United States

The Ranger series of missions were designed to be launched into a lunar impact trajectory and provide progressively higher resolution images of the lunar surface right up until the point of impact in order to facilitate preparations for the Apollo missions. Ranger 6 was launched on 30 January 1964 and was intentionally impacted on the lunar surface on 2 February 1964 on the eastern edge of Mare Tranquillitatis, leaving a 14 meter crater. Unfortunately, due to a hardware malfunction, no image data was returned.

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