Ranger 6
United States lunar space probe / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dear Wikiwand AI, let's keep it short by simply answering these key questions:
Can you list the top facts and stats about Ranger 6?
Summarize this article for a 10 year old
Ranger 6 was a lunar probe in the NASA Ranger program, a series of robotic spacecraft of the early and mid-1960s to obtain close-up images of the Moon's surface. It was launched on January 30, 1964 and was designed to transmit high-resolution photographs of the lunar terrain during the final minutes of flight until impacting the surface. The spacecraft carried six television vidicon cameras—two wide-angle (channel F, cameras A and B) and four narrow-angle (channel P)—to accomplish these objectives. The cameras were arranged in two separate chains, or channels, each self-contained with separate power supplies, timers, and transmitters so as to afford the greatest reliability and probability of obtaining high-quality television pictures. No other experiments were carried on the spacecraft. Due to a failure of the camera system, no images were returned.[2]
Mission type | Lunar impactor | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Operator | NASA | ||||
COSPAR ID | 1964-007A | ||||
SATCAT no. | 00747 | ||||
Mission duration | 2.73 days | ||||
Spacecraft properties | |||||
Manufacturer | Jet Propulsion Laboratory | ||||
Launch mass | 364.69 kg[1] | ||||
Payload mass | 172 kilograms (379 lb) | ||||
Power | 240 W | ||||
Start of mission | |||||
Launch date | January 30, 1964, 15:49:09 (1964-01-30UTC15:49:09Z) GMT[1] | ||||
Rocket | Atlas LV-3 Agena-B 199D/AA8 | ||||
Launch site | Cape Canaveral, LC-12 | ||||
Lunar impactor | |||||
Impact date | February 2, 1964, 09:24:32 (1964-02-02UTC09:24:33Z) GMT | ||||
Impact site | 09.33°N 21.52°E / 09.33; 21.52 (Mare Tranquillitatis) | ||||
| |||||