Feb. 1, 1964 - Ranger 6, with television cameras poised to take the first close-ups of the Moon, was in the final stretch of its 66-hour journey tonight, operating flawlessly. It was due to make a bullseye impact in the huge dry sea known as the Sea of Tranquillity at 4:24 a.m. EST tomorrow. Scientists of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said the spacecraft was aligned so perfectly that final maneuvers to refine the camera aim — a treacherous business — could be skipped.
Six television cameras were set to relay back to Earth up to 3,000 still pictures of the Moon’s surface during the last 10 minutes before they crashed. If successful, they would lift the curtain on a new era in astronomy, providing pictures 100 to 1,000 times more detailed than any views obtained through telescopes on Earth. They would provide the Apollo team planning a manned lunar landing by 1970 with a vastly improved idea of what the surface is like — data needed to select a design for the landing craft. Finally, success of the picture-taking would climax the most productive week in the history of the nation’s space program. On Wednesday, the U.S. outdid the Russians in the weight of payload placed in orbit, putting up the second stage of a two-stage Saturn.
The pictures transmitted by Ranger 6 will be slow-scan, 800-line T.V. pictures taken by two wide-angle and four narrow-angle cameras made by RCA. The signals will be transmitted to the tracking station at Goldstone, in the Mojave Desert about 170 miles from Pasadena. They will be constituted into still pictures on 35-mm film, which will then be rushed by plane to Burbank and then to Pasadena by helicopter. Some of the world’s most eminent astronomers will be in a special experiment room to provide the first scientific interpretations. It may not be until tomorrow evening before pictures are released for public view.
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