The Explorers' Club, № MLXXIX

Operation AXIOM: Destination Moon—The 60th Anniversary of Ranger 9
21-24 March 1965: Ranger 9 lifted off from Florida's Cape Kennedy Air Force Station atop an Atlas-Agena rocket, tasked to photograph & then impact the Lunar surface; the midcourse correction burn was successful; all six television cameras functioned perfectly, broadcasting live, & returned 5,814 photographs of the Moon for nineteen minutes until Ranger 9 crashed into the Alphonsus Crater.

Commentary: After six consecutive Ranger failures, due to problems with both launch vehicles & spacecraft, the last three Ranger missions were unqualified successes, providing close-up views with unprecedented resolution of the lunar surface. Ranger (1961-1965) set the stage for the Surveyor lander (1966-1968) & Lunar Orbiter (1966-1967) programs, all in preparation for the Apollo Moon landings (1969-1972).

During Ranger 9's kamikaze mission to the Moon (21-24 March 1965), Gemini 3 conducted the manned test flight of the Gemini capsule (23 March). Busy days at Cape Kennedy, with less than five years left to meet the namesake president's goal of landing men on the Moon & returning them safely to the Earth.

The Wayback Machine Tour of the Ranger Program
"The Explorers' Club," № DCCCXXXVI: The 60th Anniversary of Ranger 1
"The Explorers' Club," № DCCCLII: The 60th Anniversary of Ranger 2
"The Explorers' Club," № DCCCLXIV: The 60th Anniversary of Ranger 3
"The Explorers' Club," № DCCCLXXXI: The 60th Anniversary of Ranger 4
"The Explorers' Club," № CMIX: The 60th Anniversary of Ranger 5
"The Explorers' Club," № MIV: The 60th Anniversary of Ranger 6
"The Explorers' Club," № MXXXIX: The 60th Anniversary of Ranger 7
"The Explorers' Club," № MLXXIII: The 60th Anniversary of Ranger 8

Ex Luna, scientia.

The Explorers' Club, № MLXXIII

Operation AXIOM: Destination Moon—The 60th Anniversary of Ranger 8
17-20 February 1965: Ranger 8 lifted off from Florida's Cape Kennedy Air Force Station atop an Atlas-Agena rocket, tasked to photograph & then impact the Lunar surface; the midcourse correction burn was successful; all six television cameras functioned perfectly & returned 7,137 photographs of the Moon for twenty-three minutes until Ranger 8 crashed into the Mare Tranquillitatis.

Commentary: Ranger 8 was the second consecutive success of the Ranger program. Ranger 8's impact crater was photographed by Lunar Orbiter 4 in 1967.

Ex Luna, scientia.

The Explorers' Club, № MXXXIX

Operation AXIOM: Destination Moon—The 60th Anniversary of Ranger 7
28-31 July 1964: Ranger 7 lifted off from Florida's Cape Kennedy Air Force Station atop an Atlas-Agena rocket, tasked to photograph & then impact the Lunar surface; the midcourse correction burn went flawlessly; all six television cameras functioned perfectly & returned video imagery of the Moon for sixteen minutes until Ranger 7 crashed between the Mare Nubium & the Oceanus Procellarum.

Commentary: After six consecutive Ranger failures, due to problems with both launch vehicles & spacecraft, Ranger 7 was an unqualified success & produced close-up views with unprecedented resolution of the lunar surface.

Ex Luna, scientia.

The Explorers' Club, № MIV

Operation AXIOM: Destination Moon—The 60th Anniversary of Ranger 6
30 January-2 February 1964: Ranger 6, the first Block III Ranger probe, lifted off from Florida's Cape Kennedy Air Force Station atop an Atlas-Agena rocket, tasked to photograph & then impact the Lunar surface; a necessary midcourse correction burn was executed perfectly; Ranger 6 crashed on time & on target, but returned no images of the Moon due to camera failure during the final approach.

Commentary: Ranger 6 was the sixth consecutive Ranger mission to fail. Ad astra per aspera.

Semper exploro.

The Explorers' Club, № CMIX

Operation AXIOM: Destination Moon—The 60th Anniversary of Ranger 5
18 October 1962: Ranger 5 lifted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station atop an Atlas-Agena rocket; fifteen minutes into a flight, a fault disabled the solar panels, giving Ranger 5 only a few hours of battery power; a necessary midcourse correction burn could not be executed, so Ranger 5 missed the Moon entirely (into which it was meant to crash) & eventually entered a heliocentric orbit.

Commentary: The last image is a representation of how the launch of Ranger 5's lunar capsule, which carried a seismograph to gather data from the crash of the main probe with the lunar surface, would have looked. Ranger 5 was the fifth consecutive Ranger mission to fail. Ad astra per aspera, indeed.

Semper exploro.

The Explorers' Club, № DCCCLXXXI

Operation AXIOM: Destination Moon—The 60th Anniversary of Ranger 4
23-26 April 1962: Ranger 4 lifted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station atop an Atlas-Agena rocket; for the first time in the Ranger program, both the Atlas & the Agena worked flawlessly; a computer failure prevented deployment of the solar arrays & high-gain antenna; Ranger 4 returned no useful data before exhausting its batteries & crashing, as planned, into the Far Side of the Moon.

Commentary: The varied failures of Ranger 1, Ranger 2, Ranger 3, & Ranger 4 highlight why we here at The Secret Base label all outer space-related posts with the Latin phrase, Ad astra per aspera (also rendered as Per aspera ad astra, translated "through hardships to the stars," or, on the Apollo 1 memorial, "A rough road leads to the stars"). Space flight is exceedingly difficult & dangerous.

Semper exploro.

The Explorers' Club, № DCCCLXIV

Operation AXIOM: Destination Moon—The 60th Anniversary of Ranger 3
26-31 January 1962: Ranger 3, the first Block II Ranger probe, lifted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station atop an Atlas-Agena rocket, tasked to photograph & then impact the Lunar surface; guidance failures with both the Atlas & the Agena meant Ranger 3 missed the Moon & entered a heliocentric orbit; a computer failure prevented retasking of the cameras for deep space.

Semper exploro.

The Explorers' Club, № DCCCLII

Operation AXIOM: Destination Moon—The 60th Anniversary of Ranger 2
18-19 November 1961: Ranger 2 lifted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station atop an Atlas-Agena rocket, intended to orbit & study the Moon; Ranger 2 limped into low Earth orbit before a gyro failure in the Agena, meant to propel it toward the Moon, left it in a lower orbit than the doomed Ranger 1; telemetry was lost after a few hours & Ranger 2 burned upon atmospheric re-entry.

Semper exploro.

The Explorers' Club, № DCCCXXXVI

Operation AXIOM: Destination Moon—The 60th Anniversary of Ranger 1
23-30 August 1961: Ranger 1, the prototype of a series of robotic probes intended to study the Moon, lifted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station atop an Atlas-Agena rocket; a misfire of the Agena left Ranger 1 in a much lower Earth orbit than intended & the solar panels out of alignment with the Sun & the satellite underpowered; a week later, Ranger 1 burned upon atmospheric re-entry.

Commentary: Men would start riding Atlas rockets into orbit the next year, in 1962. Ranger I's Agena failure was in 1961, four years before Agena Target Vehicles kept exploding ahead of astronaut Tom Stafford's Gemini flights (Gemini VI-A & Gemini IX-A). Space flight is a hard & unforgiving enterprise, which is why the label for each & every space-related post is "Ad astra per aspera", Latin for "To the stars through difficulties/hardships." (I prefer Ad astra per aspera to the more popular Per aspera ad astra for purely aesthetic reasons, not because I am by any means a Latin scholar.)

Bonus! Destination Moon Song o' the Day: Ranger 1
Guster, "Satellite" from Ganging Up On the Sun (Space Cadet Mike Papa Whiskey)

Semper exploro.