.
Ranger 7 was the first NASA space probe to successfully transmit close-up images of the lunar surface back to Earth. It was also the first completely successful flight of the Ranger program. Launched on July 28, 1964, Ranger 7 was designed to achieve a lunar-impact trajectory and to transmit high-resolution photographs of the lunar surface during the final minutes of flight up to impact.
The SAMOS or SAMOS-E program was a relatively short-lived series of reconnaissance satellites for the United States in the early 1960s, also used as a cover for the initial development of the KH-7 GAMBIT system. Reconnaissance was performed with film cameras and television surveillance from polar low Earth orbits with film canister returns and transmittals over the United States. SAMOS was first launched in 1960 from Vandenberg Air Force Base.
Ranger 6 was a lunar probe in the NASA Ranger program, a series of robotic spacecraft of the early and mid-1960s to obtain close-up images of the Moon's surface. It was launched on January 30, 1964 and was designed to transmit high-resolution photographs of the lunar terrain during the final minutes of flight until impacting the surface. The spacecraft carried six television vidicon cameras—two wide-angle and four narrow-angle —to accomplish these objectives. The cameras were arranged in two separate chains, or channels, each self-contained with separate power supplies, timers, and transmitters so as to afford the greatest reliability and probability of obtaining high-quality television pictures. No other experiments were carried on the spacecraft. Due to a failure of the camera system, no images were returned.
Ranger 8 was a lunar probe in the Ranger program, a robotic spacecraft series launched by NASA in the early-to-mid-1960s to obtain the first close-up images of the Moon's surface. These pictures helped select landing sites for Apollo missions and were used for scientific study. During its 1965 mission, Ranger 8 transmitted 7,137 lunar surface photographs before it crashed into the Moon as planned. This was the second successful mission in the Ranger series, following Ranger 7. Ranger 8's design and purpose were very similar to those of Ranger 7. It had six television vidicon cameras: two full-scan and four partial-scan. Its sole purpose was to document the Moon's surface.
Ranger 9 was a Lunar probe, launched in 1965 by NASA. It was designed to achieve a lunar impact trajectory and to transmit high-resolution photographs of the lunar surface during the final minutes of flight up to impact. The spacecraft carried six television vidicon cameras—two wide-angle and four narrow-angle —to accomplish these objectives. The cameras were arranged in two separate chains, or channels, each self-contained with separate power supplies, timers, and transmitters so as to afford the greatest reliability and probability of obtaining high-quality television pictures. These images were broadcast live on television to millions of viewers across the United States. No other experiments were carried on the spacecraft.
A Moon landing or lunar landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon, including both crewed and robotic missions. The first human-made object to touch the Moon was Luna 2 in 1959.
The Atlas-Agena was an American expendable launch system derived from the SM-65 Atlas missile. It was a member of the Atlas family of rockets, and was launched 109 times between 1960 and 1978. It was used to launch the first five Mariner uncrewed probes to the planets Venus and Mars, and the Ranger and Lunar Orbiter uncrewed probes to the Moon. The upper stage was also used as an uncrewed orbital target vehicle for the Gemini crewed spacecraft to practice rendezvous and docking. However, the launch vehicle family was originally developed for the Air Force and most of its launches were classified DoD payloads.
The lunar penetrometer was a spherical electronic tool that served to measure the load-bearing characteristics of the Moon in preparation for spacecraft landings. It was designed by NASA to be dropped onto the surface from a vehicle orbiting overhead and transmit information to the spacecraft. However, despite it being proposed for several lunar and planetary missions, the device was never actually fielded by NASA.