1962-01-26 USA Ranger 3

Ranger 3 was a space exploration mission conducted by NASA to study the Moon. It was launched on January 26, 1962 as part of the Ranger program. Due to a series of malfunctions, the spacecraft missed the Moon by 22,000 mi (35,000 km) and entered a heliocentric orbit.

Launched on 26 January 1962, Ranger 3 was designed to take close-up images of the moon before impacting with its surface. It missed the moon and ended up in a solar orbit.

The Ranger 3 space probe was designed to transmit pictures of the lunar surface during a period of 10 minutes of flight prior to impacting on the Moon, to rough-land a seismometer capsule on the Moon, to collect gamma-ray data in flight, to study radar reflectivity of the lunar surface, and to continue testing of the Ranger program for development of lunar and interplanetary spacecraft.

(Reference from Ranger 3)