OrbitalHub

NASA dicit:

The story of Apollo 13 goes beyond a tale of survival. The mission also successfully completed a science investigation that is still helping to inform our understanding of the Moon to this day. Early in Apollo 13’s voyage, Mission Control sent the spacecraft’s empty S-IVB rocket booster on a collision course with the lunar surface, where a seismometer set up by the Apollo 12 mission would measure the tremors. This video highlights the beginning and end of that impact experiment, and shows how current data and imagery from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission helps us better interpret and analyze the results.

This video not only contains archival footage captured by the crew of Apollo 13, but also newly-uncovered audio of a humorous exchange between astronauts Jim Lovell, Fred Haise, and Capcom Vance Brand at Mission Control. This booster impact experiment audio had been recorded and sent to the National Archives and Records Administration in 1970, but was unplayable at that facility due to differences in audio equipment, so it sat in storage. The only machine capable of playback is located at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, but that equipment had been out of service for decades. In 2015 an effort funded by the National Science Foundation saw the equipment refurbished, and all 7,200 hours of Apollo 13 audio was digitized. This material was first made publicly available in early 2020 at ApolloInRealTime.org. Among this never-before-heard material we were able to find the conversation covered in this video.

This video also utilizes images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) as well as a data visualization of the Moon showing the locations of the booster impact experiment relative to the Apollo 12 seismometer station. The network of seismometers set up during the Apollo era, combined with data from the LRO mission, is teaching us about moonquakes and the interior structure of the Moon. This information will be useful to all future NASA missions to the lunar surface.

Video credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Video Produced & Edited by: David Ladd (USRA)/Data visualizations by: Ernie Wright (USRA)/Music Provided by Universal Production Music: “Trust” – Jose Tomas Novoa Espinosa/Apollo 13 footage and audio provided by: ApolloInRealTime.org

NASA dicit:

This video uses data gathered from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft to recreate some of the stunning views of the Moon that the Apollo 13 astronauts saw on their perilous journey around the farside in 1970. These visualizations, in 4K resolution, depict many different views of the lunar surface, starting with earthset and sunrise and concluding with the time Apollo 13 reestablished radio contact with Mission Control. Also depicted is the path of the free return trajectory around the Moon, and a continuous view of the Moon throughout that path. All views have been sped up for timing purposes — they are not shown in “real-time.”

Video credit: NASA/Data Visualization by: Ernie Wright (USRA)/Video Produced & Edited by: David Ladd (USRA)/Music provided by Universal Production Music: “Visions of Grandeur” – Frederick Wiedmann

Wikipedia dicit:

Apollo 12 was the sixth crewed flight in the United States Apollo program and the second to land on the Moon. It was launched on November 14, 1969, from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, four months after Apollo 11. Commander Charles “Pete” Conrad and Apollo Lunar Module Pilot Alan L. Bean performed just over one day and seven hours of lunar surface activity while Command Module Pilot Richard F. Gordon remained in lunar orbit. The landing site for the mission was located in the southeastern portion of the Ocean of Storms.

On November 19 Conrad and Bean achieved a precise landing at their expected location within walking distance of the site of the Surveyor 3 robotic probe, which had landed on April 20, 1967. They carried the first color television camera to the lunar surface on an Apollo flight, but transmission was lost after Bean accidentally pointed the camera at the Sun and the camera’s sensor was destroyed. On one of two moonwalks they visited Surveyor 3 and removed some parts for return to Earth.

Lunar Module Intrepid lifted off from the Moon on November 20 and docked with the command module, which then, after completing its 45th lunar orbit, traveled back to Earth. The Apollo 12 mission ended on November 24 with a successful splashdown.

Video Credit: NASA

Northrop Grumman dicit:

The Cygnus system is a flight proven design incorporating elements drawn from Northrop Grumman and its partners’ existing, flight-proven spacecraft technologies. Cygnus consists of a service module and a pressurized cargo module. Cygnus is used to carry crew supplies, spare equipment and scientific experiments to the space station. The service module incorporates advanced avionics developed by Northrop Grumman and guidance and navigation components that allow for fully autonomous rendezvous with the space station. The avionics design fully meets all of the demanding NASA safety requirements imposed on human-rated vehicles. The pressurized cargo module is manufactured by Thales Alenia Space specifically for Cygnus.

Video Credit: Northrop Grumman

Northrop Grumman dicit:

Northrop Grumman’s vision for the next step toward human space missions to Mars employs our flight-proven Cygnus advanced maneuvering spacecraft as a human habitat in cislunar space, the region between the Moon and Earth. In the early 2020s we would launch the initial habitat on NASA’s SLS rocket. Featuring a modular design, the habitat would serve both as a destination for crewed missions and as an unmanned testbed to prove-out the technologies needed for long-duration human space missions. The habitat is also envisioned as a base for lunar missions by international partners or commercial ventures. With additional habitation and propulsion modules, the habitat could be outfitted for a Mars pathfinder mission.

Video Credit: Northrop Grumman

Wikipedia dicit:

Artemis 1 (known as Exploration Mission-1 or EM-1 before the introduction of the Artemis program) is the second planned flight of the uncrewed Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle to be launched on the first flight of the Space Launch System. The launch is planned from Launch Complex 39B at the Kennedy Space Center no earlier than November 2020. The Orion spacecraft will spend approximately 3 weeks in space, including 6 days in a retrograde orbit around the Moon. It is planned to be followed by Artemis 2 between 2022 and 2023.

The Block 1 version of the SLS rocket used on this mission will consist of two five-segment Solid Rocket Boosters, four RS-25D engines built for the Space Shuttle program and an Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage. Artemis 1 mission is intended to demonstrate the integrated spacecraft systems prior to a crewed flight, and in addition, test a high speed reentry (11 km/s or 6.8 mi/s) on Orion’s thermal protection system.

Video Credit: NASA