rgrprog_v_bw_o_n (unnumbered, original 1960 press photo)
“HIGH-RESOLUTION photographs of the moon taken from an impacting rocket vehicle and televised to the earth is the goal of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration within the next year or two. The success of Project Ranger will provide astronomers with their first set of moon pictures permitting close scrutiny of the lunar surface.
These photographs will be dependent on the success which rocket scientists will have with the Atlas Agena-B rocket as the propulsion unit.
The Atlas Agena-B uses the Atlas I. C. B. M. for the first stage and the newly developed restartable Agena-B, the rocket developed for the Discoverer program, as the second stage. This complex is capable of putting some 5,300 pounds in a 300-mile orbit or sending the 12-foot Ranger vehicle weighing more than 700 pounds on a 66-hour journey to the moon.”
As written by Dr. I. M. Levitt, Director, Fels Planetarium, Philadelphia. A wonderful nostalgic 'heads-up' by the respected Astronomer of unmanned lunar spaceflight…yet to come.
This is one of the few depictions I’ve seen of the Block 2 Ranger spacecraft that captures the mission intent of these spacecraft. Having not really paid much attention to the Ranger program, I was only vaguely aware of a Ranger ‘soft’ landing intent/capability at some point. I recall having skimmed period press reports here & there about balsa wood being used, which I quite frankly, dismissed.
Indeed, the Block 2 Ranger spacecraft were to – relatively speaking – soft land on the surface.
Per Wikipedia:
“Block 2 of the Ranger project launched three spacecraft to the Moon in 1962, carrying a TV camera, a radiation detector, and a seismometer in a separate capsule slowed by a rocket motor and packaged to survive its low-speed impact on the Moon's surface. The three missions together demonstrated good performance of the Atlas/Agena B launch vehicle and the adequacy of the spacecraft design, but unfortunately not both on the same attempt. Ranger 3 had problems with both the launch vehicle and the spacecraft, missed the Moon by about 36,800 km, and has orbited the Sun ever since. Ranger 4 had a perfect launch, but the spacecraft was completely disabled. The project team tracked the seismometer capsule to impact just out of sight on the lunar far side, validating the communications and navigation system. Ranger 5 missed the Moon and was disabled. No significant science information was gleaned from these missions. The craft weighed 331 kg.
- Ranger 3, launched 26 January 1962, lunar probe, spacecraft failed, missed Moon
- Ranger 4, launched 23 April 1962, lunar probe, spacecraft failed, impact
- Ranger 5, launched 18 October 1962, lunar probe, spacecraft failed, missed”
Above at:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranger_program#Block_2_missions
And balsa wood was in fact a component of the lander portion of the spacecraft, referred to as the ‘impact limiter’…a crushable outer shell to distribute and dissipate the energy of the impact/landing…seen in this artist’s depiction as the round sphere, attached to its solid-propellant retro-rocket. The discarded/jettisoned main spacecraft bus is visible drifting off in the lower left.
Informative/definitive(?) reading regarding the Ranger Program available at:
history.nasa.gov/SP-4210/pages/Cover.htm
Enlightening & pertinent excerpts from it…revealing a possibly ingenious concept…we’ll never know:
“…Aeronutronic began drop-testing sterilized lunar seismometer capsules encased in their balsa wood impact limiters in the Mojave Desert…”
“The Aeronutronic design was novel, its schedule ambitious. The firm proposed to fabricate, assemble, test, and deliver by September 1961 the required number of 134-kilogram (300-pound) capsule subsystems for a cost of $3.6 million. The design mounted the capsule above a solid-propellant retrorocket; a radar altimeter would signal separation and firing of the capsule's motor at a specified distance above the lunar surface. The full capsule, which was then to separate from the motor, incorporated a crushable outside shell or impact limiter. Inside, a spherical metal survival package floated in fluid to distribute and dampen the structural loads at impact, and to allow erection of the package to local vertical by moon gravity after the capsule came to rest. In addition to tiny batteries, the survival package would contain the single-axis seismometer already being developed by Caltech's Seismological Laboratory and the Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory at Columbia University. Erection to local vertical on the moon would permit the sensitive axis of the seismometer to be positioned correctly, and allowed deployment of a modest directional transmitting antenna.”
Artwork by the incredibly talented & prolific Swiss army knife of any/all space flight/exploration artistry - Mr. John Gorsuch.
Finally & tangentially - to me - the lunarscape depicted looks a little like Alphonsus & environs.
rgrprog_v_bw_o_n (unnumbered, original 1960 press photo)
“HIGH-RESOLUTION photographs of the moon taken from an impacting rocket vehicle and televised to the earth is the goal of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration within the next year or two. The success of Project Ranger will provide astronomers with their first set of moon pictures permitting close scrutiny of the lunar surface.
These photographs will be dependent on the success which rocket scientists will have with the Atlas Agena-B rocket as the propulsion unit.
The Atlas Agena-B uses the Atlas I. C. B. M. for the first stage and the newly developed restartable Agena-B, the rocket developed for the Discoverer program, as the second stage. This complex is capable of putting some 5,300 pounds in a 300-mile orbit or sending the 12-foot Ranger vehicle weighing more than 700 pounds on a 66-hour journey to the moon.”
As written by Dr. I. M. Levitt, Director, Fels Planetarium, Philadelphia. A wonderful nostalgic 'heads-up' by the respected Astronomer of unmanned lunar spaceflight…yet to come.
This is one of the few depictions I’ve seen of the Block 2 Ranger spacecraft that captures the mission intent of these spacecraft. Having not really paid much attention to the Ranger program, I was only vaguely aware of a Ranger ‘soft’ landing intent/capability at some point. I recall having skimmed period press reports here & there about balsa wood being used, which I quite frankly, dismissed.
Indeed, the Block 2 Ranger spacecraft were to – relatively speaking – soft land on the surface.
Per Wikipedia:
“Block 2 of the Ranger project launched three spacecraft to the Moon in 1962, carrying a TV camera, a radiation detector, and a seismometer in a separate capsule slowed by a rocket motor and packaged to survive its low-speed impact on the Moon's surface. The three missions together demonstrated good performance of the Atlas/Agena B launch vehicle and the adequacy of the spacecraft design, but unfortunately not both on the same attempt. Ranger 3 had problems with both the launch vehicle and the spacecraft, missed the Moon by about 36,800 km, and has orbited the Sun ever since. Ranger 4 had a perfect launch, but the spacecraft was completely disabled. The project team tracked the seismometer capsule to impact just out of sight on the lunar far side, validating the communications and navigation system. Ranger 5 missed the Moon and was disabled. No significant science information was gleaned from these missions. The craft weighed 331 kg.
- Ranger 3, launched 26 January 1962, lunar probe, spacecraft failed, missed Moon
- Ranger 4, launched 23 April 1962, lunar probe, spacecraft failed, impact
- Ranger 5, launched 18 October 1962, lunar probe, spacecraft failed, missed”
Above at:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranger_program#Block_2_missions
And balsa wood was in fact a component of the lander portion of the spacecraft, referred to as the ‘impact limiter’…a crushable outer shell to distribute and dissipate the energy of the impact/landing…seen in this artist’s depiction as the round sphere, attached to its solid-propellant retro-rocket. The discarded/jettisoned main spacecraft bus is visible drifting off in the lower left.
Informative/definitive(?) reading regarding the Ranger Program available at:
history.nasa.gov/SP-4210/pages/Cover.htm
Enlightening & pertinent excerpts from it…revealing a possibly ingenious concept…we’ll never know:
“…Aeronutronic began drop-testing sterilized lunar seismometer capsules encased in their balsa wood impact limiters in the Mojave Desert…”
“The Aeronutronic design was novel, its schedule ambitious. The firm proposed to fabricate, assemble, test, and deliver by September 1961 the required number of 134-kilogram (300-pound) capsule subsystems for a cost of $3.6 million. The design mounted the capsule above a solid-propellant retrorocket; a radar altimeter would signal separation and firing of the capsule's motor at a specified distance above the lunar surface. The full capsule, which was then to separate from the motor, incorporated a crushable outside shell or impact limiter. Inside, a spherical metal survival package floated in fluid to distribute and dampen the structural loads at impact, and to allow erection of the package to local vertical by moon gravity after the capsule came to rest. In addition to tiny batteries, the survival package would contain the single-axis seismometer already being developed by Caltech's Seismological Laboratory and the Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory at Columbia University. Erection to local vertical on the moon would permit the sensitive axis of the seismometer to be positioned correctly, and allowed deployment of a modest directional transmitting antenna.”
Artwork by the incredibly talented & prolific Swiss army knife of any/all space flight/exploration artistry - Mr. John Gorsuch.
Finally & tangentially - to me - the lunarscape depicted looks a little like Alphonsus & environs.