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Mission record

Lunar Orbiter 1

Also known as Lunar Orbiter-A, Orbiter-A, Orbiter I, LunarOrbiter1

NASA · Launched

Explore trajectory

Completed · Partial success

NASA lunar orbiter designed primarily to photograph smooth areas of the lunar surface for selection and verification of safe landing sites for the Surveyor and Apollo missions. It returned 42 high resolution and 187 medium resolution frames, took the first two pictures of the Earth from the distance of the Moon, and was commanded to impact the lunar far side on 29 October 1966.

Destinations
Moon
Launch vehicle
Atlas-Agena D
Launch site
Cape Canaveral, United States
Countries
United States
Mission types
Orbiter

Chronology

Mission timeline

  1. Launch

    Lunar Orbiter 1 launched

    Earth

  2. Milestone

    Photographic readout completed

    Moon

  3. Impact

    Commanded impact on the lunar far side

    Moon

Mission architecture

Vehicles

  • Lunar Orbiter 1 · Orbiter

    Destinations: Moon

Trajectory record

Trajectory dataset not yet available

No verified trajectory dataset is committed for this mission, so Mission Atlas renders no path.

Provenance

Sources

Each source is listed once and labeled with the mission, event, trajectory, or destination/body context it supports.

Data verified through August 24, 2026