Mission record
Lunar Orbiter 3
Also known as Lunar Orbiter-C, Orbiter-C, Orbiter III, LunarOrbiter3
NASA · Launched
Explore trajectoryCompleted · Partial success
NASA lunar orbiter that photographed the lunar surface to confirm safe landing sites for the Surveyor and Apollo missions. It returned 477 high resolution and 149 medium resolution frames, including a frame showing the Surveyor 1 landing site, before its film advance motor burned out, and was commanded to impact the Moon on 9 October 1967.
- Destinations
- Launch vehicle
- Atlas-Agena D
- Launch site
- Cape Canaveral, United States
- Countries
- United States
- Mission types
- Orbiter
Chronology
Mission timeline
Mission architecture
Vehicles
Lunar Orbiter 3 · Orbiter
Destinations: Moon
Trajectory record
Time-dependent navigation trajectory
Source states place the model at the selected time. Reconstructed flight, estimates, predictions and historical mission plans are identified by interval; gaps remain visible.
Source records and sampling assumptions are retained with the repository data. Model attitude and surface appearance are illustrative.
- Lunar Orbiter 3: Physically reconstructed based on publicly available data · JPL/NAIF Lunar Orbiter 3 LP150Q orbit SPK · Moon-centered J2000 · source gaps retained · February 8, 1967 to October 9, 1967
Provenance
Sources
Each source is listed once and labeled with the mission, event, trajectory, or destination/body context it supports.
Data verified through October 12, 2026
- Lunar Orbiter 3 Moon-relative SPK ephemeris — NAIFEphemeris · Supports: mission claims
- Lunar Orbiter SPICE archive readme — NAIFTechnical document · Supports: mission claims
- Lunar Orbiter 3 original mission performance report — NASATechnical document · Supports: mission claims · event claims
- Lunar Orbiter Catalog — TWP70-047 — NASATechnical document · Supports: mission claims
- Lunar Orbiter photographic data — NSSDC69-05 — NASATechnical document · Supports: mission claims
- Lunar Orbiter photographic supporting data — NSSDC71-13 — NASATechnical document · Supports: mission claims
- Lunar Orbiter 3 — current flight history and hardware — NSSDCAMission page · Supports: mission claims · event claims
- Lunar Orbiter 3 - NASA NSSDCA Spacecraft Details — NSSDCAArchive · Supports: mission claims · event claims
- PDS Lunar Orbiter image recovery archive — exposure navigation and photographic metadata — JPLArchive · Supports: mission claims
- Beyond Earth: A Chronicle of Deep Space Exploration, 1958–2016 — Lunar Orbiter launch records — NASATechnical document · Supports: mission claims · event claims
- DE421 lunar mean-Earth and principal-axes frame specification — NAIFTechnical document · Supports: destination/body context
- DE440 lunar mean-Earth and principal-axes frame specification — NAIFSpice · Supports: destination/body context
- IAU rotational elements and body radii (PCK 00011) — NAIFSpice · Supports: destination/body context
- LOLA global lunar height maps, LDEM_4 V3 original PDS source label — NASATechnical document · Supports: destination/body context
- LOLA 2023 south-polar elevation, uncertainty and effective-resolution maps — NASATechnical document · Supports: destination/body context
- Blue Ghost Lunar Lander Seen From Above: LROC site and terrain context — NASATechnical document · Supports: destination/body context
- Moon Facts — NASAOther · Supports: destination/body context
- SLDEM2015 Blue Ghost region: original PDS elevation-grid label — NASATechnical document · Supports: destination/body context
- JPL Solar System Dynamics Astrodynamic Parameters — JPLOther · Supports: destination/body context
- Planet Sizes and Locations in Our Solar System — NASAOther · Supports: destination/body context