Ranger 3, Card No 13 (RaceIntoSpace 1971)
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Card No. 13: Ranger 3
Ranger was the name of a series of nine basically similar American spacecraft designed to hard-land scientific instrument capsules on the Moon and photograph its surface.
Ranger 3, the first US attempt to photograph the Moon from close range, was launched by Atlas-Agena rocket from Cape Canaveral on Jan. 26. 1962.
The 727 pound spacecraft with its 24 inch diameter, 92 pound capsule, was given too high a velocity and passed by the Moon at 22,862 miles instead of 5,000 miles. The capsule was not released and efforts to photograph the Moon failed.
