 The main problem they faced was with the solar panels; Ranger 1 would experience 90 minutes of darkness while passing around the nighttime side of the Earth.In addition, the antennas at NASA's various tracking stations had difficulty locking onto the probe due to its orbital plane.During this time, the computer system repeatedly fired the attitude control jets in a vain attempt to lock onto the Sun with the effect that only one day after launch, the probe ran out of attitude control gas.