![]() The spacecraft’s primary mission was to photograph nine potential Apollo landing sites, seven secondary areas, and the Surveyor 1 landing site. The vehicle also displayed higher than expected temperatures but successfully entered a 1,160 × 118-mile (1,866.8 × 189.1-kilometer) orbit around the Moon on Aug. Flight controllers used a backup method by using the same sensor, but with the Moon to orient the vehicle. On the way to the Moon, the spacecraft’s Canopus star tracker failed to acquire its target, probably because the spacecraft’s structure was reflecting too much light. Lunar Orbiter 1 was launched into a parking orbit around Earth before its Agena upper stage fired at 20:04 UT to insert it on a translunar trajectory. The narrow-angle pictures taken by this system provided resolution of 200 to 260 feet (60 to 80 meters), while the wide-angle photos showed resolutions up to 0.3 miles (0.5 kilometers). In a twist that was not known until after the end of the Cold War, the Eastman Kodak camera flown on NASA's Lunar Orbiters was originally developed by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and flown on the Samos E-1 spy satellite. The primary instrument on the spacecraft was a 150-pound (68-kilogram) Eastman Kodak imaging system (using wide and narrow-angle lenses) that could develop exposed film, scan the images, and send them back to Earth. NASA planned to launch a series of three-axis stabilized spacecraft, each with four solar panels and a main engine (derived from an Apollo attitude control thruster) for lunar orbit insertion. ![]() The Lunar Orbiter program originated in response to the need to obtain detailed photographs of potential Apollo landing sites. 29, 1966: Spacecraft crashed on Moon In Depth: Lunar Orbiter 1 Took first picture of Earth from the vicinity of the Moon.It photographed potential Apollo landing sites and captured the first picture of Earth taken from the vicinity of the Moon.Ītlas Agena D (Atlas Agena D no. The satellite will use tiny amounts of fuel to make a few planned trajectory course corrections along the way.NASA's Lunar Orbiter 1 was the first U.S. The plan now is for the 25-kilogram (55-pound) satellite to far overshoot the moon before falling back into the new lunar orbit Nov. The satellite was carried for six days in Photon, with the spacecraft's engines firing periodically to raise its orbit farther and farther from Earth.Ī final engine burst Monday allowed Photon to break from Earth's gravitational pull and send the satellite on its way. ![]() The Electron rocket that launched June 28 from New Zealand was carrying a second spacecraft called Photon, which separated after nine minutes. ![]() If the rest of the mission is successful, the Capstone satellite will send back vital information for months as the first to take a new orbit around the moon called a near-rectilinear halo orbit: a stretched-out egg shape with one end of the orbit passing close to the moon and the other far from it.Įventually, NASA plans to put a space station called Gateway into the orbital path, from which astronauts can descend to the moon's surface as part of its Artemis program.īeck said the advantage of the new orbit is that it minimizes fuel use and allows the satellite-or a space station-to stay in constant contact with Earth. "It's an insane capability that's never existed before." "For some tens of millions of dollars, there is now a rocket and a spacecraft that can take you to the moon, to asteroids, to Venus, to Mars," Beck said. Beck said the relatively low cost of the mission-NASA put it at $32.7 million-marked the beginning of a new era for space exploration.
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