Completed · Success
Ranger 7 was a Block 3 Ranger carrying six television vidicon cameras with the sole objective of returning high-resolution photographs of the Moon up to impact. It performed excellently, transmitting 4,308 photographs over the final 17 minutes of flight before impacting between Mare Nubium and Oceanus Procellarum in the area subsequently named Mare Cognitum.
- Destinations
- Launch vehicle
- Atlas-Agena B
- Launch site
- Cape Canaveral, United States
- Countries
- United States
- Mission types
- Impactor
Chronology
Mission timeline
Launch
Ranger 7 launched
The JPL event table gives liftoff at 16:50:08 GMT; the catalog timestamp is converted to UTC using the IERS 1964 UT1-UTC series.
EarthMilestone
Ranger 7 midcourse motor ignited
The JPL report gives ignition at 10:27:09 GMT and a 50-second burn. Its postmidcourse fitted state is epoch 10:27:58 GMT; the burn interval is not bridged by the trajectory.
EarthImpact
Ranger 7 impacted the Moon between Mare Nubium and Oceanus Procellarum
JPL reports the signal-transit-corrected recorded impact at 13:25:48.80 GMT and lunar-map coordinates 10.70° south, 20.67° west; its mapped radius to match the recorded time is 1737.9 km.
Moon
Mission architecture
Vehicles
Ranger 7 · Spacecraft
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.
- Ranger 7: Postmidcourse lunar approach · July 29, 1964 to July 31, 1964
Provenance
Sources
Each source is listed once and labeled with the mission, event, trajectory, or destination/body context it supports.
Data verified through October 6, 2026
- Ranger 7 - NASA NSSDCA Spacecraft Details — NSSDCAArchive · Supports: mission claims · event claims
- LROC Science Operations Team: Coordinates of Lunar Anthropogenic Targets (28 July 2016) — NASATechnical document · Supports: mission claims
- The Ranger VII Flight Path and Its Determination from Tracking Data (JPL TR32-694, December15 1964) — NASATechnical document · Supports: mission claims · event claims
- IERS Earth Orientation Parameters 14 C04 daily series, 1964 — OTHEREphemeris · Supports: mission claims · event claims
- Ranger flight hardware: JPL TR32-699 Appendix C and NASA SP-4210 — NASATechnical document · Supports: mission claims
- Lunar Impact: A History of Project Ranger, NASA SP-4210 (1977) — NASATechnical document · Supports: mission claims
- Space Materials Handbook, Third Edition, NASA SP-3051 (1969) — NASATechnical document · Supports: mission claims
- Ranger 7 Photographic Parameters, JPL TR32-964 — JPLTechnical document · Supports: mission 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