Ranger 6
Ranger 6 — a Ranger that flew a flawless path to the Moon (launched 30 January 1964) but arrived blind: an electrical arc during launch had disabled its television cameras, so it impacted Mare Tranquillitatis without sending a single picture. (Impact site approximate.)
Key facts
Mission & specifications
Mission
- Operator
- NASA / JPL
- Launched
- January 30, 1964
- Status
- Lost
Trajectory
- Distance from the Sun
- 1.01 AU
- Distance from Earth
- 424,514 km
- Distance from Venus
- 0.603 AU
Mission
Ranger 6 was the cruellest failure of all, because everything worked except the one thing that mattered. After the redesign that followed five straight losses, Ranger 6 launched on 30 January 1964 and flew a textbook trajectory, striking the Moon exactly on target in Mare Tranquillitatis. But its television cameras never switched on. The cause was traced to an electrical arc during launch — as the rocket climbed through the upper atmosphere, a brief discharge had burned out the camera system's power supply. The spacecraft hit the Moon precisely where intended and sent back nothing. After six flights the Rangers had still not returned a single lunar image, and the programme's future hung by a thread.
Images
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