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Mariner 1
| title |
Mariner 1 |
| date |
01.22.1962 |
| description |
After approval by NASA Headquarters in September 1961, JPL prepared three spacecraft based on the design of the Ranger Block I series (therefore named Mariner R) to fly by Venus in late 1962. Each spacecraft carried a modest suite (9 kilograms) of scientific instrumentation but had no imaging capability. The spacecraft included 54,000 components and was designed to maintain contact with Earth for 2,500 hours -- an ambitious goal given that the (still unsuccessful) Ranger was designed for only 65 hours of contact. Mariner 1 would have flown by Venus at a range of 29,000 kilometers on 8 December 1962, but due to an incorrect trajectory during launch, range safety had to destroy the booster and its payload at T+290 seconds. |
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The Ranger Spacecraft
| title |
The Ranger Spacecraft |
| description |
The Ranger fleet of spacecraft launched in the mid-sixties provided for the first time live television transmissions of the Moon from lunar orbit. These transmissions resolved surface features as small as 10 inches across and provided over 17,000 images of the lunar surface. These detailed photographs allowed scientists and engineers to study the Moon in greater detail than ever before thus allowing for the design of a spacecraft that would one day land men of Earth on its surface. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Ranger 3
| title |
Ranger 3 |
| date |
01.26.1962 |
| description |
Ranger 3 was 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 a series of malfunctions the spacecraft missed the Moon. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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First U.S. Image of the Moon
| title |
First U.S. Image of the Moon |
| date |
07.31.1964 |
| description |
Ranger 7 took this image, the first picture of the Moon by a U.S. spacecraft, on July 31, 1964 at 13:09 UT (9:09 AM EDT) about 17 minutes before impacting the lunar surface. The area photographed is centered at 13 S, 10 W and covers about 360 km from top to bottom. The large crater at center right is the 108 km diameter Alphonsus. Above it is Ptolemaeus and below it Arzachel. The terminator is at the bottom right corner. Mare Nubium is at center and left. North is at about 11:00 at the center of the frame. The Ranger 7 impact site is off the frame, to the left of the upper left corner. (Ranger 7, B001) The Ranger series of spacecraft were designed solely to take high-quality pictures of the Moon and transmit them back to Earth in real time. The images were to be used for scientific study, as well as selecting landing sites for the Apollo Moon missions. Ranger 7 was the first of the Ranger series to be entirely successful. It transmitted 4,308 high-quality images over the last 17 minutes of flight, the final image having a resolution of 0.5 meter/pixel. Ranger 7 was launched July 28, 1964 and arrived at the Moon on July 31, 1964. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Ranger 4
| title |
Ranger 4 |
| date |
04.23.1962 |
| description |
Ranger 4 was 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. An onboard computer failure caused failure of the deployment of the solar panels and navigation systems, the spacecraft impacted on the far side of the Moon without returning any scientific data. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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The Ranger Spacecraft
| Title |
The Ranger Spacecraft |
| Full Description |
The Ranger fleet of spacecraft launched in the mid-sixties provided for the first time live television transmissions of the Moon from lunar orbit. These transmissions resolved surface features as small as 10 inches across and provided over 17,000 images of the lunar surface. These detailed photographs allowed scientists and engineers to study the Moon in greater detail than ever before thus allowing for the design of a spacecraft that would one day land men of Earth on its surface. |
| Date |
01/01/1961 |
| NASA Center |
Jet Propulsion Laboratory |
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First Image of the Moon take
…
| Title |
First Image of the Moon taken by a U.S. Spacecraft |
| Description |
Ranger 7 took this image, the first picture of the Moon by aU.S. spacecraft, on 31 July 1964 at 13:09 UT (9:09 AM EDT)about 17 minutes before impacting the lunar surface. The area photographed is centered at 13 S, 10 W and covers about 360 km from top to bottom. The large crater at center right is the 108 km diameter Alphonsus. Above it is Ptolemaeus and below it Arzachel. The terminator is at the bottom right corner. Mare Nubium is at center and left. Nor this at about 11:00 at the center of the frame. The Ranger 7impact site is off the frame, to the left of the upper left corner. (Ranger 7, B001) The Ranger series of spacecraft were designed solely to take high-quality pictures of the Moon and transmit them back to Earth in real time. The images were to be used for scientific study, as well as selecting landing sites for the Apollo Moon missions. Ranger 7 was the first of the Ranger series to be entirely successful. It transmitted 4,308high-quality images over the last 17 minutes of flight, the final image having a resolution of 0.5 meter/pixel. Ranger 7 was launched July 28, 1964 and arrived at the Moon on July 31, 1964. |
| Date |
07.31.1964 |
|
Guericke Crater as seen by R
…
| Title |
Guericke Crater as seen by Ranger 7 |
| Description |
Ranger 7 B-camera image of Guericke crater (11.5 S, 14.1 W, diameter 63 km) taken from a distance of 1335 km. The dark flat floor of Mare Nubium dominates most of the image, which was taken 8.5 minutes before Ranger 7 impacted the Moon on 31 July 1964. The frame is about 230 km across and north is at 12:30. The impact site is off the frame to the left. (Ranger 7, B100) The Ranger series of spacecraft were designed solely to take high-quality pictures of the Moon and transmit them back to Earth in real time. The images were to be used for scientific study, as well as selecting landing sites for the Apollo Moon missions. Ranger 7 was the first of the Ranger series to be entirely successful. It transmitted 4,308high-quality images over the last 17 minutes of flight, the final image having a resolution of 0.5 meter/pixel. Ranger 7 was launched July 28, 1964 and arrived at the Moon on July 31, 1964. |
| Date |
07.31.1964 |
|
First Image of the Moon take
…
PIA02975
Earth
| Title |
First Image of the Moon taken by a U.S. Spacecraft |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Ranger 7 took this image, the first picture of the Moon by aU.S. spacecraft, on 31 July 1964 at 13:09 UT (9:09 AM EDT)about 17 minutes before impacting the lunar surface. The area photographed is centered at 13 S, 10 W and covers about 360 km from top to bottom. The large crater at center right is the 108 km diameter Alphonsus. Above it is Ptolemaeus and below it Arzachel. The terminator is at the bottom right corner. Mare Nubium is at center and left. Nor this at about 11:00 at the center of the frame. The Ranger 7impact site is off the frame, to the left of the upper left corner. (Ranger 7, B001) The Ranger series of spacecraft were designed solely to take high-quality pictures of the Moon and transmit them back to Earth in real time. The images were to be used for scientific study, as well as selecting landing sites for the Apollo Moon missions. Ranger 7 was the first of the Ranger series to be entirely successful. It transmitted 4,308high-quality images over the last 17 minutes of flight, the final image having a resolution of 0.5 meter/pixel. Ranger 7 was launched July 28, 1964 and arrived at the Moon on July 31, 1964. |
|
Guericke Crater as seen by R
…
PIA02974
Earth
| Title |
Guericke Crater as seen by Ranger 7 |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Ranger 7 B-camera image of Guericke crater (11.5 S, 14.1 W, diameter 63 km) taken from a distance of 1335 km. The dark flat floor of Mare Nubium dominates most of the image, which was taken 8.5 minutes before Ranger 7 impacted the Moon on 31 July 1964. The frame is about 230 km across and north is at 12:30. The impact site is off the frame to the left. (Ranger 7, B100) The Ranger series of spacecraft were designed solely to take high-quality pictures of the Moon and transmit them back to Earth in real time. The images were to be used for scientific study, as well as selecting landing sites for the Apollo Moon missions. Ranger 7 was the first of the Ranger series to be entirely successful. It transmitted 4,308high-quality images over the last 17 minutes of flight, the final image having a resolution of 0.5 meter/pixel. Ranger 7 was launched July 28, 1964 and arrived at the Moon on July 31, 1964. |
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Live from the Moon - Impact!
PIA03495
Earth
TV Camera
| Title |
Live from the Moon - Impact! |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
On March 24, 1965, a nationwide TV audience watched live video from Ranger 9 as it purposefully crashed into the Moon within the crater Alphonsus. Ranger's six cameras sent back more than 5800 video images during the last 18 minutes of its 3-day journey, the last of the Ranger Project. The last few images show the lunar surface in detail from a few hundred meters above. This sequence of images from Camera A was converted from video to film to laser disc to digital files. |
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Apollo 14 crewmen near site
…
| Title |
Apollo 14 crewmen near site of volcanic eruption on Hawaii |
| Description |
Prime crewmen and backup crewmen of the Apollo 14 mission look over an area near the site of a volcanic eruption in Aloi Alae, Hawaii. Astronauts Alan B. Shepard Jr. (leaning with left hand on ground) and Edgar D. Mitchell (behind Shepard, wearing dark glasses) are the prime crewmen scheduled to walk on the moon. Astronauts Eugene A. Cernan (almost obscured at extreme left) and Joe H. Engle (partially visible, on Cernan's right) are back-up crew commander and lunar module pilot, respectively, for the mission. Others in the photograph are Pat Crosland (in hard hat), a geologist and a park ranger in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, Michael C McEwen (facing Mitchell) of the Geology Branch, Lunar and Earth Sciences Division, Manned Spacecraft Center, and Astronaut Bruce McCandless II, who made the trip to serve as a spacecraft communicator during simulations of extravehicular activity (EVA) on the lunar surface. |
| Date Taken |
1970-04-10 |
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