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Ranger 1 was a spacecraft in the Ranger program of unmanned space missions. Its primary mission was to test the performance of those functions and parts necessary for carrying out subsequent lunar and planetary missions; a secondary objective was to study the nature of particles and fields in interplanetary space. The spacecraft was only partially successful, due to failure of a rocket late in the mission.
Spacecraft design
The spacecraft was of the Ranger Block 1 design and consisted of a hexagonal base 1.5 m across upon which was mounted a cone-shaped 4 m high tower of aluminum struts and braces. Two solar panel wings measuring 5.2 m from tip to tip extended from the base. A high-gain directional dish antenna was attached to the bottom of the base. Spacecraft experiments and other equipment were mounted on the base and tower. Instruments aboard the spacecraft included a Lyman-alpha telescope, a rubidium-vapor magnetometer, electrostatic analyzers, medium-energy range particle detectors, two triple coincidence telescopes, a cosmic-ray integrating ionization chamber, cosmic dust detectors, and solar X-ray scintillation counters.
The communications system included the high gain antenna and an omni-directional medium gain antenna and two transmitters, one at 960.1 MHz with 0.25 W power output and the other at 960.05 MHz with 3 W power output. Power was to be furnished by 8680 solar cells on the two panels, a 57 kg silver-zinc battery, and smaller batteries on some of the experiments. Attitude control was provided by a solid-state timing controller, Sun and Earth sensors, and pitch and roll jets. The temperature was controlled passively by gold plating, white paint, and polished aluminum surfaces.
Mission
The Ranger 1 spacecraft was designed to go into an Earth parking orbit and then move into a 60,000 by 1,100,000 km Earth orbit. The purpose was to test systems and strategies for future lunar missions.
Ranger 1 was successfully launched into the parking orbit as planned. However, its Agena B engine failed to restart to put it into the higher trajectory orbit, so that when Ranger 1 separated from its Agena stage it went into a low Earth orbit and began tumbling. The satellite re-entered Earth's atmosphere on August 30, 1961. The mission was partially successful, in that much of the primary objective of flight testing the equipment was accomplished; however, little scientific data was returned.
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