Mosaic of the near side of the moon as taken by the Clementine star trackers. The images were taken on March 15, 1994. Credit: NASA

Grayscale pixels - up close, they look like black, white or grey squares. But when you zoom out to see the bigger picture, they can create a digital photograph, like this one of our moon: For NASA researchers, pixels are much more - they are precious data that help us understand where we came from, where we've been, and where we're going.

At NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., computer scientists have made a giant leap forward to pull as much information from imperfect static images as possible. With their advancement in image processing algorithms, the legacy data from the Apollo Metric Camera onboard Apollo 15, 16 and 17 can be transformed into an informative and immersive 3D mosaic map of a large and scientifically interesting part of the moon.

The "Apollo Zone" Digital Image Mosaic (DIM) and Digital Terrain Model (DTM) maps cover about 18 percent of the lunar surface at a resolution of 98 feet (30 meters) per pixel. The maps are the result of three years of work by the Intelligent Robotics Group (IRG) at NASA Ames, and are available to view through the NASA Lunar Mapping and Modeling Portal (LMMP) and Google Moon feature in Google Earth.

"The main challenge of the Apollo Zone project was that we had very old data - scans, not captured in digital format," said Ara Nefian, a senior scientist with the IRG and Carnegie Mellon University-Silicon Valley. "They were taken with the technology we had over 40 years ago with imprecise camera positions, orientations and exposure time by today's standards."

The researchers overcame the challenge by developing new computer vision algorithms to automatically generate the 2D and 3D maps. Algorithms are sets of computer code that create a procedure for how to handle certain set processes. For example, part of the 2D imaging algorithms align many images taken from various positions with various exposure times into one seamless image mosaic. In the mosaic, areas in shadows, which show up as patches of dark or black pixels are automatically replaced by lighter gray pixels. These show more well-lit detail from other images of the same area to create a more detailed map.

Left: A normal one-camera image of the lunar surface. Right: A composite Apollo Zone image showing the best details from multiple photographs. Credit: NASA/Google Earth

"The key innovation that we made was to create a fully automatic image mosaicking and terrain modeling software system for orbital imagery," said Terry Fong, director of IRG. "We have since released this software in several open-source libraries including Ames Stereo Pipeline, Neo-Geography Toolkit and NASA Vision Workbench."

Lunar imagery of varying coverage and resolution has been released for general use for some time. In 2009, the IRG helped Google develop "Moon in Google Earth", an interactive, 3D atlas of the moon. With "Moon in Google Earth", users can explore a virtual moonscape, including imagery captured by the Apollo, Clementine and Lunar Orbiter missions.

The Apollo Zone project uses imagery recently scanned at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, by a team from Arizona State University. The source images themselves are large - 20,000 pixels by 20,000 pixels, and the IRG aligned and processed more than 4,000 of them. To process the maps, they used Ames' Pleiades supercomputer.

The initial goal of the project was to build large-scale image mosaics and terrain maps to support future lunar exploration. However, the project's progress will have long-lasting technological impacts on many targets of future exploration.

The color on this map represents the terrain elevation in the Apollo Zone mapped area. Credit: NASA/Google Earth

"The algorithms are very complex, so they don't yet necessarily apply to things like real time robotics, but they are extremely precise and accurate," said Nefian. "It's a robust technological solution to deal with insufficient data, and qualities like this make it superb for future exploration, such as a reconnaissance or mapping mission to a Near Earth Object."

Near Earth Objects, or "NEOs" are comets and asteroids that have been attracted by the gravity of nearby planets into orbits in Earth's neighborhood. NEOs are often small and irregular, which makes their paths hard to predict. With these algorithms, even imperfect imagery of a NEO could be transformed into detailed 3D maps to help researchers better understand the shape of it, and how it might travel while in our neighborhood.

In the future, the team plans to expand the use of their algorithms to include imagery taken at angles, rather than just straight down at the surface. A technique called photoclinometry - or "shape from shading" - allows 3D terrain to be reconstructed from a single 2D image by comparing how surfaces sloping toward the sun appear brighter than areas that slope away from it. Also, the team will study imagery not just as pictures, but as physical models that give information about all the factors affect how the final image is depicted.

"As NASA continues to build technologies that will enable future robotic and human exploration, our researchers are looking for new and clever ways to get more out of the data we capture," said Victoria Friedensen, Joint Robotic Precursor Activities manager of the Human Exploration Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. "This technology is going to have great benefit for us as we take the next steps."

This work was funded by NASA's LMMP, and supported by collaborators at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. and the United States Geological Survey (USGS).

To view the maps, visit the LMMP site or view in Google Earth:

1. Download Google Earth at: http://earth.google.com

2. Click here to download a KML file for viewing in Google Earth: http://byss.ndc.nasa.gov/stereopipeline/dataviz/apollo_metric.kml

3. Once you open that file in Google Earth you will have options to view these "Apollo Zone" maps overlaid on Google Earth's "Moon mode".

Jessica Culler, 650-604-4789
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.

The NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter rolled to capture this dramatic oblique view of the Apollo 15 landing site. Hadley rille, a great chasm in the lunar surface, carves its way through the center of this scene [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University]. Larger Image.

The "Apollo Zone" Digital Image Mosaic (DIM) and Digital Elevation Model (DEM) have just been released. These maps cover approx. 18% of the Lunar surface at a resolution of 1024 pixels per degree (approx 30 m/pixel). The maps are the result of 3 years worth of work by the ARC Intelligent Robotics Group (IRG) to align and process more than 4,000 images from the Apollo Metric (Mapping) Camera, which flew aboard Apollo 15, 16, and 17.

To preview the "Apollo Zone" maps, download the following KML file for viewing in Google Earth :

Once you open that file in Google Earth you will have options to view these "Apollo Zone" maps overlaid on Google Earth's "Moon mode". The maps have also been uploaded to the Lunar Mapping and Modeling Project (LMMP) portal (http://lmmp.nasa.gov) and will soon be available for visualization and download via that site.

The "Apollo Zone" maps cover the following sites of interest: Apollo 15, Apollo 16, Alphonsus Crater, Rima Prinz, Aristarchus Plateau-2, Ina D Caldera, Sulpicius Gallus, Mare Crisium, Mare Smythii, King Crater, Tsiolkovskiy Crater, Aitken Crater, and half of Van de Graaf Crater.

The terrain model has an average vertical accuracy of 40 m/pixel and standard deviation of 37 m (compared to LOLA laser altimetry tracks). Over 46% of the covered surface has vertical errors lower than 25 m.

The "Apollo Zone" maps (image, elevation, hillside, colorshade, confidence and precision) were automatically generated using new computer vision algorithms developed by IRG:

- robust statistical sub-pixel stereo correspondence
- robust bundle adjustment and radiometric corrections for large-scale image mosaics
- orbital camera position/orientation estimation using interest point extraction
- photometric correction of exposure time, shadow removal and generation of seamless large-scale image mosaics.
- photometric method for reconstructing lunar albedo
- photoclinometric terrain reconstruction method that improves lunar DTM precision
- statistical method for multiple stereo digital terrain model mosaicking
- multi-view 3D terrain reconstruction
- DTM/LOLA alignment and lidar / image matching

These algorithms have been released as NASA open-source (Ames Stereo Pipeline, Neo-Geography Toolkit, and NASA Vision Workbench). Map processing was performed using the NASA Pleiades supercomputer. In addition to the Apollo Metric Camera images, the fully automatic map processing pipeline has also been used with data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) and by several planetary science groups.

This work was funded by the Lunar Mapping and Modeling Project (LMMP). We gratefully acknowledge the support of our collaborators at NASA MSFC, NASA GSFC, JPL and USGS. Special thanks go to Ray French and Mark Nall for their support and leadership of LMMP.

Posted by: Soderman/NLSI Staff

On 20 July 2011 (coincidentally, the 42nd anniversary of the first steps humans took on another world) the NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter was commanded to roll to the east, allowing the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera to obliquely observe Hadley rille and the Apollo 15 landing site. One of humanity's greatest voyages of exploration, the adventures of mission commander David Scott, lunar module pilot James Irwin, and command module pilot Al Worden transformed our understanding of the Moon and the Solar System. The shadow of the descent stage of the Lunar Module Falcon is visible, as is that of NASA's first lunar roving vehicle. Additionally, the sampling stations explored by the Apollo 15 astronauts are easy to pick out.

Apollo 15 was the first of three long-duration "J-missions"; more would have flown had the Apollo program not been brought to a premature conclusion in 1972 after the Apollo 17 mission. The J-missions featured heavily instrumented command and service modules, improved spacesuits to promote crew agility, upgraded lunar landing vehicles, and the electric Lunar Roving Vehicles (or LRVs) to expand the crew's range on the surface.

Prior to the mission, the Apollo 15 crew received extensive geoscience training, which (along with the increasingly capable hardware) resulted in an extraordinary bounty of scientific results. Apollo 15 was also the only lunar mission where all crewmembers were graduates of the University of Michigan and United States Air Force officers (the lunar module, Falcon, was named after the mascot of the United States Air Force Academy, and the Apollo 15 command module Endeavour is now on permanent display at the National Museum of the U. S. Air Force in Dayton, OH).

Astronauts Scott and Irwin spent almost three days exploring the Hadley-Apennine valley, traversed over 28 kilometers (17 miles) using the first lunar rover, and collected over 77 kilograms (170 pounds) of priceless lunar materials, including the famous "Genesis Rock", a piece of the primordial lunar crust. While Scott and Irwin explored the surface, command module pilot Worden used the extensive instrument suite aboard the command module Endeavour to successfully complete a complex series of orbital observations.

You can view digital scans of the original Apollo 15 flight films taken by Endeavour's Fairchild Mapping Camera at the Arizona State University Apollo Digital Image Archive! The geologically complex Apollo 15 site is a high priority target for future human lunar exploration, and consequently was one of the Constellation Regions of Interest that were a focus of LROC observations during the LRO Exploration Systems Mission Directorate mission (the 1st year of LRO operations). Thanks to the exploration of the Apollo 15 astronauts, we now have a well-defined set of scientific questions that can only be addressed through a future human sortie mission to the Hadley-Apennine region. In addition, recovering materials from the descent stage of Falcon would provide valuable information to present-day engineers about how materials survive on the lunar surface for long periods of time.

More information about this image

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) captured the sharpest images ever taken from space of the Apollo 12, 14 and 17 landing sites. Images show the twists and turns of the paths made when the astronauts explored the lunar surface. At the Apollo 17 site, the tracks laid down by the lunar rover are clearly visible, along with the last foot trails left on the moon. The images also show where the astronauts placed some of the scientific instruments that provided the first insight into the moon's environment and interior." More

- Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP) Releases New Image of Apollo 12/Surveyor III Landing Site, earlier post

- Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP) Releases New High Resolution Image of The Apollo 14 Landing Site With EVA Details, earlier post

- Damaged Tape and Murky Moon Views (Apollo 11), earlier post

- LOIRP Mentioned at Apollo 11 Anniversary Celebration, earlier post

NASA will host a media teleconference at noon on Tuesday, Sept. 6, to reveal new images of three Apollo landing sites taken from the agency's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO. Teleconference participants are:

-- Jim Green, director, Planetary Science Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington
-- Mark Robinson, principal investigator, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, Arizona State University, Tempe
-- Richard Vondrak, LRO project scientist, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

To participate in the teleconference, reporters must email Nancy Jones at nancy.n.jones@nasa.gov with their name, media affiliation and work telephone number by 10 a.m. on Sept. 6.

Supporting information and visuals for the briefing will be posted at 11:45 a.m. EDT Sept. 6 at: http://www.nasa.gov/lro Audio of the teleconference will be streamed live on the Web at: http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio

This video compares the best Lunar Orbiter Image and one of the best LRO Images of the Apollo 11 landing site. The photos were taken over 40 years apart. The Lunar Orbiter photo was taken in 1967 before Apollo 11 landed on the moon, whereas the LRO image was taken on December 22, 2009 and shows the LM Eagle's descent stage resting on the lunar surface.

LOIRP Mentioned at Apollo 11 Anniversary Celebration, MoonViews

"Our Apollo 11 landing site image was used to set the context for the LRO picture. Mention was also made of the LOIRP - Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project. Here is a video shot with a small camera of Tyson's comments regarding our image."

Damaged Tape and Murky Moon Views, MoonViews

"We recently released two Apollo landing site images - Apollo 12 and Apollo 14 and had embarked upon getting an nice crisp image of the Apollo 11 landing site in time for the anniversary."

National Archives: "This film summarizes the exploration of the Moon conducted through unmanned Ranger, Surveyor and Lunar Orbiter spacecraft, and shows how such detailed data and photography contributed to the first manned flights to the Moon. The film describes the complexities of closeup photography of the Moon, and includes good views of craters, mountain ranges and other lunar terrain. This film received the following awards: Golden Eagle Certificate, Council on International Nontheatrical Events (CINE), 1968; and the Award of Merit, American Film Festival, 1968."

Transcript below

By David E. Bowker and J. Kenrick Hughes, NASA SP-206, 1970

Download document (12 MB PDF) Online version (LPI)

During 1966 and 1967 the National Aeronautics and Space Administration launched five Lunar Orbiter spacecraft to obtain photographs from orbit of the surface of the Moon. The reconstructed photographs and support data are now on file at the National Space Science Data Center (NSSDC), Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The purpose of this Atlas is to present a selection of these photographs which provides essentially complete coverage of the near side and far side of the Moon in greater detail than any publication now in existence.

By L. J. Kosofsky and Farouk El-Baz, NASA SP-200, 1970

Download document (297 MB PDF)

THE PROGRAM

The Lunar Orbiter program was conceived, together with the Ranger and Surveyor programs, with the primary objective of providing information essential for a successful manned Apollo lunar landing. The Lunar Orbiter program comprised five missions, all of which were successful. As the primary objectives for the Apollo program were essentially accomplished on completion of the third mission, the fourth and fifth missions were devoted largely to broader, scientific objectivesphotography of the entire lunar nearside during Mission IV and photography of 36 areas of particular scientific interest on the nearside during Mission V. Photography of the farside during the five missions resulted in an accumulated coverage of more than 99 percent of that hemisphere. The detail visible in the farside coverage generally exceeds that previously attained by Earth-based photographs of the nearside; in some areas objects as small as 30 meters are detectable.

Initiated in early 1964, the Lunar Orbiter program included the design, development, and utilization of a complex automated spacecraft technology to support the acquisition of detailed photographs of the lunar surface from circumlunar orbit. The five spacecraft were launched at 3-month intervals between August 10, 1966, and August 1, 1967.

In addition to its photographic accomplishments, the program provided information on the size and shape of the Moon and the major irregularities of its gravitational field. This selenodetic information was derived from the tracking data. Micrometeoroid and radiation detectors, mounted on the spacecraft for operational purposes, monitored those aspects of the lunar environment.

WA physicist's 'Moon Dust' tapes may hold keys to future lunar landings

"A set of original NASA data tapes from moon landings in the 1960s now held in Western Australia may hold the keys to overcoming problems associated with the effects of lunar dust on future moon missions. They are also set to help kickstart the Australian Government's recently launched space research program. The 177 original (or primary) data tapes - most likely the only tapes of their kind in the world - contain the results of experiments using dust detectors on the surface of the moon by Apollo 11, 12 and 14 astronauts. They have been recently supplemented by secondary data from Apollo 12, 14 and 15 missions."

On Monday evening a lavish reception was held at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission. The emcee for the event was Neil deGrasse Tyson. At one point, Tyson talked about the recent LRO images taken of the Apollo landing sites - and the hardware left behind. Our Apollo 11 landing site image was used to set the context for the LRO picture. Mention was also made of the LOIRP - Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project. Here is a video shot with a small camera of Tyson's comments regarding our image.

Image: Our retrieved image with the location of Apollo 11's Eagle Descent Stage.

With the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11's landing on the Moon upon us, everything old is new - or so it would seem. Yesterday we saw digitally re-mastered footage released showing the first steps on the Moon in unprecedented clarity. Also this was made from a copy that itself was a copy. The original video, recorded live as the Moon walks were underway has slipped into history - either misfiled or, more likely, erased and reused years later - much like a floppy disk. That said, the new footage does provide a window into the past with detail heretofore unseen.

Another place where windows are being opened into the past is the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP) housed at NASA Ames Research Center. Utilizing ancient FR-900 tape drives, thousands of pounds of long forgotten image tapes, lots of loaned help including retired engineers and scientists, some money (from NASA ESMD, ARC, IPP, and NLSI, SkyCorp, and SpaceRef Interactive, and Odyssey Moon) and an old abandoned McDonalds restaurant (it was available - we call it "McMoons"), we've been able to bring these images back to life at resolutions greater than ever seen before. In many cases, until Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) takes new images, thee tapes represent the highest resolution images of the Moon ever taken from orbit.

As we ponder the sad news that the original Apollo 11 video has been lost, it is important to note that our Lunar Orbiter tapes might otherwise have been destroyed several years ago had not a stop order been placed on their destruction due to NASA's search for Apollo 11 tapes and data. One project's sad news is another's execution reprieve.

Among our successes has been bringing the iconic Earthrise and Copernicus back to life in unprecedented detail. This time we need to report a major disappointment.

We recently released two Apollo landing site images - Apollo 12 and Apollo 14 and had embarked upon getting an nice crisp image of the Apollo 11 landing site in time for the anniversary.

Alas, unlike the unprecedented resolution we obtained for these two sites, Apollo 11 was a let down. The image is murky and far less clear than previous images. This is not due to the Lunar Orbiter spacecraft or our restored hardware. Rather, we expect, it had to do with someone playing this tape years ago and getting it jammed for an instant. Alas, the interesting part of this tape is framelet 411 which shows the Apollo 11 landing site. So, if there was a natural place on this tape to be paused, rewound, and played again and again and again, it is this location. Little surprise that the chance for damage to this portion of the tape occurred.

Our collection of tapes covers the entire five mission Lunar Orbiter project. While we are getting better at deciphering the nomenclature and labeling on the tapes, we still have much to learn. We can now find a specific tape and image in a straight forward process but have still only scratched the surface. And, paradoxically, we seem to have more tapes marked "Lunar Orbiter V" than we need to contain all of the images from that mission. We suspect that we have two (or more) archival collections mixed in or (for some reason) multiple copies of the same images. The only way to know for sure is to look at every tape - one by one.

The path to getting this Apollo 11 landing site image was complicated. The image was taken by Lunar Orbiter V on 12 August 1967 at 22:21:13.809 GMT at an altitude of 98. km. Properly retrieved, the resolution of our image should be 2.387 meters per pixel.

After our first round of image retrievals, the heads for our FR-900 tape drive needed to be refurbished. This is an expensive and time consuming process with only one or two places in the world capable of doing it. With the heads refurbished we were prepared to run the tape. As we did we found out that our custom made frame grabber had a bad chip which needed to be replaced.

Once the gear was good to go, the process of running the tape began. There was an ominous note on the tape can that a section of the tape might be damaged. We soon discovered that indeed there was some damage to a 4 minute segment and it was the portion we were most interested in.

Undaunted, Ken Zin, our experienced video tape drive engineer, Al Sturm our electronics guru, and Austin Epps, our vigilant student intern worked long hours to get everything working to see what sort of image we could get. Austin ran the tape multiple times os as to get multiple images we could use to produce a super resolution image of the landing site.

Despite this attempt to coax a little clarity out of the noise, the damage to the tape precluded an image of the quality we had hope for - and had achieved for other images. That disappointment aside, we feel that it is important to show our failures and disappointments as well as our crowning achievements. As you will see when you compare it to the best Lunar Orbiter images, the resolution is low. Yet if you compare it with the new LRO images you can clearly see that something appeared in the image and that the regolith was disturbed around that object (humans).

We will be combing through the Lunar Orbiter tapes this weekend with the hope that there is another (hopefully undamaged) version of this image.

We feel that it is equally important to reveal our failures and disappointments as it is to crow about our successes. We expect to have many of both.

Such is the curse of Apollo 11 - for an event so epic in its nature, the frail means where by we captured it and the planning that led up to it - are fleeting. One more reason why all of this fragile history needs to be maintained with constant vigilance - else we lose all of this to the dust of time.

For more information on the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP) visit http://www.moonviews.com

For information on NASA's Lunar Science Institute visit http://lunarscience.arc.nasa.gov/

Figure 1 Our retrieved image with the location of Apollo 11's Eagle Descent Stage.

Figure 2 Comparing our retrieved image and that scanned by the USGS

Figure 3 Comparing our retrieved image, one scanned by the USGS, and LRO's recent image.

This image LO3-154-H was taken by Lunar Orbiter III on 20 February 1967 and shows the landing site for both Surveyor III (landed 20 April 1967) and Apollo 12 (landed 19 November 1969).

Figure 1 shows the region without labels. Figure 2 shows major features plus EVA routes.

This image has been recovered in its original high resolution format from original Lunar Orbiter project data tapes using restored tape drive hardware and will eventually be submitted to the PDS (Planetary Data System).

LOIRP Note: We will be putting the full resolution version of this image on the NASA Lunar Science Institute website with the layers preserved for Photoshop for all you folks to have fun with! We only ask that you send us copies of what you do and credit us if you publish it anywhere.

For more information on the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP) visit http://www.moonviews.com

For information on NASA's Lunar Science Institute visit http://lunarscience.arc.nasa.gov/

This photo (Frame 133-H2) of the future Apollo 14 landing site was taken by Lunar Orbiter III on 20 February 1967 at an orbital altitude of 46.7 km. The resolution of the image is around 0.8 meters per pixel. The area covered by this image is 4.52167 x 5.77666 km.

Figure 1 shows the image unlabeled. In Figure 2 we have overlaid the EVA route upon this image so as to show where the crew set foot. While the crew were supposed to visit Cone crater they stopped 20 meters short of doing so due to some confusion as to their exact location. That said, they did visit some large rocks located adjacent to Cone crater's rim. The enlargement of this Lunar Orbiter image clearly shows some large rocks poised near the crater's rim. The inset photo shows the largest outcropping as photographed by the crew on the surface.

NOTE: We originally posted these files in an incorrect orientation. This was due to how the images originally show up when they are retrieved from the original tapes. Thanks to all of you eagle-eyed viewers we caught that. We have replaced those earlier files with ones that are correctly oriented to North, South, East, and West.

This image has been recovered in its original high resolution format from original Lunar Orbiter project data tapes using restored tape drive hardware and will eventually be submitted to the PDS (Planetary Data System). The full resolution is online here at NLSI.

LOIRP Note: We will be putting the full resolution version of this image on the NASA Lunar Science Institute website with the layers preserved for Photoshop for all you folks to have fun with! We only ask that you send us copies of what you do and credit us if you publish it anywhere.

For more information on the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP) visit http://www.moonviews.com

For information on NASA's Lunar Science Institute visit http://lunarscience.arc.nasa.gov/

Related Links

Apollo 14 Surface Operations Overview

Apollo 14 Preliminary Science Report

Apollo 14 Mission Report

Apollo 14 Lunar Surface Journal

Nearly 40 years after Nasa's Apollo flights, which put a man on the moon, India's Chandrayaan mission launched on October 22, 2008, recently did something unique this week it mapped the landing sites of the six Apollo missions on the moon and the process ended on Saturday. The Apollo flights were launched between July 1969 and December 1972. [More]

Source: Apollo Expeditions to the Moon Chapter 5.5 - Mapping and Site Selection

Meanwhile the third member of the automated lunar exploration team had already completed its work. The fifth and last Lunar Orbiter had been launched on August 1, 1967, nearly half a year earlier. When JPL and Hughes began to experience difficulties with Surveyor development, and with the Centaur in deep trouble, NASA decided to back up the entire proaram with a different team and different hardware. The Surveyor Orbiter concept was scrapped, and NASA's Langley Research Center was directed to plan and carry out a new Lunar Orbiter program, based on the less risky Atlas-Acena D launch vehicle. Langley prepared the necessary specifications and Boeing won the job. Boeing's proposed design was beautifully straightforward except for one feature, the camera. Instead of being all-electronic as were prior space cameras, the Eastman Kodak camera for the Lunar Orbiter made use of 70-mm film developed on board the spacecraft and then optically scanned and telemetered to Earth. Low-speed film had to be used so as not to be fogged by space radiation. This in turn required the formidable added complexity of image-motion compensation during the instant of exposure. Theoretically, objects as small as three feet could be seen from 30 nautical miles above the surface. If all worked well, this system could provide the quality required for Apollo, but it was tricky, and it barely made it to the launch pad in time to avoid rescheduling.

The youngest big crater on the Moon is Tycho, which is about 53 miles across and nearly 3 miles deep. These Orbiter V photographs reveal its intricate structure. (Area in the rectangle above is pictured in higher resolution below.) A high central peak arises from the rough floor, and the crater wall has extensively slumped. The comparative scarcity of small craters within Tycho indicate its relatively recent origin. Flow features seen in both pictures could have been molten lava, volcanic debris, or fluidized impact-ejected material. Surveyor VII landed about 18 miles north of Tycho, in the area indicated by the white circle above. Enlargements of these pictures show an abundance of fissures and large fractured blocks, particularly near the uppermost wall scarp.

An enlarged Lunar Orbiter photograph of the Apollo 15 landing area in the Hadley-Apennine region on the nearside of the Moon. The overlay indicates the location of the numerous informally-named surface features. These names will facilitate understanding the verbal descriptions from the astronauts during their lunar surface extravehicular activity.

Larger image

Lunar Orbiter photograph, enlarged, showing the Hadley-Apennine Apollo 15 landing site, with numerous craters and other small features named to aid discussion between EVA Astronauts and MCC. (July 16, 1971)

Ellipse II-P-6, located in western Mare Tranquillitatis. The center coordinates for the ellipse are 00 degrees 45 minutes north longitude and 23 degrees 37 minutes east latitude. It was the sixth primary site photographed by Lunar Orbiter II. Surveyor V landed approximately 26 kilometers to the north-northwest from the center of the ellipse.

Photograph of surface of moon showing eastern Mare Tranquillitatis Description: Ellipse II-P-2, located in eastern Mare Tranquillitatis. The center coordinates for the ellipse are 2 degress 40 minutes north longitude and 34 degrees 00 minutes east latitude. It was the second primary site photographed by Lunar Orbiter II. It is the eastern most of the Set C Mission I sites.

Ellipse II-P-11, located in Oceanus Procellarum. The center coordinates for the ellipse are 3 degrees 30 minutes south longitude and 36 degrees 25 minutes west latitude. It was the eleventh primary site photographed by Lunar Orbiter II. It is the southern most of the Set C Mission I sites.

Ellipse II-P-13, located in Oceanus Procellarum. The center coordinates for the ellipse are 1 degree 40 minutes north longitude and 41 degrees 40 minutes west latitude. It was the thirteenth and last primary site photographed by Lunar Orbiter II. It is the western most of the Set C Mission I sites.

Ellipse II-P-8, located in Sinus Medii near the center of the moon. The center coordinates for the ellipse are 0 degrees 25 minutes north longitude and 1 degree 20 minutes west latitude. It was the eighth primary site photographed by Lunar Orbiter II. Surveyor VI landed approximately five kilometers to the northwest from the center of the ellipse.

Lunar orbiter photograph showing LRV traverse routes overlaid on landing site Description: An enlarged Lunar Orbiter photograph showing the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) traverse routes overlaid on the Hadley-Apennine landing site. Apollo 15 is to land at the point labeled "site", and a comparison of Apollo 14 crater sizes with those of Apollo 15 is included, also.