RANGER 1 (launched August 23, 1961) - Lot 45

RANGER 1 (launched August 23, 1961) Lot of 5 photographic prints including: - 2 prints of the probe (vintage silver prints 20.5 x 25.5cm, numbered P 1629A and 313-64) - 3 prints of drawings dated July 1961: 1 of the anatomy of the Ranger 1 probe and its Atlas-Agena rocket (uncaptioned on back), 1 detailed drawing of the probe (captioned on back, no. P 1632), and a drawing of the probe's trajectory in its elliptical orbit, captioned and numbered P 1631. The Ranger program was designed to take precise snapshots of the moon and gather information on the composition of the lunar surface. 9 Ranger probes were launched from an Atlas-Agena B rocket between August 23, 1961 and March 24, 1965. They were produced by JPL, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (California). After several failures from Ranger 1 to Ranger 6, the program was a success from Ranger 7 onwards.