Launch Success
Liftoff Time (GMT)
14:31:00
Wednesday August 11, 1965
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This was the second attempt by NASA to launch a dummy Surveyor lunar lander spacecraft into a barycentric orbit toward a simulated Moon landing. Unlike the previous attempt in March 1965, this time all systems worked without fault. The Centaur fired flawlessly and put the Surveyor dynamic model on a simulated lunar trajectory so precise that it would have impacted on the Moon without a trajectory correction. Orbital parameters were 102 x 510,900 miles (164 × 822,135 kilometers) at 28.6-degree inclination. The payload reentered Earth's atmosphere after 31 days.
Highly Elliptical Orbit
1 Payload
950 kilograms
6th
Mission
2nd
Mission of 1965
72nd
Orbital launch attempt