Lunar Orbiter 4

Lunar Orbiter 4
NSSDC ID	1967-041A
Mission goal	Preparation of manned moon landings
Client	NASA
Launcher	Atlas - Agena D
construction
Takeoff mass	385.6 kg
Course of the mission
Start date	May 4, 1967, 10:25 PM UTC
launch pad	Cape Canaveral LC-13
End date	October 6, 1967
4.5.1967 begin 8.5.1967 Reaching the lunar orbit May 11, 1967 Start of recordings May 26, 1967 End of recordings 1.6.1967 End of image transmission October 6, 1967 Crash on the surface of the moon

Lunar Orbiter 4 was the fourth of five lunar probes in the lunar orbiter program of the US space agency NASA . With the Lunar Orbiter program, the moon was to be captured and mapped photographically in order to find landing sites for the space probes of the Surveyor program and for the manned moon landing .

Mission history

The three previous lunar orbiter missions had been successfully completed and had produced enough images for the preparation of the Apollo program . For this reason, a different orbit with a higher orbit height (2706 to 6111 km) and a higher orbit inclination (85.5 °) was selected for the fourth mission.

Recordings of the lunar surface began on May 11, 1967 and were discontinued on May 26 after problems with the lens cover and later with the camera's transport mechanism. As of June 1, 127 medium-resolution images and 419 high-resolution images had been broadcast to Earth. 99% of the front of the moon was captured with images between 58 and 134 meters resolution.

The orbit was then lowered in order to be able to deduce Mascons from the irregularities of the orbit . These findings were used for the last mission, Lunar Orbiter 5 . Lunar Orbiter 4 crashed onto the lunar surface on October 6, 1967.

Web links

Commons : Lunar Orbiter program  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Lunar Orbiter 4 in the NSSDCA Master Catalog (English)
• Bernd Leitenberger: Lunar Orbiter
• Lunar Orbiter in the Encyclopedia Astronautica (English)