Mission Summary
Ranger 6 struck the Moon on February 2, 1964 in the Sea of Tranquility (Mare Tranquillitatis), proving NASA could accurately target a lunar impact. Its primary goal was to transmit thousands of high-resolution images during the final minutes before impact to help evaluate the lunar surface for future landings. A malfunction prevented all six TV cameras from returning images, but the mission helped engineers correct problems before the highly successful Ranger 7, 8, and 9 missions.
Unlike its troubled predecessors, the flight itself went exactly according to plan. The rocket gave the probe a precise push, and ground controllers successfully adjusted its path mid-flight. Ranger 6 zipped across the void and headed straight toward its target at the eastern edge of the Sea of Tranquility.
The heartbreak came in the final minutes. As the spacecraft closed in on the Moon, ground control sent the command to warm up the cameras. Nothing happened. Investigators later discovered that during the violent shaking of launch three days earlier, the camera system had accidentally switched itself on prematurely while the rocket was still passing through the atmosphere. This caused a massive short circuit that completely burned out the television power supplies. Ranger 6 struck the Moon precisely on schedule on February 2, 1964, but it died without sending back a single picture.
Note: Ranger 6 is classified as unsuccessful despite its accurate impact because the television pictures were the mission's single objective. The catalog reserves partial success for missions that returned at least part of their intended results, and Ranger 6 returned none.
Sources and notes can be found on the Sources page.
