Ranger 7 in High Bay 1 at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Engineers stand with NASA’s Ranger 7 spacecraft on Dec. 10, 1963, inside High Bay 1 of the Spacecraft Assembly Facility at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. Ranger 7 was the first U.S. mission to transmit images of the lunar surface and marked the first unequivocal success in American efforts to explore the Moon. Launched on July 28, 1964, the spacecraft traveled to the Moon, and just 15 minutes before impact, its suite of television cameras began transmitting thousands of detailed close-up images.