Back when I was growing up during the first “Golden Age” of planetary exploration, one planetary exploration program stood out among the rest: NASA’s Mariner series managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. During the course of the 1960s to early 1970s, this series of ten spacecraft performed the initial reconnaissance of every planet from Mercury to Mars. The Mariner spacecraft design was subsequently modified to carry America’s first Mars landers in 1976 as part of the Viking program. And a pair of Mariner Jupiter-Saturn spacecraft, which were renamed Voyager before their launch in 1977, managed to visit every other planet in the solar system from Jupiter to Neptune between 1979 and 1989 (see “Growing Up in the Space Age: Summer Vacations of the 70s“). It can be easily argued that the adaptable Mariner spacecraft design was among the most successful of the opening decades of planetary exploration. But what is the origin of the Mariner design?

The Beginning

The genesis of the successful Mariner spacecraft design can be traced back to over half a century ago to NASA’s first homegrown lunar program called Ranger. During 1959, while the Soviet Union managed one space first after another, the newly formed NASA was busy consolidating its newly acquired projects and formulating plans to meet the formidable Soviet challenge. Among NASA’s best assets was JPL, which had already built America’s first satellite, Explorer 1, and its only successful lunar probe, Pioneer 4, for the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) (see “Vintage Micro: The Pioneer 4 Lunar Probe”). In late December of 1959, NASA directed JPL to make plans for five lunar missions to take place in 1961 and 1962. Throughout 1959, JPL and ABMA were already studying follow-on lunar missions that would use the new three-stage Atlas-Vega launch vehicle specifically being designed for lunar and planetary missions. With the cancellation of JPL’s home-grown Atlas-Vega on December 11, 1959, these missions were switched to the soon to be available Atlas-Agena B being developed by the United States Air Force (USAF).

Two of the major problems with the launch vehicles used to date for American lunar missions were their comparatively small payload capability and their poor accuracy. The Thor-Able, Juno II, and Atlas-Able which launched the first lunar Pioneer probes were far from ideal for lunar missions. They were essentially existing rockets from disparate programs that were quickly kludged together for the task. In addition, these rockets could only use direct ascent trajectories to loft their payloads beyond the Earth, which resulted in large gravity losses as these rockets climbed more or less straight out of Earth’s gravity well. In addition to limiting the useful payload and restricting launch windows, this type of trajectory also greatly magnifies any velocity or aiming errors.

Ideally the upper stage and its payload would first be placed into a temporary parking orbit around Earth. The upper stage would ignite at exactly the right moment to ensure an accurate injection into an escape trajectory. With the upper stage firing approximately in line with the horizon, gravity losses are also minimized, allowing the launch vehicle to carry a larger payload compared to flying a direct ascent trajectory. Engineers in the Soviet Union also came up with the same solution and used this technique to launch their first planetary probe to Venus, Venera 1, on February 12, 1961, using their new three-stage 8K78 rocket (see “Venera 1: The First Venus Mission Attempt“). Although it had only about half of the payload capability of the Soviet 8K78, the American Atlas-Agena B was designed to fly the same type of trajectory.

Development of the Agena upper stage began in July of 1956 under a USAF contract with the Lockheed Missiles and Space Company (a corporate antecedent to today’s aerospace giant, Lockheed Martin). This stage was specifically designed for use with a modified Douglas Thor IRBM or General Dynamics Atlas D ICBM as the booster. The Agena B was an upgraded version of the original Agena A. While B-model kept the original 1.5-meter diameter of the stage, it was lengthened by two meters to 6.30 meters to support a larger propellant load. The original A-model’s Bell Aerospace Hustler 8048 engine was replaced with an upgraded 8081 which generated 71 kilonewtons of thrust and possessed an in-orbit restart capability.

The Thor-Agena was used to launch the Corona reconnaissance satellites into polar orbits originally under the guise of the Discoverer satellite series (see “The First Discoverer Missions: America’s Original (Secret) Satellite Program“). Flights with the Thor-Agena A had started on February 28, 1959, and flew successfully ten times out of fifteen attempts before it was replaced by the improved Thor-Agena B, whose first flight took place on October 26, 1960. The Agena B demonstrated its all-important restart capability for the first time with a one-second burn on the flight of Discoverer 21, launched on February 18, 1961.

The Atlas-Agena was originally designed to place large payloads, such as the MIDAS experimental early warning satellite and the SAMOS reconnaissance satellite, into medium altitude Earth orbits. The Atlas-Agena A flew only four times between February of 1960 and January of 1961 with limited success. The first flight of the improved Atlas-Agena B took place on July 12, 1961, with the successful launch of MIDAS 3. The Atlas D was modified for this task by stiffening its forward bulkheads to handle the heavier payload and eventually Atlas’ original MA-2 propulsion systems was replaced with the uprated MA-3 system being used on the improved Atlas E/F silo-based ICBM then under development. This boosted the liftoff thrust of the 30-meter tall Atlas-Agena B to 1,820 kilonewtons. The Atlas-Agena B was capable of launching payloads of 2,300 kilograms into a 480-kilometer orbit or up to about 330 kilograms towards the Moon.

Ranger Is Born

By the end of January 1960, JPL’s new lunar project, called Ranger, had taken form. The five flights would use two spacecraft designs, designated Block I and Block II. The first two flights would use of the Block I design. They were meant to be engineering test flights that would place Ranger into an extended Earth orbit with a perigee of 60,300 kilometers and an apogee of 1.10 million kilometers. It would take Ranger almost two months to complete each orbit. These 307-kilogram three-axis stabilized spacecraft would be the forerunner of not only the Ranger Moon probes but also provide vital engineering experience for the much larger and more capable Mariner A and B spacecraft then being designed at JPL to explore the planets Venus and Mars.

Test flights of this spacecraft were deemed necessary to evaluate the interface between the probe and launch vehicle as well as determine whether all the bugs had been worked out of controlling a three-axis stabilized spacecraft in space. Three-axis stabilized spacecraft provide a more stable platform for certain instruments, such as cameras, than do spin-stabilized probes like ARPA’s and NASA’s early Pioneer Moon probes or their first dedicated interplanetary probe, Pioneer 5 (see “Vintage Micro: The First Interplanetary Probe“). Typically, one axis of the three-axis stabilized craft is pointed towards the Sun to provide illumination for the spacecraft’s power producing solar panels. With the Ranger probes, the other celestial reference used to stabilize the spacecraft was the Earth itself.

At Ranger’s base was a 195-kilogram hexagon-shaped magnesium frame bus 1.52 meters across. The various compartments of this bus contained the spacecraft’s central computer and sequencer, which controlled the spacecraft; a 57-kilogram silver-zinc battery providing nine kilowatt-hours of backup electrical energy, enough for about two days; a one-quarter-watt and a three-watt radio transmitter; and the attitude control system. Attitude reference was provided by six Sun sensors, two Earth sensors, and three gyros. Unlike subsequent Ranger versions, the Block I was not equipped with a propulsion system needed for a mid-course correction capability.

Extending from the sides of the bus were two solar panels containing 8,680 solar cells to provide up to 210 watts of power for the spacecraft. Also extending from the base was a hinged dish-shaped high-gain communications antenna 1.22 meters across, which would be pointed at Earth with the aid of a light sensor. The spacecraft maintained its attitude using ten gas jets supplied by 1.1 kilograms of compressed nitrogen held in three tanks.

On top of the bus was an open aluminum truss structure topped with a low-gain antenna to aid in communications with Earth when the probe’s high-gain antenna could not be used. When deployed in space, the Block I spacecraft was about four meters tall and 5.2 meters across its extended solar panels. The spacecraft carried ten scientific instruments to study solar and cosmic radiation, cosmic dust, magnetic and electric fields, and perform engineering tests concerning mechanical friction and solar cell performance. These instruments were mounted at various points on the bus and open truss structure. Some of these devices carried independent battery power supplies. These instruments would collect data during Ranger’s expected five-month lifetime.

In the second phase of the Ranger program starting in early 1962, the 330-kilogram Block II spacecraft would actually travel to the Moon. The basic bus was similar to the one used on the Block I probe, but the open truss structure above it was replaced with a new payload: A 150-kilogram package consisting of a small hard lander with a solid propellant retrorocket that generated 23 kilonewtons of thrust. The hard lander, built by Ford Aeronutronic, was a 64-centimeter diameter sphere weighing 43 kilograms. Its sole instrument was a seismometer to measure lunar quakes once it had safely reached the lunar surface. Before the lander was deployed, the Ranger Block II would acquire data about the Moon, including television images as the spacecraft approached the surface (see “NASA’s First Moon Lander“).

The First Flights

By the summer of 1961, the first Ranger, designated P-32 by NASA, and its launch vehicle were ready. The initial launch period ran from July 26 to August 2 with daily launch windows running 4:53 to 5:37 AM EDT. In late June, Agena B 6001 was mounted atop of Atlas 111D at Launch Complex 12 at Cape Canaveral, Florida. This was to be the second flight of the Atlas-Agena B. Ranger 1 eventually topped off the stack and on July 13 the rocket and payload were judged ready for launch.

The first attempt on July 29 was scrubbed a few minutes before launch due to a power failure on the ground. Three more launch attempts over the next three days were made and scrubbed. During testing of Ranger’s scientific instruments during the countdown of the fourth launch attempt on August 1, a voltage spike inadvertently turned on the spacecraft’s timer. Explosive squibs detonated to extend the solar panels inside the launch shroud and the craft’s instruments all came to life. The Ranger had to be returned to the hangar where it was quickly repaired and the faults corrected for the next set of launch opportunities starting on August 22. Finally, at 5:04 AM EST on August 23, 1961, Ranger 1 lifted off into a perfect 174 by 280-kilometer parking orbit.

After coasting for thirteen minutes, the Agena B escape stage was supposed to reignite for ninety seconds and propel Ranger 1 into the planned extended Earth orbit. But a faulty pressure switch circuit in the Agena’s engine starting system prevented a valve from opening. Apparently the circuit overheated while exposed to the Sun during Agena’s coast in parking orbit—a situation that engineers had not anticipated. The engine fired only briefly to change the orbit to 169.4 by 502.8 kilometers. Stranded in low Earth orbit, Ranger 1 separated from its escape stage, obediently unfolded it solar panels and aligned itself with the Sun.

Although not meant to operate in low orbit with its ninety-minute day-night cycle, Ranger 1 did attempt to operate as designed. Every time it went into Earth’s shadow, nitrogen jets would fire as the disoriented Ranger mindlessly started searching for the Sun. After orbital dawn, Ranger would reacquire the Sun and stabilize. While it was operating as well as it could under the circumstances, Ranger depleted its supply of attitude control gas the day after launch and started tumbling uncontrollably.

After 111 orbits, Ranger 1 succumbed to atmospheric drag, fell out of orbit, and burned up over the Gulf of Mexico on August 30. During its brief life, Ranger 1 did verify that a three-axis stabilized spacecraft could be controlled. It was also able to collect a limited amount of data on radiation and cosmic rays but was too close to Earth for its sensitive magnetometer to operate.

As the Ranger 1 mission ended prematurely, Atlas 117D, Agena B 6002, and payload P-33 arrived at Cape Canaveral for a launch period extending from October 20 through 28. One problem after another caused one launch scrub after another. Finally, a launch failure of a Thor-Agena B indicated that there were problems with the Agena B hydraulic system that would require time to correct. The launch of Ranger 2 was pushed back to mid-November.

With the repairs to the Agena B 6002 completed, Ranger 2 was finally launched at 3:12 AM EST on November 18, 1961, and entered its parking orbit. Again the Agena B failed to restart properly and Ranger 2 was stuck in a quickly decaying 152.7 by 234.4-kilometer orbit. This time the problem was traced to a roll gyro in the Agena B stage whose malfunction had gone undetected at launch. With no way to sense a rolling motion, the Agena B started spinning, forcing its propellants to the outside edges of its tanks instead of to the bottom, where the feed lines to the engine were located. When the command to reignite was given, only a brief firing resulted, due to residual propellant in the turbopumps. Like the Soviet engineers had learned from their experience with the 8K78, American engineers were discovering that developing an in-orbit restart capability would not be easy. More bugs had to be worked out of the Atlas-Agena B. No spacecraft hardware tests were attempted this time and the wayward Ranger 2 deep space probe burned up in the atmosphere only six hours after launch.

While the two Ranger Block I spacecraft never made it beyond their parking orbits, they did provide enough engineering information to verify the basic design of a three-axis stabilized spacecraft. It was also clear that the Atlas-Agena B was having problems that needed to be addressed before more missions could be launched. When it became apparent that the powerful Atlas-Centaur would not be available in time to launch the 500-kilogram Mariner A towards Venus in August of 1962, NASA switched to a backup design called “Mariner R” that could be launched using the smaller Atlas-Agena B. Mariner R was essentially a stripped down, modified Ranger Block I spacecraft with a mass of just 204 kilograms and carrying a minimal science instrument payload of about 9 kilograms. A similar design was eventually used for the first Mariner probes to Mars in 1964 and on all the Mariner-based spacecraft to follow over the next 13 years (see the Mariner Program page). Although the Ranger series suffered from a frustrating series of failures during its first four attempts to reach the Moon in 1962 and 1964, the lessons learned and the eventual successes helped to vindicate the design of this early spacecraft design.

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Related Reading

“NASA’s First Moon Lander”, Drew Ex Machina, January 26, 2016 [Post]

“The Mission of Ranger 7”, Drew Ex Machina, July 28, 2014 [Post]

“The Mission of Ranger 8”, Drew Ex Machina, February 17, 2015 [Post]

“The Mission of Ranger 9”, Drew Ex Machina, March 21, 2015 [Post]

General References

A. Cargill Hall, Lunar Impact: The NASA History of Project Ranger, Dover Publishing, 2010

J.D. Hunley, U.S. Space-Launch Vehicle Technology: Viking to Space Shuttle, University Press of Florida, 2008

Paolo Ulivi with David M. Harland, Lunar Exploration: Human Pioneers and Robotic Surveyors, Springer-Praxis, 2004