NASA launched a series of Ranger probes to the Moon between August 1961 and March 1965. The objective was to crashland them after they had taken an extended series of close-up photographs of the surface. NASA had earlier achieved no success in targeting the Moon with a series of Pioneer craft, and initially achieved no success with Rangers. They first hit the Moon with Ranger 4, but got no pictures; Ranger 6 was also on target but again sent back no pictures. Ranger 7, however, was an unqualified success, returning over 4,000 images before crashlanding on the Sea of Clouds in July 1964. It its wake went Rangers 8 (February 1965) and 9 (March 1965), between them returning nearly 13,000 pictures. The success of the Ranger missions began a winning sequence of Moon launches for NASA that culminated in the spectacular Apollo landings at the end of the decade.
