Ranger was the first successful American project of lunar exploration. It was an enterprise sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and executed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Including authorization, design, development, and flights, the project spanned the years 1959-1965 and culminated in closeup television pictures of the moon. This project produced most of the basic management techniques, flight operating procedures, and technology for NASA's later unmanned lunar and planetary missions. It also established methods for selecting scientific experiments and integrating them with the spacecraft. The history of Ranger is thus essential to understanding the evolution and operational form of NASA's continuing program of unmanned exploration of deep space.
