Last Rangers
Date: 30 Jan 1964

Rangers 6 though 9 were the third and most successful generation of spacecraft in the lunar impact program.

The Ranger fleet of spacecraft of the early 1960s provided for the first time live television transmissions of the moon from lunar orbit. These transmissions resolved surface features as small as 10 inches across and provided over 17,000 images of the lunar surface.

The photographs allowed allowed detailed study of the moon which allowed scientists and engineers to design spacecraft that would carry humans to the lunar surface.

Credit: NASA