Apollo 11 Mission

It was briefly examined by Neil Armstrong near the end of his moonwalk.

It was also the fifth manned flight of the command and service modules and the third flight of the lunar module.

This Johnson Space Center site catalogs each experiment and equipment item deployed or operated on the lunar surface during the Apollo program.

After a 2-hour checkout period, the spacecraft was injected into the translunar phase of the mission.

Neil Armstrong, Mission Commander, was born in Wapakoneta, Ohio, on August 5, 1930.

The Command Module (CM), 3.63 meters long and shaped like a blunt cone, was at the front or top.

Less than 2° slope in the approach path and landing site.

This view was obtained by the unmanned Lunar Orbiter V spacecraft in 1967 prior to the Apollo missions to the Moon.

The Apollo 11 landing site in Mare Tranquillitatis was one of three sites selected for the first lunar landing from a list of 30 sites originally under consideration.

The Passive Seismic Experiment was placed behind the large rock to shield the experiment from the effects of liftoff.

The 363-foot-tall Apollo 11 space vehicle was launched from Pad A, Launch Complex 39, Kennedy Space Center, at 9:37 a.m., July 16, 1969.

This allowed the descent rocket engine to be turned off just prior to landing.

Equipped with couches, it served as the crew compartment and control center.

Smoothness: Relatively few craters and boulders

After a 2-hour checkout period, the spacecraft was injected into the translunar phase of the mission.

The basalts found at the Apollo 11 landing site range in age from 3.6 to 3.9 billion years and were formed from at least two chemically different magma sources.

A reseau grid was set in front of the image plane to provide photogrammetric information in the analysis of the photography.

Most of the consumables (oxygen, hydrogen, propellant) were also stored in this module, which was jetisoned before reentry.

Image of the footpads on the lunar module's legs.

The higher albedo of the highland material, relative to the dark mare regions, also is evident in this view.

In July 1970 he became Deputy Association Administrator for Aeronautics at NASA, and retired in August of 1971.

Able to accommodate all three astronauts, the CM was also used for reentry.

Accessories included a right-angle mirror, a power cable, and a CM boresight window bracket.

The pots have a raised rim, characteristic of pits made by high-velocity micrometeorite impacts.

He received a B.S. in aeronautical engineering from Purdue University in 1955, and an M.S. in aerospace engineering from the University of Southern California in 1970.

Splashdown July 24 11:50:35 am

The Earth's magnetic field prevents these charged particles from reaching the Earth's surface, although in the Earth's polar regions, these particles can reach the upper part of the atmosphere, causing auroras.

He received a B.S. from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1951, and a Doctor of Science degree in Astronautics from MIT in 1963.

From the photographs, information can be derived about the small-scale lunar surface geologic features and about processes occurring on the surface.

This camera, which was carried aboard the command module, featured a motor-drive mechanism, powered by two nickel-cadmium batteries, that advanced the film and cocked the shutter whenever the camera was activated.

The 70-millimeter photographs taken on the lunar surface provided panoramic views of the surface near the landed LM and allowed detailed topographic mapping of the lunar surface near the landing point.

Two different experiments, the Solar Wind Composition Experiment and the Solar Wind Spectrometer, were deployed on the Moon to study solar wind.

Other experiments were deployed by the crew and then monitored from Earth by radio telemetry after the crew departed.

The photographs were used for lunar mapping and geodetic studies, and they were valuable in training the astronauts for future lunar missions.

On Earth, basalts are a common type of volcanic rock and are found in places such as Hawai'i.

The plaque was attached to the ladder on the landing gear strut on the descent stage of the Apollo 11 LM. The plaque was covered with a thin sheet of stainless steel during flight.

It was less extensive than the experiments performed on later missions, both because of time restrictions on the EVA and because of limitations on the payload mass carried on the first landing attempt.

These cameras, which were carried aboard the lunar module, were operated manually for the shutter and film advance.

Instead, this time was used to collect approximately 20 selected "grab samples" from three different areas near the lunar module and from 10 to 15 meters away.

Solar Wind Composition Experiment

The basalts found at the Apollo 11 landing site are generally similar to basalts on Earth and are composed primarily of the minerals pyroxene and plagioclase.

Astronaut Aldrin immediately began describing the the view from the window:

". . . it looks like a collection of just about every variety of shapes, angularities, and granularities, every variety of rock you could find . . . it looks as though they're going to have some interesting colors to them."

Two main types of rocks, basalts and breccias, were found at the Apollo 11 landing site.

Basalts are rocks solidified from molten lava.

The basalts found at the Apollo 11 landing site are generally similar to basalts on Earth and are composed primarily of the minerals pyroxene and plagioclase.

The regularly spaced vertical lines are the result of combining individually digitized 'framelets' to make a composite photograph. and the irregularly-shaped bright and dark spots are due to nonuniform film development.

Red/Green (Anaglyph) Images
To view anaglyph stereo pairs you need red-green (or red-blue) stereo glasses.

The CM camera had lenses of 5-mm, 10-mm, and 75-mm focal lengths; the LM camera was fitted with an 18-mm wide-angle lens.

The isotopes of the light noble gases were measured, including helium-3, helium-4, neon-20, neon-21, neon-22, and argon-36.

The first of these was the Laser Ranging Retroreflector, which was set up about 14 meters south-southwest of the LM. Second was the Passive Seismic Experiment, which was set up a bit farther out from the LM.

Added were provisions for the scientific experiments package and the Modular Equipment Storage Assembly (MESA), which housed the experiments and tools used during the lunar surface activities.

The CM camera had lenses of 5-mm, 10-mm, and 75-mm focal lengths; the LM camera was fitted with an 18-mm wide-angle lens.

This is a telephoto view of the craters Messier and Messier A. The aypical shape of these craters has caused considerable controversy concerning the mode of origin.

The Apollo lunar surface close-up camera, which provided stereoscopic pictures of the fine surface structure, is in the foreground.

The photographic equipment and materials carried by Apollo 11 were designed specifically to (1) photograph "targets of opportunity," i.e., scientifically interesting sites and potential Apollo landing sites as time and circumstances permitted.

Panoramic Views Around the Landing Site

Earth-based telescopic view.

The television camera was set up by astronaut Neil Armstrong at a distance from the lunar module (LM), oriented so that the LM and most surface activities would be in the field of view.