Ranger 4
1962 American unmanned space flight intended to study the Moon / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Ranger 4 was a spacecraft of the Ranger program, launched in 1962. It was designed to transmit pictures of the lunar surface to Earth stations during a period of 10 minutes of flight prior to crashing upon the Moon, to rough-land a seismometer capsule on the Moon, to collect gamma-ray data in flight, to study radar reflectivity of the lunar surface, and to continue testing of the Ranger program for development of lunar and interplanetary spacecraft.
Mission type | Lunar impactor | ||||||||||
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Operator | NASA | ||||||||||
Harvard designation | 1962 Mu 1 | ||||||||||
COSPAR ID | 1962-012A | ||||||||||
SATCAT no. | 280 | ||||||||||
Mission duration | 10 hours (operational) 64 hours (to impact) | ||||||||||
Spacecraft properties | |||||||||||
Manufacturer | Jet Propulsion Laboratory | ||||||||||
Launch mass | 331.1 kg (730 lb) | ||||||||||
Dimensions | 1.52 m × 2.51 m (5.0 ft × 8.2 ft) | ||||||||||
Power | 135 W | ||||||||||
Start of mission | |||||||||||
Launch date | April 23, 1962, 20:50:00 (1962-04-23UTC20:50Z) UTC | ||||||||||
Rocket | Atlas LV-3 Agena-B | ||||||||||
Launch site | Cape Canaveral LC-12 | ||||||||||
Lunar impactor | |||||||||||
Impact date | April 26, 1962, 12:49:53 (1962-04-26UTC12:49:54Z) UTC Failed before impact | ||||||||||
Impact site | 15.5°S 130.7°W / -15.5; -130.7 | ||||||||||
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An onboard computer failure caused failure of the deployment of the solar panels and navigation systems; as a result the spacecraft crashed on the far side of the Moon without returning any scientific data. It was the first spacecraft of the United States to reach another celestial body[2][3][4] and the first of any nation to reach the surface of the far side of the Moon.