UMSF space history photo of the month Options

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

Maybe we could make this a monthly item, in which we could look back at the history of Unmanned Space missions.
For January 2008 I've chosen an image showing the coverage of the Sun by early Pioneer 5-8 spacecraft.
Pioneer 5 to 8, or Pioneer V to VIII using the system of Roman numerals in vogue during the early 1960s for spacecraft designations, were directed towards the Sun along the earth's orbit to monitor solar activity. Pioneer V was launched on 11th March 1960 and provided the very first space weather report 4 to 8 hours before a solar storm hit the Earth.
Some of this Pioneer quartet, Pioneer 6-7-8 even provided updates on our Sun's activity during the early Apollo Moon landings in order to check the damaging potential of solar flares to affect the astronauts.

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

The 365 kg Ranger spacecraft, which had 6 cameras in a 175 kg TV-unit just above the main body, had a single objective: obtain high resolution photos of the lunar surface in preparation & support of the manned Apollo project. These Ranger spacecraft just snapped photograph while they were crash-diving towards the lunar surface! NASA had its first success with Ranger 7 in July 1964. Later successes with Ranger 8 (February 1965) and Ranger 9 (March 1965) paved the way for the more sophisticated Surveyor spacecraft which soft landed on the Moon, but those are for next time