LUNAR FLYBY

In May 1961 Aeronutronic began to drop balsa encapsulated ‘survival capsules’
containing sterilised systems immersed in viscous fluid from aircraft flying over the Mojave Desert – with disappointing results: those that fell on rocky ground failed to operate. Further tests in October showed that even seismometers which survived the impact often suffered electronic issues. With the launch of Ranger 3 only months away, this was disconcerting. On 6 November 1961 Don B. Duncan replaced Frank Denison in charge of developing the capsule. NASA issued heat-treatment waivers for the most sensitive components of the radar altimeter, retro-rocket and capsule. In 1961 Albert Hibbs, Chief of the Space Sciences Division at JPL, appointed Harold W. Washburn as Ranger Project Scientist to liaise between the spacecraft engineers and the experimenters and coordinate their activities during a mission.2

Meanwhile, after the Ranger 3 bus was assembled at JPL in July 1961 it suffered much greater component failure rates than the case of the proof-test model, with the only difference between them being heat-sterilisation. NASA issued further waivers for the most sensitive components. ft was clear that the sterilisation process efficacy specified in 1960 was unattainable. On 15 November NASA formally accepted the repaired bus. ft was driven by truck in an environmentally regulated container, and arrived at the Cape on 20 November. On 6 December Oran Nicks opined to Edgar Cortright that one of the three Block ff flights would be successful, and one, perhaps two, of the four Block fff flights. This underscored the perceived technological risk of the venture. James Burke expected one of each to be a fully successful flight. On 2 January 1962 Clifford Cummings told Robert Seamans that it was “likely that the sterilization procedures have compromised spacecraft reliability”. However, when Lockheed announced that it had fixed the problem with the Agena B, NASA decided to try to launch Ranger 3 on schedule.

The major objectives for the mission were to perform the midcourse and terminal manoeuvres. Given the performance of its predecessors, it was fully expected that on being set free by the Agena, Ranger 3 would deploy its appendages and adopt cruise attitude. ff it flew to the Moon as planned, then Burke’s engineers would be content. ff the surface package functioned properly, this would constitute a bonus – if not, the package would have two more opportunities to achieve its scientific objectives.

Although it would be a considerable technical feat to reach the Moon at all, and in a sense anywhere would satisfy the mission, the trajectory was very limited. The fact that the retro-rocket of the surface package could not deal with a lateral velocity component meant the bus needed to make a vertical descent over the target. This, in turn, meant a site near the equator on the leading hemisphere. Prior to the space age, astronomers had defined lunar longitude in terms of how the Moon appeared in the terrestrial sky, with the leading limb (i. e. the one that faces the Moon’s direction of travel as it pursues its monthly orbit of Earth) being east. However, in August 1961 the fnternational Astronomical Union had redefined the system to match the point of view of an observer on the lunar surface, with east in the direction of sunrise; thus reversing the old scheme. For a Ranger Block ff the

fn 1963 Thomas Vrebalovich would succeed Washburn as Ranger Project Scientist at JPL.

target would therefore have to be in the western hemisphere. In fact, a vehicle launched from Florida would expend less energy in approaching Oceanus Procellarum between 10 and 50 degrees west of the meridian and within 16 degrees of the equator than it would for any other region. Because the Moon maintains one hemisphere facing towards Earth, at any given site Earth remains in a more or less fixed position in the sky. The target could not be so far towards the limb that at unfavourable librations the signal from the surface would be too weak to be read. Another constraint was that the timing had to be such that the Moon was visible to Goldstone when the bus transmitted its scientific data. The phase of the Moon would be ‘full’ on 20 January 1962 and ‘last quarter’ on 28 January. The window was set for 22-26 January. If Ranger 3 managed to lift off on the first day, it would make its approach on 25 January.

After Ranger 3 completed its final systems checks in Hangar AE, it was driven to Pad 12 on 18 January and installed on its launch vehicle. When kerosene was loaded into the Atlas on 19 January, a leak was discovered in the bulkhead between the fuel tank and the liquid oxygen tank. Over the next few days the Air Force removed the centre engine and built a wooden frame up through the exposed aperture at the base of the fuel tank in order to allow technicians wearing masks and oxygen cylinders to replace the ruptured bulkhead. This round-the-clock effort made the vehicle ready in time to attempt to launch on the last day of the window. Meanwhile, as this was the first mission of the project intended to reach the Moon, the spacecraft was sealed in the aerodynamic shroud atop the Agena and bathed in gaseous ethylene oxide for 11 hours as the final stage of the sterilisation process, then the shroud was purged with dry nitrogen passed in through a sterile filter.

The countdown on 26 January proceeded smoothly, and Ranger 3 was launched at 20:30 GMT. The Air Force tracked its ascent and calculated the steering commands, but when these were transmitted to the Atlas it failed to act on them. The autopilot flew on, ignorant of deviations from the planned trajectory. In particular, it was not possible to command the moment of shutdown to optimise the final velocity, and when the autopilot ordered this using its programmed parameters it was both higher and faster than required. As a result of this discrepancy, the parking orbit attained by the Agena was slightly different to that planned. The limited ability of the spacecraft to correct its trajectory meant that in making the translunar injection the Agena had to pass through a ‘key hole’ in the sky that was only 16 km wide, and attain a speed which differed from the desired 40,000 km/hour by no more than 25 km/hour. In the event, Woomera’s tracking indicated that the spacecraft would cross the orbit of the Moon at a point 32,000 km ahead of that body – a discrepancy which exceeded the spacecraft’s 44-m/s midcourse manoeuvre cap­ability. Nevertheless, engineers were encouraged that Ranger 3 had deployed its solar panels, locked onto the Sun, rolled to acquire Earth and then deployed its high – gain antenna. The flight would provide an opportunity to evaluate the spacecraft’s performance in deep space, essentially as had been intended for the Block I.

James Burke flew from the Cape to JPL to operate the spacecraft from the Space Flight Operations Center. It was decided to exercise all of the functions, including the midcourse and terminal manoeuvres. It was not possible to test the retro-rocket

of the surface package, since its separation from the bus could be triggered only by its own radar altimeter. On 27 January the sequence of commands was uplinked for a midcourse manoeuvre designed to reduce the flyby range. Ranger 3 executed the preliminary roll and pitch changes as specified, fired its engine, then resumed cruise attitude. However, tracking revealed that the burn was the opposite of that intended and had increased the miss distance to 36,750 km. The error was an inverted sign in the computer program used by JPL to calculate the burn. Regardless of the outcome, the engineers were delighted that the spacecraft had made a manoeuvre and resumed its cruise attitude. Shortly after this, the boom holding the gamma-ray experiment completed its deployment. It had hinged down after separation from the Agena, and now, as planned, a gas generator extended it in a telescopic manner. The instrument was able to calibrate the emissions by the spacecraft and then make the first direct measurement of the flux of gamma rays in space.

A plan had been devised to perform a terminal manoeuvre which would orient the spacecraft to enable it to photograph the Moon during the flyby – in much the same manner, in fact, as had been intended for some of the Pioneer probes. In this case, it would view the illuminated leading hemisphere, and reveal that portion of the far – side which was in darkness for Luna 3 in 1959. The unplanned trajectory meant that Ranger 3 drew close to the Moon on 28 January. The cover for the optics was commanded to open, and power was applied to warm up the TV system. Goldstone uplinked the commands for the terminal manoeuvre to turn the spacecraft in order to point the camera at the Moon. The inverted sign had been corrected prior to making the calculation. An hour later, the spacecraft was told to make the manoeuvre. It initiated the pitch change in the correct direction, but soon thereafter the downlink began to intermittently drop out – a computer/sequencer fault had denied the vehicle the use of its Earth and Sun sensors, the gyroscopes directing the turn did so in an uncontrolled manner and the spacecraft was left spinning. At the appointed time, the TV system took pictures. Some frames were received at a very weak signal strength, and the fact that it was possible to see the black reference marks on a pane of glass in front of the focal plane silhouetted against a soft glow of sunlight glinting off the structure of the spacecraft provided welcome confirmation to the engineers from the Radio Corporation of America that their system had worked. At 23:23 GMT, some 6 hours after the attempted manoeuvre, Ranger 3 crossed the orbit of the Moon and passed on into solar orbit.

On 8 February 1962 JPL informed Oran Nicks of the preliminary findings of its investigation into the loss of Ranger 3. It had been concluded that the malfunction of the computer/sequencer was a result of the heat treatment required for sterilisation. It would therefore be necessary to issue waivers for the components believed to have failed. Although the mission had not reached the Moon, it had nevertheless provided an opportunity for the flight control team to compute a deep-space trajectory and then uplink the commands for a midcourse manoeuvre, which the spacecraft – the most sophisticated American deep-space vehicle to date – had executed as directed. The engineers were therefore confident that the next mission would reach the Moon.

Meanwhile

Homer Newell’s Space Sciences Steering Committee decided on 1 December 1961 to consolidate the TV experiments of the Block II and Block III versions of Ranger. Previously, Gerard Kuiper, Gene Shoemaker and Harold Urey had been named to receive and interpret such pictures as were returned by the Block II flights – having played no part in the development of the camera. Now it was decided that they should form a team, together with Ray Heacock of the Space Sciences Division at JPL, and work with the Radio Corporation of America in the development of the high-resolution TV system for the Block III. In effect, Newell wished to integrate the engineers and scientists at the project level at JPL to match the recent integration at the program level in Washington, in the expectation that this would enhance the scientific results. Unfortunately for James Burke, in early 1962 Newell also sought to augment the Block III to recover some of the particles and fields research lost on the Block I flights. On 14 March 1962 the Steering Committee decided to add eight experiments to the Block III. Burke learned of this from Oran Nicks on 20 March. The solar panels of the Block I and Block II were triangular with truncated tips. It was necessary to fit larger rectangular panels to provide the power to operate all the additional Block III experiments.