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| A Lunar Orbiter 5 launch cover from "SpaceCraft Swanson", postmarked at Cape Canaveral with a machine cancel on August 1, 1967.
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The final spacecraft in NASA’s Lunar Orbiter series, Lunar Orbiter 5, was launched on August 1, 1967, from Cape Kennedy, Florida, aboard an Atlas-Agena D rocket. After approximately four days and a journey of about 255,000 miles (410,000 km), it entered lunar orbit on August 5, 1967. Its mission was to obtain detailed photographs of more than 40 preselected sites on the Moon’s near side and to image previously unphotographed regions along the western equatorial area of the far side.
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| A Lunar Orbiter 5 launch cover featuring a cachet depicting the Lunar Orbiter spacecraft, postmarked at Kennedy Space Center with a machine cancel on August 1, 1967. |
The spacecraft also gathered scientific data to improve understanding of the Moon’s gravitational field and surface characteristics. Together with the results of the four earlier Lunar Orbiter missions, Lunar Orbiter 5 helped bring photographic coverage of the lunar surface to more than 99%, providing valuable reconnaissance data for selecting safe landing sites for NASA’s Apollo missions.
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| A Lunar Orbiter 5 lunar-orbit cover from "Edinger", postmarked at Pasadena, California, with a machine cancel on August 5, 1967, signed by Eberhardt Rechtin, a prominent Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineer and pioneer of NASA’s Deep Space Network. |
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| A Lunar Orbiter 5 lunar-orbit cover from "Orbit Covers", postmarked at Cape Canaveral with a machine cancel on August 5, 1967. |
After completing its principal photographic survey and subsequent scientific operations, the mission officially ended on January 31, 1968, when the spacecraft was deliberately impacted on the lunar surface.
