Mission Atlas
← Mission directory

Mission record

Lunar Orbiter 5

Also known as Lunar Orbiter-E, Orbiter V, Orbiter-E, LunarOrbiter5

NASA · Launched

Explore trajectory

Completed · Success

The last of the NASA Lunar Orbiter series, designed to take additional Apollo and Surveyor landing site photography and broad survey images of unphotographed parts of the Moon's far side. It returned 633 high resolution and 211 medium resolution frames, bringing cumulative Lunar Orbiter coverage to 99% of the Moon's surface, and was commanded to impact the Moon on 31 January 1968.

Destinations
Launch vehicle
Atlas-Agena D
Launch site
Cape Canaveral, United States
Countries
United States
Mission types
Orbiter

Chronology

Mission timeline

  1. Milestone

    Two-way lock established after antennas/panels had deployed

    Earth
  2. Launch

    Lunar Orbiter 5 launched

    Earth
  3. Orbit insertion

    Injected into elliptical near polar lunar orbit

    Moon
  4. Milestone

    Commanded lunar insertion ignition

    Moon
  5. Milestone

    Photographic operations began

    Moon
  6. Milestone

    First orbit transfer commanded

    Moon
  7. Milestone

    Earth photograph

    Moon
  8. Milestone

    Final orbit transfer commanded

    Moon
  9. Milestone

    Photographic operations ended

    Moon
  10. Milestone

    Photographic readout completed

    Moon
  11. Milestone

    Readout completed

    Moon
  12. Impact

    Commanded impact on the lunar surface

    Moon

Mission architecture

Vehicles

  • Lunar Orbiter 5 · 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 5: Physically reconstructed based on publicly available data · JPL/NAIF Lunar Orbiter 5 LP150Q orbit SPK · Moon-centered J2000 · source gaps retained · August 5, 1967 to January 31, 1968

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