1965 50) just 24 kilometers from its intended target Ranger 8 point in the equatorial region of the Sea of Nation: U.S. (21) Tranquillity—an area that Apollo mission Objective(s): lunar impact planners were particularly interested in Spacecraft: Ranger-C studying. Spacecraft Mass: 366.87 kg Mission Design and Management: NASA JPL 51) Launch Vehicle: Atlas-Agena B (no. 13 / Atlas “Atlas-Centaur 5” D no. 196 / Agena B no. 6006) Nation: U.S. (22) Launch Date and Time: 17 February 1965 / Objective(s): highly elliptical orbit 17:05:00 UT Spacecraft: SD-1 Launch Site: ETR / launch complex 12 Spacecraft Mass: 951 kg Scientific Instruments: Imaging system (six TV Mission Design and Management: NASA JPL cameras) Launch Vehicle: Atlas-Centaur (AC-5 / Atlas C Results: As successful as its predecessor, no. 156D / Centaur C) Ranger 8 returned 7,137 high-resolution pho- Launch Date and Time: 2 March 1965 / tographs of the lunar surface prior to its 13:25 UT scheduled impact at 09:57:37 UT on 20 Launch Site: ETR / launch complex 36A February. Unlike Ranger 7, however, Ranger 8 Scientific Instruments: none turned on its cameras about 8 minutes earlier Results: This mission was designed to rehearse a to return pictures with resolution comparable complete Centaur upper-stage burn in support to Earth-based telescopes (for calibration and of the Surveyor lunar lander program. On a comparison purposes). Controllers attempted nominal mission, the Centaur would boost its to align the cameras along the main velocity payload on a direct-ascent trajectory to the vector (to reduce imagine smear) but aban- Moon. On this test flight, SD-1, a nonfunctional doned this maneuver to allow greater area dynamic model, would be boosted on a simu- coverage. There had also been a mysterious lated lunar transfer trajectory to a hypothetical loss of telemetry during a midcourse correc- Moon with an orbit of 167 x 926,625 kilometers. tion on 18 February that gave rise for con- During the actual launch, less than 1 second cern, although the mission was completed after liftoff, a faulty valve caused both Atlas successfully. Ranger 8 impacted at 2°43' main engines to shut down. As a result, the north latitude and 24°38' east longitude, booster fell back onto the pad and exploded. 1965 47 52) Unlike its predecessors, the cameras this time Kosmos 60 / [Luna] were aimed directly in the direction of travel Nation: USSR (30) and provided some spectacular shots as the Objective(s): lunar soft-landing spacecraft approached the lunar surface. Spacecraft: Ye-6 (no. 9) These pictures were converted for live viewing Spacecraft Mass: c. 1,470 kg on commercial TV. Best resolution was up to Mission Design and Management: OKB-1 25 centimeters just prior to impact. The space- Launch Vehicle: 8K78 (no. R103-25) craft crashed into the Moon at 14:08:20 UT on Launch Date and Time: 10 April 1965 / N/A 24 March at 12.83° south latitude and 357.63° Launch Site: NIIP-5 east longitude, about 6.5 kilometers from its Scientific Instruments: scheduled target. 1) imaging system 2) radiation detector 54) Results: Yet another Soviet attempt to soft-land no name / [Luna] a Ye-6 probe on the lunar surface ended in Nation: USSR (31) failure when the Blok L upper stage failed to Objective(s): lunar soft-landing fire for the translunar injection burn. Instead, Spacecraft: Ye-6 (no. 8) the spacecraft remained stranded in Earth Spacecraft Mass: c. 1,470 kg orbit. A later investigation indicated that Mission Design and Management: OKB-1 there had been a short circuit in an inverter Launch Vehicle: 8K78 (no. R103-26) within the I-100 guidance system of the space- Launch Date and Time: 10 April 1965 / N/A craft (which also controlled the Blok L stage) Launch Site: NIIP-5 / launch site 1 preventing engine ignition. The spacecraft’s Scientific Instruments: orbit decayed five days later. 1) imaging system 2) radiation detector 53) Results: This was the seventh consecutive Ranger 9 failure to accomplish a lunar soft-landing by Nation: U.S. (23) the Soviets. On this mission, engineers Objective(s): lunar impact redesigned the problematic I-100 guidance Spacecraft: Ranger-D system that had caused most of the previous Spacecraft Mass: 366.87 kg failures. Previously, the I-100 unit had Mission Design and Management: NASA JPL controlled both the Blok L upper stage and Launch Vehicle: Atlas-Agena B (no. 14 / Atlas the spacecraft itself. On this mission (and D no. 204 / Agena B no. 6007) subsequent Lunas), the fourth stage and Launch Date and Time: 21 March 1965 / the Ye-6 spacecraft had separate systems. 21:37:02 UT Unfortunately, this probe never reached Earth Launch Site: ETR / launch complex 12 orbit. During the launch, depressurization of a Scientific Instruments: nitrogen pipe for the liquid oxygen tank on the 1) imaging system (six TV cameras) third stage had prevented third-stage engine Results: Ranger 9 was the final Ranger mission ignition. The spacecraft broke up over the of the Block III series and closed out the pro- Pacific without reaching orbit. gram as a whole. Since both Ranger 7 and Ranger 8 had provided sufficient photographs 55) of the mare regions (potential landing sites for Luna 5 the early Apollo missions), Ranger 9 was tar- Nation: USSR (32) geted to the more geologically interesting Objective(s): lunar soft-landing Alphonsus crater in the lunar highlands, at Spacecraft: Ye-6 (no. 10) that time a possible site for recent volcanic Spacecraft Mass: 1,476 kg activity. Following a midcourse correction on Mission Design and Management: OKB-1 23 March, the spacecraft headed directly to its Launch Vehicle: 8K78M (no. U103-30) impact point. Only 20 minutes prior to impact, Launch Date and Time: 9 May 1965 / Ranger 9 began taking the first of 5,814 pic- 07:49:37 UT tures from an altitude of 2,100 kilometers. Launch Site: NIIP-5 / launch site 1 48 Deep Space Chronicle Scientific Instruments: 57) 1) imaging system Zond 3 2) radiation detector Nation: USSR (34) Results: In May 1965, Luna 5 became the first Objective(s): lunar flyby Soviet probe to head for the Moon in two Spacecraft: 3MV-4 (no. 3) years. Following the midcourse correction on Spacecraft Mass: 950 kg 10 May, the spacecraft began spinning around Mission Design and Management: OKB-1 its main axis due to a problem in a flotation Launch Vehicle: 8K78 gyroscope in the I-100 guidance system unit. A Launch Date and Time: 18 July 1965 / N/A subsequent attempt to fire the main engine Launch Site: NIIP-5 / launch site 1 failed because of ground control error, and the Scientific Instruments: engine never fired. After loss of control as a 1) imaging system result of the gyroscope problem, Luna 5 2) ultraviolet spectrograph crashed. Landing coordinates were 31° south 3) ultraviolet and infrared latitude and 8° west longitude. It was the spectrophotometer second Soviet spacecraft to land on the Moon 4) meteoroid detectors (following Luna 2 in 1959). 5) radiation sensors (cosmic rays, solar wind) 56) 6) magnetometer Luna 6 7) ion thrusters Nation: USSR (33) 8) radio telescope Objective(s): lunar soft-landing Results: This “third-generation” deep space Spacecraft: Ye-6 (no. 7) probe had originally been slated for a Mars Spacecraft Mass: 1,442 kg flyby in late 1964 but could not be prepared Mission Design and Management: OKB-1 on time. Instead, Soviet designers diverted Launch Vehicle: 8K78M (no. U103-31) the mission for a simple lunar flyby in 1965 Launch Date and Time: 8 June 1965 / 07:40 UT to test its basic systems and photograph the Launch Site: NIIP-5 / launch site 1 far side of the Moon. After a successful Scientific Instruments: translunar injection burn, Zond 3 approached 1) imaging system the Moon after only a 33-hour flight. Its 2) radiation detector imaging mission began on 20 July at a range Results: On this ninth Soviet attempt at a of 11,570 kilometers from the near side of the lunar soft-landing, the mission proceeded as Moon. The camera system used a similar planned until the major midcourse correction system to that of Luna 3, with onboard expo- late on 9 June. Although the main retro-rocket sure, development, fixing, and drying prior to engine (the S5.5A) ignited on time, it failed to scanning for transmission to Earth. In total, cut off and continued to fire until propellant the spacecraft took twenty-five visual and supply was exhausted. An investigation later three ultraviolet images during its flyby. The indicated that the problem had been due to closest approach was to 9,220 kilometers. human error; a command had been mistak- These pictures were successfully transmitted enly sent to the timer that ordered the main back to Earth on 29 July, nine days after Zond engine to shut down. Although the spacecraft 3’s lunar encounter, when it was 2.2 million was sent on a completely wrong trajectory, kilometers from Earth. Further communica- ground controllers put the spacecraft through tions sessions occurred on 23 October a series of steps to practice an actual landing, (involving photo transmissions) when Zond 3 all of which were satisfactorily accomplished. was 31.5 million kilometers from Earth. The Luna 6 passed by the Moon late on 11 June at last contact was sometime in early March a range of 161,000 kilometers and eventually 1966, when the spacecraft was 153.5 million entered heliocentric orbit. Contact was main- kilometers away. During the mission, it had tained to a distance of 600,000 kilometers photographed the unseen 30 percent of the from Earth.