The discarded extension of the Ranger program

Site of the guided impact of Ranger 9, March 24, 1965 (12.82°S, 357.61°E). LROC Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) observation M170579736R, LRO orbit 10272, September 13, 2012; resolution 49.6 cm, angle of incidence 16.1° from 44.64 kilometers. There are images of the impact showing more relief but this most recently released view, under a high sun, balances detail with contrast exposing more detail of the wispy ejecta albedo [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

David S. F. Portree
WIRED/Beyond Apollo

In the summer and fall of 1962, NASA Headquarters planned at least 18 missions in the Ranger series. Some would have imaged the moon’s surface to certify potential Apollo landing sites, while others would have had a more purely scientific intent. On December 13, 1963, however, the total shrank to nine, with science missions taking the brunt of the cuts. Ranger itself was partly to blame; all five Rangers flown up to that time had failed, undermining confidence in the program and building support for an early switch to Lunar Orbiter and Surveyor, Ranger’s intended successor programs.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, built the Rangers on contract to NASA Headquarters. The probes left Earth atop Atlas rockets with Agena B upper stages (image at top of post). Rangers 1 and 2, Block I spacecraft designed to test spacecraft systems and return data on conditions in space up to 1.1 million kilometers from Earth, weighed a little over 300 kilograms each. Both reached low-Earth orbit, where they became stranded by Agena B failures. Ranger 1 lifted off on August 23, 1961, and burned up in the atmosphere a week later. NASA launched Ranger 2 on November 18, 1961; it burned up just two days later.

Ranger - Block III - spacecraft diagram [NASA].

Rangers 3 through 5 were Block II spacecraft designed to image the moon during approach and then rough-land a balsa wood-cushioned instrument capsule bearing a battery-powered seismometer. Rangers 3 and 4 weighed about 330 kilograms; Ranger 5 was somewhat heavier (342 kilograms). Ranger 3, launched on January 26, 1962, missed the moon by 36,800 kilometers on January 28 and entered orbit around the Sun. Ranger 4, launched April 23, 1962, lost power 10 hours after launch after its twin tapering solar arrays failed to open. It became the first Ranger to touch the moon, crashing inert on the lunar Farside (the hemisphere turned always away from Earth) on April 26. Ranger 5 also suffered a power failure shortly after launch on October 18, 1962; it passed about 725 kilometers over the moon on October 21 and entered solar orbit. After the Ranger 5 failure, NASA tasked the RCA Astro Division with reworking the spacecraft’s electronics.

Block III Rangers, the next in the series, were meant to radio to Earth images of the lunar surface as they plummeted toward destructive impact. All weighed about 365 kilograms. Ranger 6, the first of the Block III Rangers, left Earth on January 30, 1964. It transmitted signals until it struck the moon’s Mare Tranquillitatis – the Sea of Tranquility – within a few kilometers of its target on February 2, 1964, but its six cameras never switched on. The failure led to an independent review board, new program management, a Congressional investigation, and calls for the program’s cancellation.

Read the full article HERE.

The First Race to the Moon

Engineer Special Study of the Surface of the Moon (1960, 1961), "Generalized Photogeologic Map of the Moon" (Robert J. Hackman, USGS; Prepared for the Office, Chief of Engineers, Department of the Army, U.S.) [LPI, USGS].

David S. F. Portree
Beyond Apollo

The race to the moon began on August 17, 1958, and the Soviet Union won. This isn't the opening line of an alternate history story; rather, it is an acknowledgment that more than one moon race took place. The first, with the goal of launching a small automated spacecraft to the moon, began with the liftoff of the Able 1 lunar orbiter, a 38-kilogram U.S. Air Force (USAF) probe. (It was later redesignated Pioneer 0.) Just 77 seconds after launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, Able 1's first-stage Thor rocket exploded, ending the world's first attempted lunar mission.

A month later, on September 23, 1958, the Soviet Union joined the race. A spherical Luna probe intended to impact the moon fell victim to the failure of its upgraded R-7 booster rocket just 93 seconds after liftoff from Baikonur Cosmodrome in central Asia.

On October 11, 1958, USAF launched Able 2, a near-copy of Able 1. It was the first lunar launch conducted under NASA auspices. The civilian space agency had opened its doors on October 1, 1958. NASA absorbed most Department of Defense space projects, though in practice the USAF and Army continued to carry out missions while interagency relations and lines of command became defined. Able 2, later redesignated Pioneer 1, burned up in Earth's atmosphere on October 13, after its Able second stage shut down early, placing it on an elliptical path that took it about a third of the way to the moon. The Soviets launched their second Luna moon impactor just 16 hours after the U.S. launched Able 2. The Luna's upgraded R-7 launch vehicle exploded 104 seconds after liftoff.

And so it went, with launches from Florida and Kazakhstan alternating and failing.

Read the Remarkable Chronicle HERE.

New and improved J-2 (J2X) is ready for live-fire testing

The J-2X, designed and built for NASA by Prat & Whitney Rocketdyne, is the new generation design for the engine that powered Apollo-Saturn V's Third Stage through Trans-Lunar Injection from 1968-1972. The complete redesign is ready for live-fire testing. Above a Shuttle main engine undergoes testing at Stennis Space Center two years ago [NASA/Stennis].

al.com

Bay St. Louis. Mississippi- NASA's new J-2X rocket engine is ready for its initial round of testing after being installed Saturday in the A-2 Test Stand at the space agency's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.

The fully assembled engine will undergo a series of 10 test firings starting this month that will last several months.

"An upper stage engine is essential to making space exploration outside low-Earth orbit a reality," Mike Kynard, manager of the J-2X upper stage engine project at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, said in a news release. "The J-2X goes beyond the limits of its historic predecessor and achieves higher thrust, performance, and reliability than the J2. We are thrilled to have the engine in the test stand to validate our assumptions about engine performance and reliability."

NASA's first lunar outpost plan (1992)

Beyond Apollo - Noted recorder of NASA's notions of yesterday, David S.F. Portree offers a no-nonsense post covering the 1992 lunar outpost plans that crashed upon the shoals of the first Augustine commission, and ultimately Congress.

David S. F. Portree
Beyond Shuttle

The Exploration Program Office at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, launched the First Lunar Outpost (FLO) study in December 1991 by establishing six study teams. In June 1992, the JSC Systems Engineering Division and McDonnell Douglas-Houston developed FLO Crew Lander and Habitat flight plans to aid the FLO Mission Design and Analysis Team.

For their analysis, JSC and McDonnell targeted the first FLO expedition to Mare Smythii, a dark basaltic plain on the moon's eastern limb. They assumed that NASA would develop a heavy-lift rocket capable of launching 200 metric tons to 185-kilometer low-Earth orbit and 27 metric tons to the lunar surface. The monster launcher would permit the two FLO landers to be launched with their respective Trans-Lunar Injection (TLI) stages attached, eliminating Earth-orbital rendezvous and docking and reliance on an Earth-orbiting space station from the FLO plan. In other words, this FLO iteration would use the Direct Ascent lunar mission mode considered - and rejected - for Apollo moon missions. The first FLO expedition would leave Earth five years after program initiation; JSC and McDonnell judged this to be "not only feasible and attractive, but essential in gaining budget acceptance."

Read the full posting HERE.