Explorer 35
Explorer 35 — a NASA spacecraft that went into orbit around the Moon on 22 July 1967, the mission Explorer 33 had missed. For six years it measured the solar wind, magnetic fields and energetic particles around the Moon. It found no magnetic field of the Moon's own: the solar wind strikes the surface directly and leaves a cavity behind the Moon. It was switched off on 24 June 1973. (Its orbit is drawn to its published size; its orientation and position on it are representative.)
Key facts
Mission & specifications
Mission
- Operator
- NASA
- Launched
- July 19, 1967
- Status
- Completed
Trajectory
- Distance from the Sun
- 1 AU
- Computed from the cached position
- Distance from Earth
- 0.265 AU
- Computed from cached positions
- Distance from Venus
- 0.312 AU
- Computed from cached positions
Mission
Explorer 35 was the twin of Explorer 33, sent a year later to do what Explorer 33 could not: orbit the Moon. Launched on 19 July 1967 on a Thrust Augmented Delta, it flew straight to the Moon, and on 22 July a 23-second retrorocket burn put it into an elongated orbit between 800 and 7,692 km above the surface. It spun 25.6 times a minute and carried magnetometers, particle detectors, a plasma probe and a micrometeorite detector. Its measurements showed that the Moon has no magnetic field of its own to speak of: the solar wind strikes the surface directly, and the Moon leaves a cavity, a wake, in the solar wind behind it. It worked normally for six years, until it was switched off on 24 June 1973. Its orbit would then have decayed, bringing it down on the Moon at a time and place that are not known.
- 1967Explorer 35 launches toward the Moon on a Thrust Augmented Delta rocketLaunch
On a direct path to the Moon.
- 1967Into orbit around the MoonArrival
A 23-second retrorocket burn puts it 800 to 7,692 km above the surface.
- 1973Switched offMission end
After six years in lunar orbit.
Images
Images from open archives · credit shown per image