Author Topic: Ranger 8 17th Feb 1965  (Read 3526 times)

Online FutureSpaceTourist

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Ranger 8 17th Feb 1965
« on: 02/17/2017 11:11 am »
Search didn't turn up any Ranger 8 threads, so creating this to post first attached image from:

Quote
February 17, 1965: Launch of Ranger 8 from CCAFS LC-12 on an Atlas LV-3/Agena B rocket.

https://twitter.com/danspace77/status/832518369291153409

Image may have come from this great article on ranger 8:

http://www.drewexmachina.com/2015/02/17/50-years-ago-today-the-launch-of-ranger-8/

Also attached another launch photo.

Offline kking

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Re: Ranger 8 17th Feb 1965
« Reply #1 on: 02/17/2017 07:54 pm »
I got a lot of audio of Ranger 8 from launch to Lunar impact and press conferences. I also got the SA-9 launch the day before Ranger 8 is launched too.

Offline edkyle99

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Re: Ranger 8 17th Feb 1965
« Reply #2 on: 02/17/2017 09:00 pm »

Offline edkyle99

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Re: Ranger 8 17th Feb 1965
« Reply #3 on: 02/18/2017 04:42 pm »
Pre-launch image thanks to the late Art LeBrun.  A full resolution version will be posted to the L2 Atlas image thread in coming months (we're only up to April 1964 so far).

 - Ed Kyle

Online catdlr

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Re: Ranger 8 17th Feb 1965
« Reply #4 on: 08/01/2018 04:05 am »
bump for an historical film.

Ranger VIII Television Pictures of the Moon February 20, 1965 NASA-JPL

Jeff Quitney
Published on Jul 31, 2018

Views of the moon taken from the Ranger VIII... The Ranger series was the first U.S. attempt to obtain close-up images of the Lunar surface. The Ranger spacecraft were designed to fly straight down towards the Moon and send images back until the moment of impact. The project ran from 1961 - 1965.

Silent.

Ranger 8 was one of the spacecraft of the Ranger program, a series of unmanned space missions by NASA intended to obtain the first close-up images of the surface of the Moon. In its mission in 1965, it transmitted 7,137 photographs of the lunar surface before it crashed into the Moon as planned. This was a second successful, after Ranger 7, mission of the series; all the six previous attempts failed.

Spacecraft design

General

Ranger spacecraft was originally designed, beginning in 1959, in three distinct phases, called "blocks". Rangers 6, 7, 8, and 9 were the Block 3 versions. The spacecraft consisted of a hexagonal aluminum frame base 1.5 m across on which was mounted the propulsion and power units, topped by a truncated conical tower which held the TV cameras. Two solar panel wings, each 739 mm wide by 1537 mm long, extended from opposite edges of the base with a full span of 4.6 m, and a pointable high gain dish antenna was hinge mounted at one of the corners of the base away from the solar panels. A cylindrical quasi-omnidirectional antenna was seated on top of the conical tower. The overall height of the spacecraft was 3.6 m.

Propulsion for the mid-course trajectory correction was provided by a 224 N thrust monopropellant hydrazine engine with four jet-vane vector control. Orientation and attitude control about three axes were enabled by twelve nitrogen gas jets coupled to a system of three gyroscopes, four primary Sun sensors, two secondary Sun sensors, and an Earth sensor. Power was supplied by 9792 silicon solar cells contained in the two solar panels, giving a total array area of 2.3 square meters and producing 200 W. Two 1200 watt·hour AgZnO batteries rated at 26.5 V with a capacity for nine hours of operation provided power to each of the separate communication/TV camera chains. Two 1000 watt·hour AgZnO batteries stored power for spacecraft operations.

Cameras

The spacecraft carried six television vidicon cameras.

Mission profile

The Atlas 196D and Agena B 6006 boosters performed nominally, injecting the Agena and Ranger 8 into an Earth parking orbit at 185 km altitude after launch. Fourteen minutes later a 90 second burn of the Agena put the spacecraft into lunar transfer trajectory, and several minutes later the Ranger and Agena separated. The Ranger solar panels were deployed, attitude control activated, and spacecraft transmissions switched from the omniantenna to the high-gain antenna by 21:30 UT. On 18 February at a distance of 160,000 km from Earth the planned mid-course maneuver took place, involving reorientation and a 59 second rocket burn... A planned terminal sequence to point the cameras more in the direction of flight just before reaching the Moon was cancelled to allow the cameras to cover a greater area of the Moon's surface.

Ranger 8 reached the Moon on February 20, 1965. The first image was taken at 9:34:32 UT at an altitude of 2510 km. Transmission of 7,137 photographs of good quality occurred over the final 23 minutes of flight. The final image taken before impact has a resolution of 1.5 meters. The spacecraft encountered the lunar surface in a direct hyperbolic trajectory, with incoming asymptotic direction at an angle of -13.6 degrees from the lunar equator. The orbit plane was inclined 16.5 degrees to the lunar equator. After 64.9 hours of flight, impact occurred at 09:57:36.756 UT on 20 February 1965 in Mare Tranquillitatis at approximately 2.67° N, 24.65° E. (The impact site is listed as about 2.72° N, 24.61° E in the initial report "Ranger 8 Photographs of the Moon".) Impact velocity was slightly less than 2.68 km/s, approximately 6,000 mph. The spacecraft performance was excellent.

The impact crater or Ranger 8, approximately 13.5 m wide, was later photographed by Lunar Orbiter IV.

------------------------------------------------------
Originally a public domain film from NASA, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTh9V-5tOB0?t=001

« Last Edit: 08/01/2018 04:05 am by catdlr »
Tony De La Rosa, ...I'm no Feline Dealer!! I move mountains.  but I'm better known for "I think it's highly sexual." Japanese to English Translation.

Online catdlr

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Re: Ranger 8 17th Feb 1965
« Reply #5 on: 09/08/2018 04:29 am »
Super Slow Motion: Ranger 8 Atlas-Agena 196D Launch 1965-02-17 NASA; CCAFS LC-12

Jeff Quitney
Published on Sep 7, 2018

High-speed camera photography super slow-motion views of the launch of Ranger VIII atop Atlas-Agena 196D from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Launch Complex 12. Silent.

Ranger 8 was one of the spacecraft of the Ranger program, a series of unmanned space missions by NASA intended to obtain the first close-up images of the surface of the Moon. In its mission in 1965, it transmitted 7,137 photographs of the lunar surface before it crashed into the Moon as planned. This was a second successful, after Ranger 7, mission of the series; all the six previous attempts failed...

Mission profile

The Atlas 196D and Agena B 6006 boosters performed nominally, injecting the Agena and Ranger 8 into an Earth parking orbit at 185 km altitude after launch. Fourteen minutes later a 90-second burn of the Agena put the spacecraft into lunar transfer trajectory, and several minutes later the Ranger and Agena separated.

Ranger 8 reached the Moon on February 20, 1965. The first image was taken at 9:34:32 UT at an altitude of 2510 km. Transmission of 7,137 photographs of good quality occurred over the final 23 minutes of flight.

The Atlas-Agena was an American expendable launch system derived from the SM-65 Atlas missile. It was a member of the Atlas family of rockets, and was launched 109 times between 1960 and 1978. It was used to launch the first five Mariner unmanned probes to the planets Venus and Mars, and the Ranger and Lunar Orbiter unmanned probes to the Moon. The upper stage was also used as an unmanned orbital target vehicle for the Gemini manned spacecraft to practice rendezvous and docking. However, the launch vehicle family was originally developed for the Air Force and most of its launches were classified DoD payloads.

The Atlas-Agena was a two-and-a-half-stage rocket, with a stage-and-a-half Atlas missile as the first stage, and an RM-81 Agena second stage. Initially, Atlas D missiles, redesignated as the LV-3, were used as the first stage. These were later replaced by the standardized Atlas SLV-3, and its derivatives, the SLV-3A and B. The final Atlas-Agena launch used an Atlas E/F.

Launches were conducted from Launch Complexes 12, 13 and 14 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, and Launch Complexes 1 and 2 at Point Arguello (now SLC-3 and 4 at Vandenberg Air Force Base).

-------------------------------------------------------
Originally a public domain film from NASA, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.



Tony De La Rosa, ...I'm no Feline Dealer!! I move mountains.  but I'm better known for "I think it's highly sexual." Japanese to English Translation.

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