Mission Type: Orbiter
Launch Vehicle: Launch Vehicle: Atlas-Centaur (AC-8 / Atlas no. 184D / Centaur D)
Launch Site: Eastern Test Range, launch complex 36B, Cape Canaveral, U.S.A.
Spacecraft Mass: 784 kg
Spacecraft Instruments: None.
Project Manager: William R. Dunbar
References:
Deep Space Chronicle: A Chronology of Deep Space and Planetary Probes 1958-2000, Monographs in Aerospace History No. 24, by Asif A. Siddiqi
National Space Science Data Center, http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/
This was a test to launch a dummy Surveyor lunar lander spacecraft into a barycentric orbit toward a simulated Moon.
Unlike the two previous Surveyor mass model tests, this flight was supposed to demonstrate a restart capability for the Centaur upper stage. The Centaur-Surveyor combination successfully achieved parking orbit around Earth, but at the desired time, the Centaur engines fired for only a few seconds.
A thrust imbalance left the payload tumbling. The problem was later traced to a hydrogen peroxide leak in the ullage motors of the Centaur stage. With no hope of reaching its ultimate orbit, the spacecraft reentered Earth's atmosphere on 5 May 1966.
Although it was not sent to the Moon, the mission served as a test of the Surveyor spacecraft that would pioneer lunar landing techniques.