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Kerbal Space Program (2015)

Duration: 2:24

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Ranger 8 mission recreated in Kerbal Space Program, Real Solar System mod.

Ranger was originally to be a program of five unmanned lunar crasher spacecraft, intended to quickly obtain information on the lunar surface. The scientific objective would be to acquire and transmit a number of images of the lunar surface prior to impact, and to obtain data from a survivable package incorporating a lunar seismometer. The resulting spacecraft was much too ambitious for its period. After five consecutive failures, a simpler, picture-return-only spacecraft made three successful flights (Ranger 7, 8, 9), returning the first closeup pictures of the lunar surface years behind schedule.

Ranger 8 took more than 7,000 high-resolution images of the moon before impacting the lunar surface on February 20, 1965.Ranger 8 impacted the moon only 24 kilometers from its target in the Sea of Tranquility, an area that was of particular interest to Apollo mission planners. Images from the mission, which detailed the kind of terrain and obstacles that a human explorer might encounter, paved the way for future human exploration of the moon.

Music: Dangerous Landings - George Fenton (BBC Planet Earth OST).

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