Trollheart

Ranger 6
Launched: January 30, 1964
Reached Destination: February 2 1964
Type: Impactor
Nationality: American
Results: None, as the cameras malfunctioned
Photographs Taken: 0
Mission Ended: February 2 1964
Termination of Probe: Impacted on Moon surface.

This was pretty much disaster for NASA. Although the probe performed almost perfectly, and landed (impacted) on schedule, the failure of the cameras to operate meant that the mission was basically a further waste of money. As this had been an effort to photograph the Moon’s surface in order to determine a safe site for the Apollo manned missions, the probe had just the one function: to take pictures. But it failed to do so, and therefore was less than useless. NASA tried to put the usual desperate positive spin on the mission, but it was clear Congress was running out of patience and could see through their bullshit. The next one had to work. There simply was no longer any alternative.

Ranger 7
Launched: July 28 1964
Reached Destination: July 28 1964
Type: Impactor
Nationality: American
Results: (Finally) successfully impacted on the Moon and sent back thousands of pictures
Photographs Taken: 4,308
Mission Ended: July 28 1964
Termination of Probe: Impacted on surface of the Moon.


After twelve unsuccessful attempts and two programmes, NASA had finally managed to land a probe on the Moon and send back clear, vivid photographs of its surface. They must have been shitting themselves at launch though, as the first countdown had to be abandoned when the battery failed, but the next day the rocket took off without a hitch. From then on it was, for the first time in NASA’s history, plain sailing, and they were finally able to justify the massive cost of their Ranger programme. I mean, I don’t know what probes cost back then, but I’m willing to bet that, unlike the guy in Robocop, Congress were not buying that for a dollar! It must have been in the billions, but I guess eventually it proved money well spent.

Not even the Russians, with all their successful probes and impacts, had managed to take photographs of the Moon, so America was the first country to do that, and though it may seem incredible, and does to me, that after all these failures, they would send a man to the Moon only five years later, NASA would seal the place of the United States in history when Neil Armstrong planted, by his own hand, the stars and stripes on the surface of the Moon. From that point on, it could be said that the space race was basically over, and America had won.

Ranger 8
Launched: February 17 1965
Reached Destination: February 20 1965
Type: Impactor
Nationality: American
Results: Photographed the Moon’s surface in close-up
Photographs Taken: 7,137
Mission Ended: February 20 1965
Termination of Probe: Crashed on the surface of the Moon.

Now that they had had their first successful mission to the Moon - after so many futile years and so many failures, and way behind the USSR in terms of time but well ahead in terms of technology and achievement - there was no stopping the USA. More pictures were taken of the surface of the Moon, this time in close-up, enabling NASA to further plan the landing site for what would be the first human steps on the Moon four years later. For once, there were no problems with the launch, and though there was a slight scare with telemetry loss after lift-off, it did not impact the mission, which was carried out successfully.

Ranger 9
Launched: March 21 1965
Reached Destination: March 24 1965
Type: Impactor
Nationality: American
Results: More high-res photographs taken of the surface
Photographs Taken: 5,814
Mission Ended: March 24 1965
Termination of Probe: Impacted on the surface of the Moon.

The last of the Ranger missions, by now established as the most successful NASA had attempted and with Congress surely now ready to dole out the readies, this was the first time that real-time live transmission of pictures from the Moon were broadcast on television, another unlikely coup for the USA, which had only six years before lagged so badly behind the USSR that even Paddy Power, had he been in business, would have been unlikely to have taken that bet. All efforts now moved to the Apollo programme.

Meanwhile, the Reds were back.

With its last successful launch in September 1959, as above, all subsequent versions of the Luna probe failed either to launch or to operate properly. Russians being Russians, they were never exactly open about their failures, so the next one we know anything about is

Luna 9
Launched: January 31 1966
Reached Destination:
Type: Lander
Nationality: Soviet (Russian)
Results: Photographs taken of the lunar surface, confirmed surface stable enough to land on and Luna 9 made history as the first man-made probe to land safely on another planetary body.
Photographs Taken: 9
Mission Ended: February 6 1966
Termination of Probe: Still on the Moon’s surface

Again, Russians being Russians, though there were only nine photographs taken, the Soviets were not about to release them to the public, but Jodrell Bank kind of hijacked them by using transmission equipment usually used by newspapers for receiving picture signals, and broadcast them around the world.

Luna 10
Launched: March 31 1966
Reached Destination: April 3 1966
Type: Orbiter
Nationality: Soviet (Russian)
Results: Studied the gravity, radiation of the Moon, solar plasma and geological studies; became the first artificial satellite of the Moon
Photographs Taken:
Mission Ended: May 30 1966
Termination of Probe: In orbit around the Moon

Surveyor 1
Launched: May 30 1966
Reached Destination: June 2 1966
Type: Lander
Nationality: American
Results: Returned live video from the surface of the Moon, transmitted over television
Photographs Taken: 11,000 (video form)
Mission Ended: January 7 1967
Termination of Probe: Still on the surface of the Moon

Another first for the now-ever-strengthening USA, with live video feed of pictures from the Moon and the first ever soft landing (as opposed to hard impact, which had been the only landings made up to now) on its surface.

Lunar Orbiter 1
Launched: August 10 1966
Reached Destination: August 14 1966
Type: Orbiter
Nationality: American
Results: Photographed the Moon from orbit, carried out various experiments with respect to impact craters, radiation and makeup of the Moon
Photographs Taken: 229
Mission Ended: October 29 1966
Termination of Probe: Impacted on Moon’s surface

Though most of the photographs sent back by Lunar Orbiter 1 (couldn’t they have come up with a sexier name for it?) were relatively low-resolution, even for 1966, it did take the first ever photos of Earth from the Moon.

Luna 11
Launched: August 24 1966
Reached Destination: August 27 1966
Type: Orbiter
Nationality: Soviet (Russian)
Results: Studied gamma and x-rays to determine the Moon’s chemical composition, analysed meteoroids near the Moon, checked out lunar gravity and radiation
Photographs Taken: 0 (Failure of camera to operate)
Mission Ended: October 1 1966
Termination of Probe: Presumably crashed on the Moon when the batteries ran out.

Surveyor 2
Launched: September 20 1966
Reached Destination: Failed
Type: Lander
Nationality: American
Results: Contact lost in flight
Photographs Taken: 0
Mission Ended: September 23 1966
Termination of Probe: Crashed onto the Moon’s surface.

Whether the ghost of their previous failures resurfaced and NASA thought “here we go again” I don’t know, but this was the first probe to fail in its mission since Ranger 6, a course correction knocking it off trajectory and crashing it into the Moon. Oops! Not quite the soft landing they had intended. Never mind.

Luna 12
Launched: October 22 1966
Reached Destination: October 25 1966
Type: Orbiter
Nationality: Soviet (Russian)
Results: Completed failed mission of Luna 11
Photographs Taken: Unknown
Mission Ended: October 19 1966
Termination of Probe: Unknown but presumably crashed onto the Moon

This was sent into orbit around the Moon to address the failure of its predecessor to obtain and transmit the photographs of the lunar surface required; as noted above, Luna 11’s camera failed to operate due to some technical fault. Interestingly, the Soviets made sure not to have their transmissions hijacked this time by Jodrell Bank, switching between frequencies and confounding all attempts to intercept their signal. Those sneaky Commies!


Lunar Orbiter 2
Launched: November 6 1966
Reached Destination: November 10 1966
Type: Orbiter
Nationality: American
Results: Same as Lunar Orbiter 1
Photographs Taken: 817
Mission Ended: October 11 1967
Termination of Probe: Impacted on Moon’s surface

Luna 13
Launched: December 21 1966
Reached Destination: December 24 1966 (Happy Christmas, Comrades!)
Type: Lander
Nationality: Soviet (Russian)
Results: Panoramic photographs of the lunar surface taken, also soil samples
Photographs Taken: 5
Mission Ended: December 28 1966
Termination of Probe: Contact lost; presumably still on the Moon

Lunar Orbiter 3
Launched: February 5 1967
Reached Destination: February 8 1967
Type: Orbiter
Nationality: American
Results: Same as previous probes
Photographs Taken: 526
Mission Ended: October 9 1967
Termination of Probe: Impacted on Moon’s surface

Surveyor 3
Launched: April 18 1967
Reached Destination: April 20 1967
Type: Lander
Nationality: American
Results: Took soil samples from the Moon’s surface
Photographs Taken: 0
Mission Ended: May 3 1967
Termination of Probe: Still on the surface of the Moon.

Hooray! Another success for the good old USA! This time the mission was not to take photographs but to test the soil as NASA continued to build up its profile of the surface upon which they intended man to set foot in two years. In 1969, after this had been successfully achieved, to America’s lasting glory, this probe was partly cannibalised by astronauts from Apollo 12, making it the only probe on a celestial body to be visited by humans.


Lunar Orbiter 4
Launched: May 4 1967
Reached Destination:
Type: Orbiter
Nationality: American
Results: Almost 99 percent of the Moon’s surface photographed
Photographs Taken: 426
Mission Ended: October 6 1967
Termination of Probe: Impacted on Moon’s surface

Surveyor 4
Launched: July 14 1967
Reached Destination: July 17 1967
Type: Lander
Nationality: American
Results: Failed
Photographs Taken: 0
Mission Ended: July 17 1967
Termination of Probe: Believed to have exploded above Moon’s surface.

Maybe the comedown after the high, the fate of Surveyor 4 was never established, though contact being lost with it as it prepared to descend to the surface, it was theorised that its rocket might have exploded before it landed. There were no problems on launch and the flight to the Moon was perfect, but then contact was lost and that was that.

Lunar Orbiter 5
Launched: August 1 1967
Reached Destination:
Type: Orbiter
Nationality: American
Results: Photographed, among others, the later landing site for Apollo 11
Photographs Taken: 844
Mission Ended: January 31 1968
Termination of Probe: Impacted on Moon’s surface

Surveyor 5
Launched: September 8 1967
Reached Destination: September 11 1967
Type: Lander
Nationality: American
Results: Analysed the composition of the soil on the Moon, took photographs of its surface
Photographs Taken: 19.118
Mission Ended: December 17 1967
Termination of Probe: Remains on the surface of the Moon

Surveyor 6
Launched: November 7 1967
Reached Destination: November 10 1967
Type: Lander
Nationality: American
Results: Analysed the soil of the Moon, took photographs of its surface
Photographs Taken: 30,027
Mission Ended: December 11 1967
Termination of Probe: Remains on the Moon’s surface

Although Surveyor 6 was identical to its predecessor, it was involved in one other experiment that had never been tried before, by anyone. Seven days after landing, its engines were reignited on the Moon and it rose twelve feet into the air and flew eight feet west before settling back down onto the surface of the Moon.

Surveyor 7
Launched: January 7 1968
Reached Destination: January 10 1968
Type: Lander
Nationality: American
Results: Obtained soil samples, took photographs, returned touchdown dynamics data
Photographs Taken: 21,091
Mission Ended: February 21 1968
Termination of Probe: Remains on the Moon’s surface


Luna 14
Launched: April 7 1968
Reached Destination: April 10 1968
Type: Orbiter
Nationality: Soviet (Russian)
Results: Communications tested in support of later lunar landings
Photographs Taken: 0
Mission Ended: June 4 1968
Termination of Probe: Unknown

Lunokhod 201
Launched: February 19 1969
Reached Destination: Failed
Type: Rover
Nationality: Soviet (Russian)
Results: None
Photographs Taken: 0
Mission Ended: February 19 1969
Termination of Probe: Exploded after takeoff

This was the beginning of the Soviet Lunokhod program, to send robotic vehicles called rovers to land on, and investigate, the surface of the Moon. It was hardly the most auspicious start; not only did the rocket carrying the rover explode shortly after it lifted off, but the explosion spread the deadly radioactive chemical polonium 201 over much of Russia. Not surprisingly, they kept that one quiet!

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