Ranger, Surveyor, Luna, Luna Orbiter, 1960s Missions to Earth's Moon |
Ranger, Surveyor, Luna, Luna Orbiter, 1960s Missions to Earth's Moon |
Apr 21 2005, 08:07 PM
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#1
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2488 Joined: 17-April 05 From: Glasgow, Scotland, UK Member No.: 239 |
Have any of the serious experts on this board ever sorted out any 1960s images? I'm thinking of the Surveyor panoramas (in the 60s they did it with photos pasted onto the inside of half-spheres!) and the way that the exposure dropped off toward one corner, making a horrible patchwork effect. Or them lines and spots on the Lunar Orbiter images...
Most of the NASA mission data should be available as digital source material, and thus could be manipulated, though I suspect that getting anything 'real' from Soviet missions would be a bit of a chase! Any thoughts? -------------------- Remember: Time Flies like the wind - but Fruit Flies like bananas!
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Jun 1 2006, 04:22 AM
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#46
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2454 Joined: 8-July 05 From: NGC 5907 Member No.: 430 |
Fortieth anniversary time of the launch and landing of the first successful USA probe
on the Moon - Surveyor 1 in 1966. Also the 35th anniversary of the launch of Mariner 9 in 1971. Courtesy of Larry Kellogg's mailing list: May 30, 2006 - 35th Anniversary (1971), Mariner 9 Launch (USA Mars Orbiter) - 40th Anniversary (1966), Surveyor 1 Launch (USA Moon Lander) My how time flies. 1966 - gas $0.32 - :-) http://www.1960sflashback.com/1966/Economy.asp - LRK - JPL Space Calendar helps with the memories. ------------------------------------------------------------- http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/database/Master...og?sc=1966-045A Surveyor 1 was the first spacecraft launched in the Surveyor program and the first soft landing on the Moon by the United States. Launch Date/Time: 1966-05-30 at 14:41:00 UTC On-orbit Dry Mass: 294.3 kg ------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------- http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/database/Master...og?sc=1971-051A The Mariner Mars 71 mission was planned to consist of two spacecraft to orbit Mars on complementary missions, but due to the failure of Mariner 8 to launch properly, only one spacecraft was available. Launch Date/Time: 1971-05-30 at 22:23:00 UTC On-orbit Dry Mass: 558.8 kg Nominal Power Output: 500 W -------------------- "After having some business dealings with men, I am occasionally chagrined,
and feel as if I had done some wrong, and it is hard to forget the ugly circumstance. I see that such intercourse long continued would make one thoroughly prosaic, hard, and coarse. But the longest intercourse with Nature, though in her rudest moods, does not thus harden and make coarse. A hard, sensible man whom we liken to a rock is indeed much harder than a rock. From hard, coarse, insensible men with whom I have no sympathy, I go to commune with the rocks, whose hearts are comparatively soft." - Henry David Thoreau, November 15, 1853 |
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Jun 1 2006, 01:44 PM
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#47
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2454 Joined: 8-July 05 From: NGC 5907 Member No.: 430 |
Mike Dinn, who in 1966 worked on the Surveyor 1 mission at the
Tidbinbilla Deep Space tracking station in Australia, has posted a scan of a mosaic of lunar photos taken by the probe and received at Tidbinbilla. There are also audio recordings of major events during the mission: http://honeysucklecreek.net/msfn_missions/...apollo/Surveyor Check out the fading yellow scotch tape. -------------------- "After having some business dealings with men, I am occasionally chagrined,
and feel as if I had done some wrong, and it is hard to forget the ugly circumstance. I see that such intercourse long continued would make one thoroughly prosaic, hard, and coarse. But the longest intercourse with Nature, though in her rudest moods, does not thus harden and make coarse. A hard, sensible man whom we liken to a rock is indeed much harder than a rock. From hard, coarse, insensible men with whom I have no sympathy, I go to commune with the rocks, whose hearts are comparatively soft." - Henry David Thoreau, November 15, 1853 |
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Jun 1 2006, 01:52 PM
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#48
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2488 Joined: 17-April 05 From: Glasgow, Scotland, UK Member No.: 239 |
Mike Dinn, who in 1966 worked on the Surveyor 1 mission at the Tidbinbilla Deep Space tracking station in Australia, has posted a scan of a mosaic of lunar photos taken by the probe and received at Tidbinbilla. There are also audio recordings of major events during the mission: http://honeysucklecreek.net/msfn_missions/...apollo/Surveyor Check out the fading yellow scotch tape. Don't tell Phil Stooke! He'll not know whether to laugh or cry... Bob Shaw -------------------- Remember: Time Flies like the wind - but Fruit Flies like bananas!
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Nov 5 2006, 09:04 AM
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#49
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Member Group: Members Posts: 212 Joined: 19-July 05 Member No.: 442 |
There is an enormous amount of info on the project developments in those, particularly Surveyor and block 4+ Rangers (ones after Ranger 9, which never flew)... instrument development stuff, etc. I'm intrigued, especially about those 'Block IV+' Rangers, what were they planning to do? |
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Nov 6 2006, 10:51 AM
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#50
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1870 Joined: 20-February 05 Member No.: 174 |
Block 4 was to include more block 2 type retro-rockets and landing balsa capsules. Seismic and/or Luna-9 grade TV, I think.
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Nov 8 2006, 02:32 PM
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#51
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Member Group: Members Posts: 212 Joined: 19-July 05 Member No.: 442 |
Block 4 was to include more block 2 type retro-rockets and landing balsa capsules. Seismic and/or Luna-9 grade TV, I think. Makes sense that after the got the bugs sorted out that they would try and do what they originally planned. Its also understandable that after the success of the Surveyor landers that such planning would have been shelved. |
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Nov 8 2006, 04:22 PM
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#52
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Solar System Cartographer Group: Members Posts: 10169 Joined: 5-April 05 From: Canada Member No.: 227 |
According to:
http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4210/pages/Cover.htm Block 4 was to include better imaging and other "non-visual" science (fields and particles), while a briefly considered Block 5 would have included hard-landers. Phil -------------------- ... because the Solar System ain't gonna map itself.
Also to be found posting similar content on https://mastodon.social/@PhilStooke Maps for download (free PD: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm...Cartography.pdf NOTE: everything created by me which I post on UMSF is considered to be in the public domain (NOT CC, public domain) |
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Nov 9 2006, 12:03 AM
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#53
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3419 Joined: 9-February 04 From: Minneapolis, MN, USA Member No.: 15 |
There were two reasons why the Ranger series was abandoned after they finally got the Block 3 version to work:
1) Lunar Orbiter and Surveyor were in the works and designed to provide orders of magnitude more data than the Block 4 and Block 5 Rangers could ever provide. It seemed a waste of money to continue to pour it into Ranger when much more capable spacecraft were about to come online. 2) Ranger had a very limited view at high resolutions. The way in which field of view decreased as resolution increased limited the ability to understand fine-scale structures in context with their surroundings. The three Rangers which returned imagery served their designed function of imaging the lunar surface at very high resolution and determining some of its basic properties (slope, cratering, etc.). But additional Rangers would have given very little more data and wouldn't have been all that helpful in studying the Moon. -the other Doug -------------------- “The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.” -Mark Twain
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