Ranger Lunar Probe

On 31 July 1964, Ranger 7 became the first American visitor to the Lunar surface, a whole five years before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made their first footprints. Ranger 7, like all of the other Ranger spacecraft, was designed to smash into the Moon at high speed, the whole while taking detailed pictures of the Lunar landscape below. Although these missions seem futile by today's standards, the Ranger program was highly sophisticated for its time. In fact, of  the nine Ranger space probes, only the final three ever completed their mission objectives. The crash-and-burn technique of Ranger taught NASA much needed information about the Moon that led the way towards the Surveyor landers and the Lunar Orbiter probes. All three programs further paved the way for the Apollo landings. 

This LEGO Ranger spacecraft is Minifigure Scale (1:40) and contains 116 bricks. Details include fully mobile solar panels and solar panel latches, a high gain antenna, an OMNI antenna, an altitude control system, two battery packs, and the all important high detail camera. Four extremely rare copper pieces are included.