Ranger 9 was launched March 21, 1965 and reached the Moon on March 24, 1965. It impacted the Moon in the crater Alphonsus, located at 12.8°S, 357.6°E. Ranger 9 was the last of the Ranger series. Rangers 7, 8, and 9 were successful missions. The pictures shown here document Ranger 9's descent toward Alphonsus Crater--the image at upper left shows Alphonsus Crater, the image at lower right shows the last image received before impact. The white circle indicates the impact site.

CLICK HERE for a higher-resolution (5.9 Mbytes) view of the Ranger 9 descent images.

Picture Credit: NASA/JPL/Caltech