The reckoning that followed the early disasters produced a stripped-down, third-generation Ranger built around a single purpose — returning television pictures — with the troublesome landing capsule abandoned altogether. Ranger 6 was the first of these rebuilt craft, and hopes for a clean success ran high when it launched on 30 January 1964.
The flight was very nearly perfect. Ranger 6 held a precise course and, after a textbook three-day journey, struck exactly where intended in the Sea of Tranquility. But when the instant came for the cameras to switch on during the final approach, nothing happened. The television system was dead — most probably ruined by an electrical arc during the fury of launch — and the spacecraft hit the Moon without sending back a single frame.
It was perhaps the bitterest failure of the entire series: a flawless flight undone by its one indispensable payload. Coming on top of five outright losses, the silence from Ranger 6's cameras left the programme hanging by a thread, and everyone involved understood that the next mission simply could not fail.
Ranger 6 flew a flawless mission and returned no pictures at all. Every system worked, the trajectory was accurate, and the spacecraft struck the Sea of Tranquility precisely as intended — but when the cameras were commanded on in the final minutes, nothing happened.
The cause was traced to the launch. During staging, the booster's exhaust plume had briefly enveloped the spacecraft and the resulting electrical arcing had switched the camera system on prematurely, draining and destroying it while the vehicle was still climbing. A perfect flight had been ruined 130 hours earlier by a few seconds of ionised gas — and it was the sixth failure in a row.
