OTD In Space – January 30: Ranger 6 Launched

On January 30, 1964, NASA launched the Ranger 6 spacecraft on a mission to obtain the first-ever close-up images of the surface of the moon.

The spacecraft carried six television cameras to transmit videos and images of the moon, but the cameras failed, and no images were ever returned. This was the sixth mission failure for the Ranger program. Congress wasn't too happy with the series of failures and called an investigation into management problems at NASA Headquarters and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The next mission, Ranger 7, launched six months later and was a roaring success.