In addition, image loops produced from cameras A and B can be seen that show the vehicle approaching the lunar surface. The images from Ranger VIII and other Ranger spacecraft are available in an atlas of Ranger Photographs of the Moon. The vehicle hit the lunar surface 68 km NNE of Tranquility Base. Several pictures in that sequence captured what would become Tranquility Base from an altitude as low as 229 km. Camera B was aimed farther south than Camera A and captured the terrain along a path that passed only 27 km north of what would become Tranquility Base.
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Before impacting the lunar surface at a velocity of ~2.68 km/s (~9650 km/hr), full scans from cameras A (a wide-angle 25º field of view) and B (a narrow angle 8.4º field of view) were transmitted back to Earth, providing 60 and 90 frames, respectively, with about five seconds between frames on each camera. The spacecraft carried six television cameras with different exposure times, fields of view, lenses, and scan rates. Ranger VIII reached the Moon three days after launch and targeted the southwestern portion of Mare Tranquillitatis, which was interpreted by geologists as a flood basalt province. Ranger VIII targeted Mare Tranquillitatis, in part because it was a relatively flat terrain close to the equator and, thus, where astronauts could land. Ranger VIII, however, provided the initial data for what would become Tranquility Base.
Ranger VII was the first successful mission in this series, producing a string of images before hitting the surface of Mare Cognitum, south of the equator on the western portion of the lunar nearside. Surveyor III and Apollo 12 would return that region in the future. They did so by flying towards the Moon, taking photographs at increasingly lower altitudes until they hit the lunar surface. The Ranger missions’ primary objective was to determine the “fine-scale” structure of the lunar surface and, thus, determine if it was safe for robotic and human landings. The Ranger program was redirected to support the Apollo program when, in 1962, President Kennedy announced plans to safely land astronauts on the Moon and return them to Earth. The Ranger program was initiated in 1959 to conduct lunar science and compete with the Soviet Union’s Luna Program, which had already that year flown past the Moon (Luna 1, January), hit the Moon (Luna 2, September), and orbited and photographed the lunar farside (Luna 3, October).Ī complete list of lunar-related missions is available in LPI’s Lunar Exploration Timeline. Together, the robotic Ranger VIII mission and the subsequent Apollo 11 mission illustrated the tremendous value of an integrated robotic and human space exploration program. Three days later the vehicle flew towards the lunar surface, providing our first glimpse of what would become Tranquility Base when humans stepped on another planetary surface for the first time. The robotic Ranger VIII spacecraft was launched towards the Moon February 17, 1965. Pioneering an Integrated Robotic and Human Exploration Program
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