by Radio Corporation of America, were of variable quality and it took some time to find one that matched JPL's standards. During testing of Atlas guidance systems at General Electric, it was found that gold coating on diodes was flaking off and causing electrical shorts. Even worse, Ranger 6 had hundreds of the same diodes. This problem had easily eluded testing; moreover, ground tests could not simulate a "zero gravity" environment in space where the gold flakes would float around and form a short between the legs of the diode. In the end, there was no choice except to replace every last one of the several hundred diodes inside Ranger 6's circuitry. In April 1963, the United States Congress also decided to cut funding to the Ranger program by nearly 50% on the grounds that "no success had been achieved with any of the missions to date". This meant that plans for Ranger probes up to 13 were cancelled. Only Rangers 6-9 would be flown and they would carry little more than a TV camera. One of Program Ranger's goals was looking for potential landing sites for manned lunar missions. At this point, it was not clear exactly what the Moon's surface was like and widespread fears existed of there being bottomless quicksand that would swallow up spacecraft and astronauts. Since the basic design of the Apollo lunar module had already been finalized by 1963, landing on the Moon would only "confirm or deny that design". JPL decided to go for an impact point near the Moon's equator, in the Sea of Tranquility, partially because it was considered a prime Apollo landing spot, and also because the target had to match lighting conditions during the time of launch in January–February. Ranger 6 and its launch vehicle (Atlas 199D and Agena 6008) arrived at Cape Canaveral in mid-December and, with the nation still mourning President Kennedy's assassination the previous month, began preflight tests. Liftoff took place at 10:49 AM EST on January 30, 1964. The Atlas lifted smoothly into an overcast sky and disappeared from view. All went well during the boost phase and the launch vehicle's performance was excellent, indicating the hard-fought effort to improve booster reliability. Shortly after Atlas BECO and staging, an ominous development occurred when telemetry indicated that the telemetry for the TV camera on Ranger 6 had turned itself on and then back off again 67