Previous ships called Ranger: Difference between revisions

{{Ranger-A}}

{{Ranger}}

Ranger, initially called Hampshire, was launched 10 May 1777 by James K. Hackett, master shipbuilder, at Portsmouth, New Hampshire; Capt. John Paul Jones in command.

Underway 23 November, Ranger was ordered to Commodore Whipple's squadron, arriving Charleston 23 December, to support the garrison there under siege by the British. On 24 January 1780, Ranger and Providence, in a short cruise down the coast captured three transports, loaded with supplies, near Tybee, Georgia. The British assault force was also discovered in the area. Ranger and Providence sailed back to Charleston with the news. Shortly afterwards the British commenced the final push. Although the channel and harbor configuration made naval operations and support difficult, Ranger took a station in the Cooper River, and was captured when the city fell 11 May 1780. Ranger was taken into the British Navy and commissioned under the name Halifax.

She was laid down 26 September 1931 by Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Co., Newport News, Virginia, launched 25 February 1933, sponsored by Lou Henry Hoover (wife of the President of the United States), and commissioned at the Norfolk Navy Yard 4 June 1934, Captain Arthur L. Bristol in command.

Following training in Chesapeake Bay, the carrier underwent overhaul in the Norfolk Navy Yard from 16 December 1942 to 7 February 1943. She next transported 75 P-40-L Army pursuit planes to Africa, arriving Casablanca on 23 February; then patrolled and trained pilots along the New England coast steaming as far north as Halifax, Nova Scotia. Departing Halifax 11 August, she joined the British Home Fleet at Scapa Flow, Scotland, 19 August, and patrolled the approaches to the British Isles.

A second Ranger attack group of 10 TBF Avengers and six Wildcats destroyed a German freighter and a small coaster and bombed yet another troop-laden transport. Three Ranger planes were lost to antiaircraft fire. On the afternoon of 4 October, Ranger was finally located by three German aircraft, but her combat air patrol shot down two of the enemy planes and chased off the third.

The seventh USS Ranger (CVA-61) (later CV-61) was a United States Navy Forrestal-class supercarrier. She was the first aircraft carrier in the world to be laid down as an angled-deck ship.

After 5 months of intensive operations, Ranger called at Hong Kong 5 May 1968 and then steamed for home. There followed a shipyard availability at Puget Sound that ended with Ranger's departure 29 July for San Francisco. Three months of leave, upkeep and training culminated in another WestPac deployment 26 October 1968 through 17 May 1969. She departed Alameda on yet another WestPac deployment in December 1969 and remained so employed until 18 May 1970 at which time she returned to Alameda, arriving 1 June.

On 27 May 1972 she returned to West Coast operation until 16 November, when she embarked upon her seventh WestPac deployment. On 18 December 1972 Linebacker II operations were initiated when negotiations in the Paris peace talks stalemated. Participating carriers were Ranger, Enterprise (CVN-65), Saratoga (CV-60), Oriskany (CV-34), and America (CV-66).

The Ranger 1 spacecraft was designed to go into an Earth parking orbit and then into a 60,000 by 1,100,000 km Earth orbit to test systems and strategies for future lunar missions. Ranger 1 was launched into the Earth parking orbit as planned, but the Agena B failed to restart to put it into the higher trajectory, so when Ranger 1 separated from the Agena stage it went into a low Earth orbit and began tumbling. The satellite re-entered Earth's atmosphere on 30 August 1961. Ranger 1 was partially successful, much of the primary objective of flight testing the equipment was accomplished but little scientific data was returned.

The spacecraft was launched into a low earth parking orbit, but an inoperative roll gyro prevented Agena restart. The spacecraft could not be put into its planned deep-space trajectory, resulting in Ranger 2 being stranded in low earth orbit upon separation from the Agena stage. The orbit decayed and the spacecraft reentered Earth's atmosphere on 20 November 1961.

The mission was designed to boosted towards the Moon by an Atlas/Agena, undergo one mid-course correction, and impact the lunar surface. At the appropriate altitude the capsule was to separate and the retrorockets ignite to cushion the landing. A malfunction in the booster guidance system resulted in excessive spacecraft speed. Reversed command signals caused the spacecraft to pitch in the wrong direction and the TM antenna to lose earth acquisition, and mid-course correction was not possible. Finally a spurious signal during the terminal maneuver prevented transmission of useful TV pictures. Ranger 3 missed the Moon by approximately 36,800 km on 28 January and is now in a heliocentric orbit. Some useful engineering data were obtained from the flight.

The mission was designed to boosted towards the Moon by an Atlas/Agena, undergo one mid-course correction, and impact the lunar surface. At the appropriate altitude the capsule was to separate and the retrorockets ignite to cushion the landing. Due to an apparent failure of a timer in the spacecraft's central computer and sequencer following launch the command signals for the extension of the solar panels and the operation of the sun and earth acquisition system were never given. The instrumentation ceased operation after about 10 hours of flight. The spacecraft was tracked by the battery-powered 50 milliwatt transmitter in the lunar landing capsule. Ranger 4 impacted the far side of the Moon (229.3 degrees E, 15.5 degrees S) at 9600 km/h at 12:49:53 UT on 26 April 1962 after 64 hours of flight.

The mission was designed to boosted towards the Moon by an Atlas/Agena, undergo one mid-course correction, and impact the lunar surface. At the appropriate altitude the capsule was to separate and the retrorockets ignite to cushion the landing. Due to an unknown malfunction after injection into lunar trajectory from Earth parking orbit, the spacecraft failed to receive power. The batteries ran down after 8 hours, 44 minutes, rendering the spacecraft inoperable. Ranger 5 missed the Moon by 725 km. It is now in a heliocentric orbit. Gamma-ray data were collected for 4 hours prior to the loss of power. Ranger 5 ended up in heliocentric (sun-centered) orbit. Mission controllers tracked it to a distance of 1.3 million km (808,000) miles. Scientists did get back about four hours of data from a gamma ray experiment aboard the spacecraft.

Ranger 6 was launched into an Earth parking orbit and injected on a lunar trajectory by a second Agena burn. The midcourse trajectory correction was accomplished early in the flight by ground control. On February 2, 1964, 65.5 hours after launch, Ranger 6 impacted the Moon on the eastern edge of Mare Tranquillitatis (Sea of Tranquility). The orientation of the spacecraft to the surface during descent was correct, but no video signal was received and no camera data obtained. A review board determined the most likely cause of failure was due to an arc-over in the TV power system when it inadvertently turned on for 67 seconds approximately 2 minutes after launch during the period of booster-engine separation.

The Atlas 250D and Agena B 6009 boosters performed nominally at launch inserting the Agena and Ranger into a 192 km altitude Earth parking orbit. Half an hour after launch the second burn of the Agena engine injected the spacecraft into a lunar intercept trajectory. After separation from the Agena, the solar panels were deployed, attitude control activated, and spacecraft transmissions switched from the omniantenna to the high-gain antenna. The next day, 29 July, the planned mid-course maneuver was initiated at 10:27 UT, involving a short rocket burn. The only anomaly during flight was a brief loss of two-way lock on the spacecraft by the DSIF tracking station at Cape Kennedy following launch.

The Atlas 196D and Agena B 6006 boosters performed nominally, injecting the Agena and Ranger 8 into an Earth parking orbit at 185 km altitude 7 minutes after launch. Fourteen minutes later a 90 second burn of the Agena put the spacecraft into lunar transfer trajectory, and several minutes later the Ranger and Agena separated. The Ranger solar panels were deployed, attitude control activated, and spacecraft transmissions switched from the omniantenna to the high-gain antenna by 21:30 UT. On 18 February at a distance of 160,000 km from Earth the planned mid-course maneuver took place, involving reorientation and a 59 second rocket burn. During the 27 minute maneuver, spacecraft transmitter power dropped severely, so that lock was lost on all telemetry channels. This continued intermittently until the rocket burn, at which time power returned to normal. The telemetry dropout had no serious effects on the mission. A planned terminal sequence to point the cameras more in the direction of flight just before reaching the Moon was cancelled to allow the cameras to cover a greater area of the Moon's surface.

The Atlas 204D and Agena B 6007 boosters performed nominally, injecting the Agena and Ranger 9 into an Earth parking orbit at 185 km altitude. A 90 second Agena 2nd burn put the spacecraft into lunar transfer trajectory. This was followed by the separation of the Agena and Ranger. 70 minutes after launch the command was given to deploy solar panels, activate attitude control, and switch from the omniantenna to the high-gain antenna. The accuracy of the initial trajectory enabled delay of the planned mid-course correction from 22 March to 23 March when the maneuver was initiated at 12:03 UT. After orientation, a 31 second rocket burn at 12:30 UT, and reorientation, the maneuver was completed at 13:30 UT.

Ranger 9 reached the Moon on 24 March 1965. At 13:31 UT a terminal maneuver was executed to orient the spacecraft so the cameras were more in line with the flight direction to improve the resolution of the pictures. Twenty minutes before impact the one-minute camera system warm-up began. The first image was taken at 13:49:41 at an altitude of 2363 km. Transmission of 5,814 good contrast photographs was made during the final 19 minutes of flight. The final image taken before impact has a resolution of 0.3 meters. The spacecraft encountered the lunar surface with an incoming asymptotic direction at an angle of -5.6 degrees from the lunar equator. The orbit plane was inclined 15.6 degrees to the lunar equator. After 64.5 hours of flight, impact occurred at 14:08:19.994 UT at approximately 12.83 S latitude, 357.63 E longitude in the crater Alphonsus. Impact velocity was 2.67 km/s. The spacecraft performance was excellent. Real time television coverage with live network broadcasts of many of the F-channel images (primarily camera B but also some camera A pictures) were provided for this flight.