{"id":613540,"date":"2026-07-31T14:23:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T14:23:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/613540\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T14:23:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T14:23:13","slug":"july-31-1964-ranger-7-returns-the-first-close-pictures-of-the-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/613540\/","title":{"rendered":"July 31, 1964: Ranger 7 returns the first close pictures of the Moon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\tBack to Article List\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\tToday in the history of astronomy, the U.S. scores a win in the Space Race.\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1000\" height=\"984\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Cratered_surface_of_the_Moon_from_above-1-e1752777344959.jpeg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt=\"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.\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tRanger 7 sent 4,308 images back to Earth &#8212; including this one. Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With the Space Race heating up, the <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/mission\/lunar-rangers-and-surveyors\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ranger program<\/a> 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 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.astronomy.com\/space-exploration\/nasas-failures-robotic-space-missions-that-didnt-go-as-planned\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">struggled with malfunctions<\/a>, 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\u2019s success bolstered American hopes of future space exploration, laying the groundwork for both the Apollo missions and future robotic spacecraft.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Elisa Neckar<\/strong> is senior production editor of Astronomy magazine, and the editor of the Today in the History of Astronomy feature on <a href=\"http:\/\/astronomy.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Astronomy.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back to Article List Today in the history of astronomy, the U.S. scores a win in the Space&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[77],"tags":[18,19,17,93766,133],"class_list":["post-613540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-robotic-spaceflight","tag-science"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117015047060007370","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}