Ranger 4
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.
Ranger 4 | |||||||||||
| Mission type | Lunar impactor | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Operator | NASA | ||||||||||
| Harvard designation | 1962 Mu 1 | ||||||||||
| COSPAR ID | 1962-012A | ||||||||||
| SATCAT no. | 280 | ||||||||||
| Mission duration | 10 hours (operational) 64 hours (to impact) | ||||||||||
| Spacecraft properties | |||||||||||
| Manufacturer | Jet Propulsion Laboratory | ||||||||||
| Launch mass | 331.1 kg (730 lb) | ||||||||||
| Dimensions | 1.52 m × 2.51 m (5.0 ft × 8.2 ft) | ||||||||||
| Power | 135 W | ||||||||||
| Start of mission | |||||||||||
| Launch date | April 23, 1962, 20:50:00 UTC | ||||||||||
| Rocket | Atlas LV-3 Agena-B | ||||||||||
| Launch site | Cape Canaveral LC-12 | ||||||||||
| Lunar impactor | |||||||||||
| Impact date | April 26, 1962, 12:49:53 UTC Failed before impact | ||||||||||
| Impact site | 15.5°S 130.7°W | ||||||||||
| |||||||||||
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. It was the first spacecraft of the United States to reach another celestial body.
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