Ranger 4 — launch
Date in UTC
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. 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.
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranger_4. Related NASA reference: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/ranger-4/. Description adapted from Wikipedia contributors (CC BY-SA 4.0; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).
- Category
- Launches and Flight Tests
- Type
- Orbital launch
- Subjects
- Space transportation
- Mission
- Ranger 4
- Organization
- NASA Marshall Space Flight Center
- Participants
- US Air Force Space Systems Division
- Vehicle
- Atlas Agena B
- Location
- Cape Canaveral Air Station, Florida
- Country
- US
- Outcome
- Successful
Context and qualifications
Launch code: DS. Source references: KHR-1; -.
Sources and attribution
- Jonathan McDowell — General Catalog of Artificial Space Objects (opens in a new tab) — Data from GCAT (J. McDowell, planet4589.org/space/gcat), CC BY 4.0. Adapted into anniversary records. (CC BY 4.0)
- Wikipedia — Ranger 4 (opens in a new tab) — Adapted from Wikipedia contributors; selected sentences retained and edited for length, reference markers and pronunciation glosses. CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ Article and edit history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranger_4 (CC BY-SA 4.0)
- Timeline of Space Exploration Missions 1957 to 2031 (opens in a new tab)
- NASA — Ranger 4 (opens in a new tab)
- NASA NSSDCA — Ranger 4 (opens in a new tab)