@Mark Ollig
“I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.”
“I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.”
President John F. Kennedy spoke those words to a joint session of Congress May 25, 1961.
Just over a month earlier, April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit Earth in the Vostok 1 capsule, completing a 108-minute flight.
Shortly afterward, NASA launched astronaut Alan Shepard in the Mercury spacecraft Freedom 7 May 5, 1961, completing a 15-minute suborbital flight.
Unlike Gagarin’s mission, Shepard’s did not involve orbiting Earth.
US fears of Soviet technological superiority in space began Oct. 4, 1957, with the launch of the “beeping” Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to orbit Earth.
The United States attempted its first satellite launch Dec. 6, 1957, with Vanguard TV-3 (Test Vehicle-Three), which rose about four feet off the launch pad before losing thrust and exploding.
NASA launched the Lunar Orbiter program Aug. 30, 1963, to create detailed maps of the Moon’s surface so future crewed spacecraft could land safely, since Earth-based telescopic images lacked the needed resolution.
An uncrewed equipped spacecraft would travel to the Moon and take high-resolution photographs of its surface.
President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, TX, Nov. 22, 1963.
By this time, NASA had begun developing the technology, rockets, and spacecraft to send American astronauts to the moon.
NASA awarded the Boeing Company a contract May 7, 1964, to build five robotic lunar orbiter spacecraft to be sent to the moon between 1966 and 1967, starting with Lunar Orbiter 1.
The lunar orbiters were produced at Boeing’s missile production center in Seattle, WA.
Lunar Orbiter 1 weighed 853 pounds and featured a 150-pound film imaging system developed by Eastman Kodak, which handled the exposure, scanning, and development of 70-millimeter film.
The spacecraft’s camera system included two lenses: a high-resolution 610 mm Panoramic lens and a medium-resolution 80 mm wide-angle Xenotar lens.
This system enabled both detailed close-ups and broader background images during each exposure.
NASA launched Lunar Orbiter 1 from Cape Kennedy, FL, using an Atlas rocket with an Agena D upper stage Aug. 10, 1966, at 2:31 p.m. CDT.
Translunar injection was completed by Agena D’s upper-stage engine at 3:04 p.m. CDT, setting Lunar Orbiter 1 on its path to the moon.
A 100-pound thrust bipropellant engine using nitrogen tetroxide and Aerozine-50 adjusted the spacecraft’s course and orbit.
Lunar Orbiter 1 was powered by solar panels, with a battery for periods when the orbiter was on the far side of the Moon and hidden from sunlight.
The onboard Canopus star tracker allowed the orbiter to orient itself by locking onto the bright star Canopus, providing a stable celestial reference for attitude control.
Lunar Orbiter 1 communicated by radio on the S-band, a microwave frequency around 2,295 megahertz, through NASA’s Deep Space Network stations at Goldstone, CA; Madrid, Spain; and Woomera, Australia.
The orbiter also measured radiation, the energy emitted by space particles, and recorded the density of micrometeorites impacting its surface.
The Aug. 11, 1966, Minneapolis Star newspaper headline read “Lunar Orbiter Speeds Towards Its Target.”
Lunar Orbiter 1 reached the Moon Aug. 14, 1966. It completed one orbit every three hours and 37 minutes.
Its cameras capturing high- and medium-resolution photos.
Scientists analyzed these images to map craters, slopes, and rocky areas, aiding in avoiding these hazards and selecting the safest Apollo mission landing sites.
From Aug. 18 to Aug. 29, 1966, Lunar Orbiter 1 transmitted 205 image frames to Earth, some 240,000 miles away.
After a small orbital correction Aug. 21, Lunar Orbiter 1 lowered its path to about 35 miles above the Moon’s surface to obtain higher-resolution, including stereo pairs (two photos of the same area taken from slightly different angles).
NASA confirmed that these stereographic photos, with a resolution as fine as three feet, provided needed 3D data for planning future lunar landing sites.
The orbiter’s camera continued sending pictures to Earth through September.
During its 577th lunar orbit Oct. 29, 1966, NASA commanded Lunar Orbiter 1, which was at its mission end, to impact the Moon’s far side at six degrees, 42 minutes north latitude and 162 degrees east longitude.
The Minneapolis Star reported, also on Oct. 29, 1966, that the Soviet Union’s Luna-12 spacecraft had entered lunar orbit Oct. 25 and began sending photographs of the moon’s surface to Earth shortly after.
“The feat moved Russia a step closer to a manned moon landing,” the article stated.
By 1966, the US and the Soviet Union were in a fierce competition to showcase their achievements in space exploration, especially in the space race to land humans on the moon first.
NASA’s Lunar Orbiter program produced high-quality photographs that were used to identify safe landing sites for the Apollo missions, and it played a leading role in advancing lunar imaging technology.
American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin successfully landed on the Moon July 20, 1969, explored its surface, and returned safely to Earth.
This achievement fulfilled President Kennedy’s goal to “land a man on the Moon and return him safely to the Earth” before the end of the decade.
Lunar Orbiter 1 took a photograph of a crescent Earth above the lunar horizon Aug. 23, 1966.
The image was developed, scanned, and transmitted to Earth as an analog signal.
The Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, CA, later digitized and enhanced the image, releasing it Nov. 13, 2008.
You can see it here: https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/lunar_orbiter_1_photo_of_earth_aug_23_1966_original_and_remastered_loirp.jpg.
