Lunar Orbiter 2 — launch
Date in UTC
The 1966 Lunar Orbiter 2 robotic spacecraft mission, part of the Lunar Orbiter Program, was designed primarily to photograph smooth areas of the lunar surface for selection and verification of safe landing sites for the Surveyor and Apollo missions. It was also equipped to collect selenodetic, radiation intensity, and micrometeoroid impact data. The spacecraft was placed in a cislunar trajectory and injected into an elliptical near-equatorial lunar orbit for data acquisition after 92.6 hours' flight time. The initial orbit was 196 by 1,850 kilometres (122 mi × 1,150 mi) at an inclination of 11.8 degrees. The perilune was lowered to 49.7 kilometres (30.9 mi) five days later after 33 orbits.
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Orbiter_2. Related NASA reference: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/lunar-orbiter-2/. 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
- Lunar Orbiter 2
- Organization
- NASA Lewis Research Center
- Participants
- US Air Force Space Systems Division
- Vehicle
- Atlas SLV-3 Agena D
- Location
- Cape Canaveral Air Station, Florida
- Country
- US
- Human involvement
- Uncrewed
- Outcome
- Successful
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 — Lunar Orbiter 2 (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/Lunar_Orbiter_2 (CC BY-SA 4.0)
- Timeline of Space Exploration Missions 1957 to 2031 (opens in a new tab)
- NASA — Lunar Orbiter 2 (opens in a new tab)
- NASA NSSDCA — Lunar Orbiter 2 (opens in a new tab)
