Mission Details

Mission Name: Ranger 6

Mission Type: Lunar Impact

Operator: NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration)

Launching State: United States

Location: Sea of Tranquillity

Latitude: 9.386

Longitude: 21.481

Launch Date: 30 January 1964, 15:49:00 UT

Landing Date: 2 February 1964, 09:24:32 UT

Objects on or Related to Site: Ranger 6

Image Source: NASA

Description

The Ranger project of the 1960s was a US effort to launch probes directly toward the Moon. The spacecraft were designed to relay pictures and other data as they approached the Moon and finally crash-landed into its surface. A variety of difficulties plagued the first several attempted missions in this series, but the later Rangers were finally a complete success.

Ranger 6 was principally designed to transmit high-resolution photographs of the Moon before impacting the lunar surface.

Read more:
https://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/past/ranger.htmlhttps://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/ranger-6/

Heritage Consideration

The spacecraft carried six television videocon cameras, however, due to a failure of the camera system, no images were returned.

Object on or Related to Site

Object Name: Ranger 6
Cospar: 1964-007A
Norad: N/A
Location: Precise location unknown or undisclosed.
Launch Date: 30 January 1964, 15:49:00 UT
Landing Date: 2 February 1964, 09:24:32 UT
Deployment: N/A
End Date: N/A
Function: Lunar imagery.
Image Source: NASA

Description

Ranger 6 was a lunar probe in the Ranger program, a robotic spacecraft series launched by NASA in the early and mid-1960s to obtain the first close-up images of the Moon’s surface. 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 (channel F, cameras A and B) and four narrow-angle (channel P)—to accomplish these objectives. Due to a failure of the camera system, no images were returned.