[7] It was designed primarily to photograph areas of the lunar surface for confirmation of safe landing sites for the Surveyor and Apollo missions.

The spacecraft was placed in a cislunar trajectory and injected into an elliptical near-equatorial lunar orbit on February 8 at 21:54 UT.

The film advance mechanism showed erratic behavior during this period resulting in a decision to begin readout of the frames earlier than planned.

Included was a frame of the Surveyor 1 landing site, permitting identification of the location of the spacecraft on the surface.

The future landing site of Apollo 14 including Cone crater, was photographed by the orbiter.