America's first successful attempt at unmanned lunar exploration, Project Ranger culminated in close-up television images of the moon's surface. Sponsored by NASA and executed by the Jet Propulsion Lab, the project ran from 1959 to 1965 and produced management techniques, flight operating procedures, and technology employed by later space missions. This official NASA publication presents the complete history of the nine Project Ranger missions. Author R. Cargill Hall, the historian of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, offers an authoritative account of the evolution and operations of the continuing program of unmanned exploration of deep space. More than 100 photographs depict key personnel and illustrate rockets and a range of other equipment. Nine helpful appendixes feature a fascinating array of source documents.

Complete history of the Ranger project is provided as a tool for understanding the evolution and operational form of NASA's continuing progress of unmanned space exploration. Basic management techniques, flight operating procedures and technology for NASA's later unmanned lunar and planetary missions were reviewed. Methods for selecting experiments and integrating them with the spacecraft were also investigated.