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History of the Lunar Orbiter Program April 1977 Performing Organization Code 6 ( REPRODUCED BY U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE NATIONAL TECHNICAL INFORMATION SERVICE SPRINGFIELD, VA 22161 ' Report No. Government Accession No. Recipient's Catalog No. 1. -�2. 3. NASA TM X-3487 Title and Subtitle 5. !WPOrt Date 4. DESTINATION MOON: A History of the Lunar Orbiter Program April 1977 Performing Organization Code 6. ADA Author(s) Performing Organization Report No. 7. 8. TMX 3487 Bruce K. Byers Work Unit No. 10. Performing Organization Name and Address not applicable 9. History Office National Aeronautics and Space Administration Contract or Grant No. 11. Headquarters not applicable Washington D.C. Type of Report and Period Covered 13. 12. Sponsoring Agency Name and Address NATIONAL AERONAUTICS 3PACE ADMINISTRATION HISTORY 1963 - 1970 Sponsoring Agency Code WASHINGTON, D.C. AND 20546 14. ADA 15. Supplementary Notes Abstract 16. This publication documents the origins of the Lunar Orbiter Program and records the activities of the missions then in progress. Covers the period when Lunar Orbiters were providing the Apollo program with photographic and selenodetic 1963data -for 1970 evaluating proposed astronaut landing sites ORIG PA INAL GE IS OF POOR QUALITY Key Words (Suggested by Author(s)) Distribution Statement 17. Apollo landing site selection 18. In addition to normal computerized Lunar exploration, unmanned, far-side; distribution, lOO copies to history radiation dosages, micrometeoriod flux, office, Code ADA and Oopies to Langley dual image, photography, image enhancement Research Center (J. Marshall300 Hughes ) . convergent stereoscopic photography Mascons, Moon's gravitational field Cat. 12 Security aassif. (of this report) Security Classif. (of this page) 21. No. of Pages Price• 19. 20. 22. L- UNCLASSIFIED UNCLASSIFIED 418 $11.00 *For sale by the National Technical Information Service,.Springfield. Virginia 22161 ,, ..i.. .. j -I ' DESTINATION MOON A History of the Lunar Orbiter Program CONTENTS Page • • v Preface • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • . I Unmanned Lunar Exploration and the Need for a Lu nar Orbiter 1 ••••••••••••••••• • 0 II Toward a Lightweight Lunar Orbiter 9 • • • • • • • • III Beginning the Lunar Orbiter Program 49 • • • • • 0 • 0 IV NASA and Boeing Negotiate a Contract . 75 Implementing the Program 97 v . • • • • • • • • VI The Lunar Orbiter Spacecraft . 111 VII Building the Spacecraft: Problems and Resolutions 133 VIII Lunar Orbiter Mission Objectives and Apollo Requirements . 177 0 • 0 0 • • 0 • 0 • • • . � • • • • IX Missions I, II, and III: Apollo Site Search and Verification 225 • • . • • 0 0 • • • • 0 • 0 0 0 • . • X Mi ssions IV and V: The Lu nar Surface Explored . 0 269 XI Conclusions : Lunar Orbiter's Contribution to 303 Space Exploration • • • • o o o o o • • • • • o • • XII Lunar Orbiter Photography 331 ••• 0 • • • • • • • • • Appendix A Glossary 361 o • 0 0 . 0 . 0 • • . • • . • • . • Appendix B Organization Charts 363 • . • • • • . • • • • • Appendix C Record of Unmanned Lunar Probes, 1958-1968 367 • References • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 375 1.- iii ..L.. ' j / L4 PREFACE In June 1967, as a member of the NASA History Office Summer Seminar, I began work on a hi story of the Lunar Orbiter Program, then in its operational phase. obj ective was to document the origins of the program and toMy rec ord the activity of the missions in progress. I also wanted to study the technical and management aspects of the lunar orbital reconnaissance that would provide the Apollo Program with pho­ tographic and selenodetic data for evaluating the proposed astronaut landing sites . Lunar Orbiter brought several new departures in u.s. efforts to explore the Moon before landing men there . It was the first big deep space project for Langley Research Center. It came into being in 1963 after the Ranger and Surveyor Pro­ grams were well along in their development and at a time when the data it could acquire would be timely to Apollo only for mission design, not for equipment design, since the decisions on the basic Apollo equipment had already been made. Although Lunar Orbiter was not a 11crash11 effort , it did require that Langley Res earch Center set up a development and testing sched­ ule in which various phases of the project would run nearly concurrently. This approach had not been tried before on a major lunar program. Research led me first to the Office of Space Science and Applications at NASA Headquarters in Washington . I dis­ cussed the proj ect with Lunar Orbiter Program officials and received help and encouragement from Oran w. Nicks, the Di­ rector of Lunar and Planetary Programs ( later Deputy Director of Langley Research Center); Lee R. Scherer, then Lunar Orbi­ ter Program Director ( later Di rector of Kennedy Space Center) ; and Leon J. Kosofsky, Lunar Orbiter program engineer. Complete chronological files of the Lunar Orbiter Program Office enabled me to ou tline the basic developments since the inception of Lunar Orbiter. After studying fi1es in Washington and at Langley Research Center and interviewing proj ect officials, I went to Kennedy Space Center to witness the launch of Lunar Orbiter 5, the last mission of the program. There I interviewed program offi­ cials and Boeing and Eastman Kodak contractor representatives. Back in Washington, I wrote a preliminary manuscript abo ut the program, for limited circulation among NASA of fices as a Hi s­ tcrical Note. v .::--:-.!NG PAGE TILANK NOT FILMJID ' I returned to NASA Headquarters in the summers of 1968, 1969, and 1970 to expand my study of the program--one of NASA 's major successes before the Ap ollo landings. In early June 1969, I was assigned to the Apollo Lunar Planning Office, whose diredtor, Scherer, had encouraged me throughout the first two summers of research. In his office, I could see how Lunar Orbiter photographic data were being used in plan­ ning the Apollo 11 landing and subsequent mi ssions. I con­ ducted additional interviews and discussed results of Orbiter missions with Dr . Farouk El-Baz and Dennis James of Bellcomm, a consulting firm supporting NASA on Apollo. Through these talks I learned the technical and scientific significance of much of the Orbiter photography and how it was being applied . I went again to Langley, with new qu estions. Many of the former Lu nar Orbiter project officials were occupied with a new planetary program: the Viking Program to explore Mars . Lunar Orbiter was history for them, but the experience from that program was already helping them in their newest en­ deavor. As this manuscript goes to press the two dual- role Viking spacecraft have successfully orbited Mars and sent two landers to the Martian surface. These craft have conducted numerous experiments to search for signs of life and to give us our first detailed views of the Martian landscape. During the remaind er of 1969 and in the summer of 1970 I worked to complete the draft of the history contained in the following pages. I submitted the manuscript in June 1971, shortly before beginning my present career as a Foreign Ser­ vice officer. The decade of the sixties was filled with turbulence, discontent, and upheaval. It also was a time of outstanding achievements in advancing our knowledge of the world in which we live . We accelerated the exploration of our planet from space. We landed men on the Moon, brought them safely home again, and learned how they could survive in space. And we began sending unmanned planetary explorers to chart the solar system and to search for signs of life on M&rs . It is the purpose of this history to recount one chapter in this explor­ ation, as a small contribution to the store of knowledge about America's first voyages on the new ocean of space. I am grateful to the NASA History Office, whose staff have enabled me to write this history . I dedicate it to all the people who worked to make Lunar Orbiter the success was--that they might have a record of their accomp lishmentsit to share with future generations. Bruce K. Byers Bombay, December 14, 1976 vi � ..<.._ ,, CHAPTER I UNMANNED LUNAR EXPLORATION AND THE NEED FOR A LUNAR ORBITER The Call for a Program of Exploration During the decade of the sixties, three major ventures of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration thrust America's unmanned exploration of the Moon outside the Earth 's atmosphere : the Ranger Program, the Surveyor Program, and the Lunar Orbiter Program. Initiated before President John F. Kennedy 's May 25, 1961, request for a national decision to make a manned lunar landing in the sixties, Ranger and Surveyor gave the United States its first close look at the Moon . The original objectives of the programs had not en­ visioned imminent exploration of the Moon by men. Instead, NASA had developed highly proficient instrumented means for preliminary exploration without direct applications in an undertaking such as the Apollo manned lunar landing program. One of the chief spokesmen for lunar exploration in the early days of America's space program was Nobel Laureate Harold c. Urey. In his address to the Lunar and Planetary Colloquium meeting on October 29, 1958, .at the Jet Pro­ pulsion Laboratory, Urey called for a stepped-up United � ' States effort to explore Earth 's natural satellite.1 He summarized what scientists then knew about the origin and composition of the Moon: that much speculation but little conclusive knowledge existed concerning the Moon's environment. Man had noticed many unique and unusual phenomena on the lunar surface through optical telescopes since Galileo1s first observations in 1609, but Earth's atmo­ sphere limited the explorative abilities of scientists. Urey concluded that automated probes would enable human observation to pierce the atmosphere for more detailed, precise looks at the Moon. Such probes would allow man to take the next logical step before actual manned lunar missions brought him to the Moon's environment and a landing on its alien surface.
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