Surveyor 1
Surveyor 1 was launched
on 30 May 1966 and after an expedition of 63 hours and 36 minutes around the
lunar orbit. On June 2 1966, Surveyor 1
successfully landed on the Moon. Surveyor 1 became the first American space
craft that successfully landed on the Moon 9 miles away from its target, at an
altitude of 75.3 km (46.7893 mile) and a velocity of 5842.878 per hour. The
mission of Surveyor 1 was to identify the surface of the Moon and if the
terrain was safe for a manned craft to land for the series of Apollo projects on
the Moon. This space craft was equipped with a television camera and
transmitted more than 10,000 photos of lunar surface on June 14, and a total of
11,240 on July 14 to the Earth. The Surveyor 1 mission lasted until January
1967. The Surveyor program consisted of building and launching 7 space crafts
to the Moon at the total cost of $469 million.
Surveyor 3
In continuation of Surveyors
program, Surveyor 3 was the second United States space craft that softly landed
on the Moon to complete the Surveyors 2 mission that crashed during the
maneuver because one of the engines failed to ignite. Surveyor 3 launched on April
17, 1967 and after 3 days flight on April 20 landed on the Oceanus Procellarum,
one of the most volcanically active sites of the Moon. Oceanus Procellarum site
was considered as Apollo region that was the area which Apollo wanted to land.
The Surveyor 3 touched down on the Moon three times before landing because the
engine did not shut down as planned. First time it moved 12.4274 miles and
second and third times it moved for 6.83508 and 11.811 inches. This space craft
was also carrying a television camera and in addition was carrying surface
sampler instrument for digging trenches. The Surveyor 3 mission was to take new
photos of lunar surface and dig the surface to gain new information about the
lunar materials in depth. During this operation, which ended on May 4, 1967,
Surveyor 3 gained large capacity of new facts and took more than 6000 pictures.
In addition, the surface sampler collected 18 hours of work which was new
important information about the roughness, structure, and strong point of the
lunar material to the depth of 6.8897638 inches. Later in November 1969, Apollo
12 landed near the Surveyor 3 and the astronauts brought 22.0462 pounds of the
spacecraft to the Earth, including the camera. The picture is the Surveyor 3
and the astronaut of Apollo 12.
Surveyor 1 and 3
ReplyDeleteAgain the first surveyor makes it on the moon but the second crashes. People must think that it was difficult for these engineers to build these things and the next thing; they do not make it after all the time spent on them. But still, they did not give up because they had a mission of taking this surveyor on the moon and actually live it there so they needed something durable with the atmosphere of the moon and the surroundings. So it is impressive with the technology that was used in the nineteen sixties, Victory to everyone.
Aline NIyonzima
In response to the Surveyor 1 & 3 post:
ReplyDeleteThese pictures of these surveyors are really cool. They remind me of mini robots, well not really mini cause they are probably pretty big. If I was working for NASA at that time I would have been a bit disappointed to find out that the moon was not made of cheese. Which I know sounds ridiculous, but I remember growing up believing that. That was a lot of photos that were transmitted from that invention. I wonder what happened to all of those pictures. I think it is amazing how even in science and technology people did not give up so easily. They preserved until they completed their mission. Even if that meant creating a whole new invention after one failed.
-Maria Marquez
In response to Surveyor 1 and Surveyor 3
ReplyDelete$469 million for the surveyor program?! And if I understand correctly there were no people abroad this craft. Maybe the Kennedys were under pressure from the Soviets to out do them because of the Cold War but, boy, did it cost the country's budget. The program must've been very successful if they felt like landing softly was a great achievement. A lot of people disagree with and say that we know so much about space than we ever have because of NASA but I really feel it was a huge waste of money. Very factual bunch on posts! Thank you!
- John Osorio