Ranger 6, launched January 30, 1964, was one of a series of lunar probes designed to take close-up images of the moon. Everything operated as planned and Ranger 6 landed within a mile of its intended target, but due to a failure of the camera system, no images were returned. Since the cameras were the only equipment on the probe, no other experiments were planned.
The failure of Ranger 6 came on the heels of the assassination of John F. Kennedy just two months before. In April 1963, Congress had cut funding to the Ranger program by almost 50%, citing "no success had been achieve with any of the missions to date". Ranger 5 was lost in October 1962.
NASA officials had hoped Ranger 6 would succeed since a week later, they planned to announce their projected budget for $5.3 billion for 1965. Ranger 7 had already been budgeted and six months later, it became the first successful lunar probe, sending back high definition pictures of the moon.
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