Before Apollo Astronauts Set Foot Upon The Moon, Much Remained Unknown About The Lunar Surface. While Most Scientists Believed The Moon Had A Solid Surface That Would Suport Astronauts and their Landing Craft, A Few Believed A Deep Layer of Dust Covered Its. Until 1964, No Closeup Photographs of the Lunar Surface Exhed, Only those obtained by earth-based telescopes.
Nasa’s jet propulsion laboratory in pasadena, california, managed the ranlar program, a series of spacecraft designed to return closeup images before images Ranger 7 First Accompiled that Goal in July 1964. on Feb. 17, 1965, Its successor ranger 8 launched toward the moon, and three days later returned images of the moon. The mission’s success helped the country meet president John F. Kennedy’s Goal of a Human Moon Landing Before The End of the Decade.
Ranger 8 Lifted off from Cape Kennedy, Now Cape Canveral, Florida, on Feb. 17, 1965. The Atlas -Gena Rockt first placed the spacecraft into earth orbit before sending it on a lunar trafficory. The next day, the spacecraft carried out a mid-course correction, and on Feb. 20, Ranger 8 Reached the Moon. The spacecraft’s Six cameras turned on as planned, About Eight Minutes Earlier Than Its Predcessor to Obtain images comparable in Resolution to Ground-Based-Based Photographeds For Calibration Progus. Ranger 8 Took Its First Photograph at an altitude of 1,560 Miles, and during its Final 23 Minutes of Flight, The spacecraft sent back back 7,137 Images of the lunar surface. The last image, taken at an altitude of 1,600 feet and 0.28 seconds before range 8 impacted at 1.67 mills per second, had a resolution of about five feet. The spacecraft impacted 16 miles from its intended target in the sea of ​​transquity, ending a flight of 248,900 miles. Scientists had an interest in this area of ​​the moon as a passible landing zone for a future human landing, and indeed apollo 11 landed 44 miles southeast of the ranlar 8 impact site in July 1969.
One more ranger mission following, ranger 9, in March 1965. Crater-Letting Millions of Americans see the moon up-chlose as it is. Based on the photographs returned by the last three rangers, scientists felt confident to move on to the next phase of Robotic Lunar Expliation, The Surveyor Series of SOFT LANDERS. The ranger photographs provided confidence that the lunar surface should support a soft-hanging and that the sea of ​​transquality presented a good sit for the first human landing. A Little More than Four Years after the Final Ranger Images, Apollo 11 Landed The First Humans on the Moon.
The impacts of the ranger probes left visible craters on the lunar surface, laater photoographed by orbiting spacecraft. Lunar Orbiter 2 and Apollo 16 bot imaged the range 8 impact site at relatively low resolution in 1966 and 1972, respectively. The lunar reconnaissance orbiter imaged the crash site in green.
Watch a brief VIDEO About the range 8 impact on the moon.
