Lunar Orbiter 4 — launch
Date in UTC
Lunar Orbiter 4 was a robotic U.S. spacecraft, part of the Lunar Orbiter Program, designed to orbit the Moon, after the three previous orbiters had completed the required needs for Apollo mapping and site selection. It was given a more general objective, to "perform a broad systematic photographic survey of lunar surface features in order to increase the scientific knowledge of their nature, origin, and processes, and to serve as a basis for selecting sites for more detailed scientific study by subsequent orbital and landing 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 polar high lunar orbit for data acquisition.
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Orbiter_4. Related NASA reference: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/lunar-orbiter-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
- Lunar Orbiter 4
- 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
- Outcome
- Successful
Context and qualifications
Launch code: DS. Source references: NASA-TM-X-3487; MOR.
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 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/Lunar_Orbiter_4 (CC BY-SA 4.0)
- Timeline of Space Exploration Missions 1957 to 2031 (opens in a new tab)
- NASA — Lunar Orbiter 4 (opens in a new tab)
- NASA NSSDCA — Lunar Orbiter 4 (opens in a new tab)
