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Today in the history of astronomy, the U.S. scores a win in the Space Race.

A black-and-white aerial view shows a heavily textured grey surface covered in round craters of various sizes. Strong side lighting from the upper left creates high contrast, casting deep black shadows inside the crater rims and highlighting the bright, raised edges across the terrain. A grid of small black crosshairs and corner marks is overlaid evenly across the entire frame.

Ranger 7 sent 4,308 images back to Earth — including this one. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

With the Space Race heating up, the Ranger program was developed as an answer to Sputnik: The U.S. would land spacecraft on the Moon. When President John F. Kennedy vowed in 1961 to put a man on the lunar surface, the project evolved. Instead of being purely scientific or exploratory, Ranger spacecraft would also be scouting good locations for future astronauts to land. While Rangers 1 and 2 failed to achieve orbit, and Rangers 3 through 6 showed improvements but struggled with malfunctions, Ranger 7 was a success. Launching July 28, 1964, from Cape Canaveral, its journey was smooth sailing. On July 31, it approached the Moon and transmitted 4,308 images in the 15 minutes before it impacted the lunar surface in the Sea of Clouds. Ranger 7’s success bolstered American hopes of future space exploration, laying the groundwork for both the Apollo missions and future robotic spacecraft.

Elisa Neckar is senior production editor of Astronomy magazine, and the editor of the Today in the History of Astronomy feature on Astronomy.com.