<..v '- '- - ;#'.-"- -- NASA SP-235 e. 1He.4101e C..d�Y Preliminary Seience Report PMl UBRARY ACC. # _!:...,..+__ - --- ", Sample Information Center NASA/JSC Building 31N PB.SAM.A12.1970.A 60120602 NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION APOLLO 12 PRELIMINARY SCIENCE REPORT Apollo 12 astronaut drives a core tube into lunar surface for scientific exploration of the Moon. NASA SP-235 Preliminary Science Report PREPARED BY NASA MANNED SPACECRAFT CENTER Scientific and Technical Information Division OFFICE OF TECHNOLOGY UTILIZATION 1970 NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION Washington, D.C. ACKNOWLEDGMENT The material submitted for the "Apollo 12 Prelim­ inary Science Report" was reviewed by a NASA Manned Spacecraft Center Editorial Review Board consisting of the following members: Anthony J. Calio (Chairman ), John W. Harris, John H. Langford, R. Mercer, Jamie L. Moon, Scott H. Simpkinson, William K. Stephenson, Jeffrey L. Warner, and Julian M. West. For sale by the Clearinghouse for Federal Scientific and Technical Information, Springfield, Virginia 22151 CFSTI price Library of Congress Catalog Card Number $3.00 73-606625 Foreword OUR sECOND JOURNEY to the Moon opened the new age of extraterrestrial scientific exploration by man. Going beyond Apollo 11, which demonstrated to an eager world that astronauts can set foot on a celestial body and return safely to Earth, Apollo 12 concentrated on a systematic scientific sampling designed to help unlock some of the secrets of the solar system's origin and early history. At Apollo 12's destination we had in the spring of 1967 landed Surveyor 3, a spiderlike mechanical creature with three legs, a clawlike arm, and a roving TV eye. Less than 3 years later, Pete Conrad and Alan Bean landed their lunar module Intrepid with precision a few thousand feet from Surveyor 3, enabling them to disassemble parts exposed to the lunar environment for a known time for later analysis back on Earth. This was but a single task in a long series of tasks the astronauts had to perform, but to me this precise landing so close to a preselected site a quarter of a million miles from Earth points up the marvelous inseparability of mechanical and scientific capabilities in space exploration. This document, like the initial report of the first manned landing, relates the preliminary scientific observations resulting from the mission of Apollo 12. Further study and more detailed analysis will undoubtedly produce additional significant results, just as additional manned landings will undoubtedly reveal new mechanical and scientific marvels. THOMAS 0. PAINE Administrator National Aeronautics and Space Administmtion JuNE1, 1970 v Contents PAGE INTRODUCTION ix A. ]. Calia MISSION DESCRIPTION xi W. K. Stephenson SUMMARY OF SCIENTIFIC RESULTS 1 Gene Simmons and A. ]. Calia 1 PHOTOGRAPHIC SUMMARY OF THE APOLLO 12 MISSION 7 L. C. Wade 2 CREW OBSERVATIONS 29 Alan L. Bean, Charles Conrad, ]r., and Richard F. Gordon 3 PASSIVE SEISMIC EXPERIMENT 39 Gary V. Latham, Maurice Ewing, Frank Press, George Sutton, ]ames Dorman, Y osio Nakamura, Nafi Toksoz, Ralph Wiggins, and Robert Kovach 4 LUNAR SURFACE MAGNETOMETER EXPERIMENT 55 P. Dyal, C. W. Parkin, and C. P. Sonett 5 THE SOLAR-WIND SPECTROMETER EXPERIMENT 75 Conway W. Snyder, Douglas R. Clay, and Marcia Neugebauer 6 SUPRATHERMAL ION DETECTOR EXPERIMENT (LUNAR IONOSPHERE DETECTOR ) 83 ]. W. Freeman, Jr., H. Balsiger, and H. K. Hills 7 COLD CATHODE GAGE (LUNAR ATMOSPHERE DETECTOR) 93 F. S. Johnson, D. E. Evans, and ]. M. Carroll 8 THE SOLAR-WIND COMPOSITION EXPERIMENT 99 ]. Geiss, P. Eberhardt, P. Signer, F. Buehler, and ]. Meister 9 APOLLO 12 MULTISPECTRAL PHOTOGRAPHY EXPERIMENT 103 A. F. H. Goetz, F. C. Billingsley, E. Yost, and T. B. McCord 10 PRELIMINARY GEOLOGIC INVESTIGATION OF THE APOLLO LANDING SITE 113 12 PART A. GEOLOGY OF APOLLO 12 LANDING SITE 113 E. M. Shoemaker, R.THE M. Batson, A. L. Bean, C. Conrad, ]r., D. H. Dahlem, E. N. Goddard, M. H. Hait, K. B. Larson, G. G. Schaber, D. L. Schleicher, R. L. Sutton, G. A. Swann, and A. C. Waters ]>ART B. PHOTOMETRIC AND POLARIMETRIC PROPERTIES OF LUNAR REGOLITH 157 H.THE E. Holt and ]. ]. Rennilson vii APOLLO 12 PRELIMINARY SCIENCE REPORT PAGE PART C. MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF THE LUNAR REGOLITH 161 R: F. Scott, W. D. Carrier, N. C. Costes, and ]. K. Mitchell 11 LUNAR SURFACE CLOSEUP STEREOSCOPIC PHOTOGRAPHY 183 T. Gold, F. Pearce, and R. ]ones 12 PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION OF LUNAR SAMPLES 189 The Lunar Sample Preliminary Examination Tearn 13 PRELIMINARY RESULTS FROM SURVEYOR 3 ANALYSIS 217 R. E. Benson, B. G. Cour-Palais, L. E. Giddings, ]r., Stephen Jacobs, P. H. Johnson, ]. R. Martin, F. ]. Mitchell, and K. A. Richardson APPENDIX A-GLOSSARY OF TERMS 225 APPENDIX B - ACRONYMS 227 viii Introduction THE APOLLO 11 MISSION, primarily designed to land men on the Moon and return them safely to Earth, signaled a new phase of the manned space program. Based on the success of Apollo 11, the first of a series of missions designed for the systematic exploration of the Moon was successfully accomplished on Apollo 12. The :fact that the Apollo 12 astronauts were able to achieve a pinpoint landing at a preselected site, and then spend an extended time on the lunar surface, graphically illustrates the rapid progress of the Apollo program. The Apollo 12 mission added significantly to man's knowledge of the Moon. The precise landing capability allowed the crew to accomplish a wide variety of preplanned tasks and paved the way for planning future missions to smaller, more selected landing areas with the possibility of significant scientific returns. The Apollo 12 mission also benefited lunar orbital science. By changing the orbital plane of the command and service module ( CSM ) twice, once for rendez­ vous and once to accomplish photographic tasks, the crew demonstrated the capability to explore new areas of the lunar surface during orbital operations. Future flights will take advantage of this capability to photograph additional potential landing sites and to make scientific observations of the surface, both visually and photographically. The success of the Apollo 12 crew in lunar orbit allowed an increase in the planned orbital activities for the Apollo 13 mission. The large quantity of lunar soil and rocks brought back by the Apollo 12 astro­ nauts will add to the detailed scientific information already obtained from the Apollo 11 samples. The emplaced scientific experiments have yielded consider­ able geophysical data that were unavailable prior to the Apollo 12 mission. "'ith the landing of future missions, a network of scientific instruments will be created that will greatly enhance the gathering of data. This report is preliminary and covers only the initial scientific results of the Apollo 12 mission. A great deal of work remains for the scientists involved to interpret and understand the returned lunar material and the data being constantly transmitted from the Apollo 12 scientific experiments on the Moon. A. J. CALIO NASA Manned Spacecraft Center ix Mission Description W. K. Stephenson• The Apollo 12 mission was the second manned The first of the two planned extravehicular lunar landing mission. Its objective was to per­ aetivity periods began at 115 hr g.e.t. A color form detailed scientific lunar exploration. television camera mounted on the descent stage The space vehicle with a crew of Charles Con­ provided live television coverage of the descent rad, Jr., the commander; Richard F. Gordon, the of both astronauts to the lunar surface. A con­ command module pilot; and Alan L. Bean, the tingency sample of lunar soil was collected by lunar module pilot, was launched from Kennedy the commander and pJrced aboard the lunar mod­ Space Center, Fla., at 11:22:00 a.m. e.s.t. ( 16: ule prior to the descent of the lunar module pilot. 22:00 G.m.t. ) on November 14, 1969. The activi­ Live television coverage was subsequently lost ties during Earth-orbital checkout, translunar because of the inadvertent pointing of the cam­ injection, and translunar coast were similar to era at the Sun. The crew emplaced the U.S. flag those of Apollo 11, except for the special atten­ and the solar-wind composition experiment. tion given to verifying all spacecraft systems as a Then, the Apollo lunar surface experiments were result of the eleetrostatic discharges shortly after deployed at a safe distance away from the lunar launch at 36.5 and 52 sec ground elapsed time module. Additional lunar surface samples, in­ ( g.e.t.). All equipment checked perfectly, so cluding core-tube specimens, were collected. The permission to proceed was given. Only one mid­ first extravehicular activity period, lasting ap­ course correction, applied at 31 hr g.e.t. to place proximately 4 hr, was recorded with the color the spacecraft on .the planned non-free-return still cameras and the sequence camera and by trajectory, was required prior to lunar orbit stereoscopic and panoramic views taken with the insertion. still cameras. Upon return to the lunar module, The spacecraft was inserted into an elliptical the crew replenished the portable life-support lunar orbit at 83.5 hr g.e.t., and the orbit was systems and, after a planned 7-hr rest period, circularized two revolutions later. Following un­ prepared for the second extravehicular activity docking of the command and service module period. and the lunar module, the descent orbit began at The second extravehicular activity period be­ 109.5 hr g.e.t. One hour later, a precision land­ gan at 131.5 hr g.e.t. with the descent of the ing was made using automatic guidance, with commander to the lunar surface. The lunar mod­ only small manual corrections required in the ule pilot followed shortly thereafter, and the two final phases of descent.