Ranger 3
Ranger 3 — NASA/JPL's first Ranger aimed at the Moon (26 January 1962). A booster guidance error gave it too much speed; it missed the Moon by some 36,000 km, its instruments failed, and it drifted on into orbit around the Sun.
Key facts
Mission & specifications
Mission
- Operator
- NASA / JPL
- Launched
- January 26, 1962
- Status
- Lost
Trajectory
- Distance from the Sun
- 0.996 AU
- Computed from the cached position
- Distance from Earth
- 3,131,600 km
- Computed from cached positions
- Distance from Venus
- 0.283 AU
- Computed from cached positions
Mission
Ranger 3 was the first Ranger actually sent toward the Moon, and it came agonisingly close to nothing. Launched on 26 January 1962, it was meant to photograph the surface and drop a small seismometer capsule. But a guidance error in the boost gave the spacecraft too much speed, and it flew past the Moon, missing by some 36,000 kilometres. Compounding the miss, its onboard systems failed, so even the flyby returned nothing useful. Ranger 3 sailed on past its target and into orbit around the Sun, where it remains — a near miss that kept the programme's losing streak alive.
Images
Images from open archives · credit shown per image