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Lunar Orbiter
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Moon; Lunar Orbiter 1
Moon; Lunar Orbiter 1 The first photograph of Earth taken from the vicinity of the Moon, captured by Lunar Orbiter 1, Aug. 23, 1966.

Lunar Orbiter

spacecraft
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Lunar Orbiter 5
Lunar Orbiter 5The Atlas-Agena D launch vehicle carrying Lunar Orbiter 5 into orbit, Cape Canaveral, Fla., Aug. 1, 1967.

Lunar Orbiter, any of a series of five unmanned U.S. spacecraft placed in orbit around the Moon. Lunar Orbiter 1 was launched on Aug. 10, 1966; the last in the series, Lunar Orbiter 5, was launched on Aug. 1, 1967. The orbiters obtained 1,950 wide-angle and high-resolution photographs of much of the Moon’s surface, including the polar regions and the far side, some from as close as 28.5 miles (45.6 km) above the surface. These pictures enabled the selection of five primary landing sites for the manned Apollo missions and also made possible the construction of lunar maps with as much as 100 times the detail available from Earth-based telescopic observations.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Richard Pallardy.