 Due to a series of malfunctions, the spacecraft missed the Moon by and entered a heliocentric orbit.The Ranger 3 space probe was designed to transmit pictures of the lunar surface during a period of 10 minutes of flight prior to impacting on the Moon, to rough-land a seismometer capsule on the Moon, to collect gamma-ray data in flight, to study radar reflectivity of the lunar surface, and to continue testing of the Ranger program for development of lunar and interplanetary spacecraft.Ranger 3 was the first of the Block II Ranger designs.