Moon Exploration

2.  6 missions
 One man
 Took place from 1961-1963 (initiated in 1958)
 Developed hardware for spaceflight and
return to Earth
 Showed how humans would survive in space
 Orbit the Earth and return

3.  1964-1966
 10 missions
 2 astronauts in vehicle
 Improved techniques for spacecraft control
(maneuver and docking) , and spacewalking
 To subject astronauts to longer flights
 Accomplished missions equivalent to going
to moon and back

4.  Apollo 1—explosion, 3 astronauts lose their lives, fire
in the command module during test
 Apollo 7—first manned spaceflight in the Apollo
program, test the vehicle and support facilities in
Earth’s orbit
 Apollo 8– 1968—first mission to orbit the moon
(circumlunar), first manned flight of SaturnV rocket
 Apollo 9—tested lunar module and ability to
rendezvous with the command module, 10 days in
earth’s orbit

5.  Apollo 10—last stages of testing lunar
equipment, lunar module was flown manned
around the moon and descended 8 miles
without landing
 Apollo 11—1969—first astronauts set foot on
the moon, even through technical problems
 Apollo 12—first major scientific experiments set
up on the Moon, retrieve equipment left by
Surveyor 3
 Apollo 13—1970—explosion causes mission to
abort, circle the moon and return to Earth in
lunar module

6.  Apollo 14—First landing in the lunar
mountains, find places for future landings
 Apollo 15—1971—first use of lunar roving
vehicle
 Apollo 16—crew explores mountains,
conduct inflight experiments
 Apollo 17—last, longest mission/first
geologist visits
 Luna 3—1959—Russian space probe returns
first pictures of the Moon’s far side

7.  Ranger 7—1964—US receives perfect photos
from unmanned probe/it crash lands on the
moon
 Surveyor 1—1966—first of 7 US Surveyor
missions/makes a perfect soft landing on the
Moon/ Goal was to prepare for landing
astronauts on the Moon by analysis of lunar
soil

8.  Lunar Orbiters—1966— 5 of them launched
by US/photographed virtually the entire
Moon
 Clementine—1994—placed in lunar
orbit/goal was to conduct a two-month
survey of the Moon’s surface/ important
aspect was to collect data on mineral content
of Moon rocks/helped map huge impact
basins/early signals indicated the presence of
water

9.  Clementine continued—carried cameras to
collect images/ one image shows that the
crust on the side of the Moon that faces earth
is much thinner than the crust on the far side/
a global map of the Moon that shows its
composition was created based on light data

10.  The Lunar Prospector—1998—spent a year
orbiting the Moon from pole to pole/resulting
maps confirmed Clementine’s data/confirmed
that the Moon has an iron-rich core/carried
instruments to map the Moon’s gravity,
magnetic field, and elements in the lunar
crust/using Prospector, scientists prepared
maps showing the location of water ice at
each pole