<Tr> <Td_colspan="2"> Vidicon Television Cameras </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td_colspan="2"> Ranger ← Ranger 6 Ranger 8 → </Td> </Tr> <P> Ranger 7 was the first space probe of the United States to successfully transmit close images of the lunar surface back to Earth . It was also the first completely successful flight of the Ranger program . Launched on July 28, 1964, Ranger 7 was designed to achieve a lunar - impact trajectory and to transmit high - resolution photographs of the lunar surface during the final minutes of flight up to impact . The spacecraft carried six television vidicon cameras--two wide - angle (channel F, cameras A and B) and four narrow - angle (channel P)--to accomplish these objectives . The cameras were arranged in two separate chains, or channels, each self - contained with separate power supplies, timers, and transmitters so as to afford the greatest reliability and probability of obtaining high - quality video pictures . Ranger 7 transmitted over 4,300 photographs during the final 17 minutes of its flight . After 68.6 hours of flight, the spacecraft landed between Mare Nubium and Oceanus Procellarum . This landing site was later named Mare Cognitum . The velocity at impact was 1.62 miles per second, and the performance of the spacecraft exceeded hopes . No other experiments were carried on the spacecraft . </P> <P> Although NASA had attempted to put a positive spin on Ranger 6 on the grounds that everything except the camera system had worked well, William Coughlin, editor of the publication Missiles and Rockets, called it a "one hundred percent failure" and JPL's record thus far was "a disgrace". The mission had not been a complete failure, but Coughlin was not alone in his opinion that Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, a nonprofit laboratory and extension of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), was a "soft" academic environment without the drive or ambition needed to make the missions succeed . He considered Ranger a "loser" and for a while, anyone at NASA involved in the Ranger program tried to conceal it . It was also being said that sending probes up for the sole purpose of returning images was pointless and accomplished nothing that Apollo could not also achieve . </P>

Ranger 7 was the first us unmanned spacecraft that