Project Apollo

NASA Explorers: Apollo is an audio series that tells stories of the Moon and the people who explore it. Coming soon, you can listen to NASA Explorers: Apollo on: Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, Google Play and Facebook Watch. Music: Tycho's Daydream by Daniel WyantisComplete transcript available. || NASA Explorers: Apollo is an audio series that tells stories about our Moon and the people who explore it. During the Apollo program, the Moon became a part of the human domain. Twelve astronauts walked on the lunar surface, conducted research there and collected Moon rocks to bring back to Earth for study. Fifty years after humanity’s first steps on the Moon, today’s lunar scientists are searching for answers to the big questions: How did the Moon form? How did our solar system evolve? Did the Moon help life on Earth get its start?Meet a Moon detective, scientists who study space rocks and people from all over the world whose lives were shaped by the epic adventures of the Apollo program. You can listen to NASA Explorers: Apollo on:Apple PodcastsSoundCloudGoogle PlayFacebook WatchThe multimedia assets are available for download on this page. ||

December 11, 2022 will mark the 50th anniversary of the day NASA's Apollo 17 mission landed on the Moon. This video connects that history to the current Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission through the eyes of astronaut Harrison Jack Schmitt. As a geologist and Apollo 17 crewmember, Schmitt has a unique perspective about how data being collected by LRO enhances our current understanding of lunar science and lays the groundwork for future explorers. || This version was updated in 2022 for the 50th anniversary of Apollo 17.Apollo 17 astronaut Jack Schmitt discusses the history of his mission to the Moon, and how the new data provided by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission will help guide future explorers.Music Provided by Killer Tracks: "From Small Beginnings" - Jay PriceArchival Footage provided by Stephen Slater ||

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 journey in 1970.Music provided by Universal Production Music: "Visions of Grandeur" - Frederick WiedmannWatch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel. || Data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft now makes it possible to show what the Apollo 13 astronauts saw as they flew around the far side of the Moon. This video showcases visualizations in 4K resolution of many of those lunar surface views, 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." For more information, or to obtain the original individual assets that comprise this video, please visit: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4791 ||

Jamie Elsila and Danielle Simkus prepare previously unopened Apollo 17 Moon samples for analysis. Music is "Fairy Christmas" from Universal Production Music. || Astrochemist Jamie Elsila, at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, unwraps pristine Moon soil. Apollo 17 astronauts collected it in 1972 by driving tubes down to 10.6 inches (27 centimeters) below the Moon’s surface and pulling out soil that they vacuum-sealed inside the tube right on the Moon. That tube has never been opened … until recently. In this video, Elsila and her colleague, NASA Goddard planetary scientists Danielle Simkus, are preparing two grams of Moon soil, which is called regolith, for analysis in their lab, the Astrobiology Analytical Laboratory at Goddard. Besides Moon soil, the scientists are also preparing lab-made Earth soil that will serve as a control in their experiments, helping increase the reliability of the results. The soils are first crushed with a mortar and pestle and transferred to glass capsules. Then, scientists add water, flame-seal the capsules, and cook them in a special oven to extract organic compounds. Over the next few months, they will study the extracted compounds to shed light on the primordial chemistry of the solar system. ||

Profile of the Radiation Effects Laboratory at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Song: "Gateway Identified" from Universal Production Music. Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel. || When a stream of charged particles known as the solar wind careens into the Moon’s surface at nearly 280 miles per second (450 kilometers per second), it enriches the Moon’s surface in ingredients that could make water, NASA scientists have found. In this experiment, planetary scientists Jason McLain and William Farrell, from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, are testing how this process works and the chemical signatures it leaves behind, which can be detected by remote sensing or surface instruments. Using an ion gun at Goddard’s Radiation Effects Facility, scientists generate simulated solar wind and shoot it at a disc loaded with regolith inside a vacuum chamber. Then, they watch the chemistry that unfolds. By doing experiments like these, NASA scientists have found that as the Sun streams protons to the Moon, those particles interact with electrons in the lunar surface, making hydrogen (H) atoms. These atoms then migrate through the surface and latch onto the abundant oxygen (O) atoms bound in the silica (SiO2) and other oxygen-bearing molecules that make up regolith. Together, hydrogen and oxygen make the molecule hydroxyl (OH), a component of water, or H2O.See more here: NASA Scientists Show How Ingredients for Water Could be Made on Surface of Moon, a 'Chemical Factory' ||

NASA Science Live: 50 Years of Apollo (Episode 07)Program Aired July 23, 2019 || This episode of NASA Science Live is from the USS Hornet, the boat that carried the Apollo 11 capsule after it landed in 1969 and today we are celebrating NASA's 50th anniversary of the first moon landing. ||

On July 24, 1969, the Apollo 11 mission concluded with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. This 1969 documentary showcases how NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, supported the historic mission.Complete transcript available. || On July 24, 1969, the Apollo 11 mission concluded with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. This 1969 documentary showcases how NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, supported the historic mission.Throughout Apollo 11, Goddard control centers monitored and operated the worldwide complex of ground stations that made Apollo mission communications possible. This network was charged with furnishing reliable and near-instantaneous contact with the astronauts, from liftoff, to the giant leap, to splashdown. Goddard is proud of its role in keeping Apollo’s lines of communications open — a task we continue to support with today’s astronauts.As the Apollo 11 mission unfolded, Goddard scientists eagerly awaited Moon rock samples to analyze, and we’re excited now for the chance to study other Apollo-era samples that have been sealed since that time, to benefit from analysis techniques and technologies today that didn’t exist in 1969.Watch this video, preserved and digitized by the US National Archives, and flash back to 1969, to relive Apollo 11 as it happened, as Goddard saw it! ||

In December of 1968, the crew of Apollo 8 became the first people to leave our home planet and travel to another body in space. But as crew members Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders all later recalled, the most important thing they discovered was Earth.Using photo mosaics and elevation data from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), this video commemorates the 45th anniversary of Apollo 8's historic flight by recreating the moment when the crew first saw and photographed the Earth rising from behind the Moon. Narrator Andrew Chaikin, author of A Man on the Moon, sets the scene for a three-minute visualization of the view from both inside and outside the spacecraft accompanied by the onboard audio of the astronauts.The visualization draws on numerous historical sources, including the actual cloud pattern on Earth from the ESSA-7 satellite and dozens of photographs taken by Apollo 8, and it reveals new, historically significant information about the Earthrise photographs. It has not been widely known, for example, that the spacecraft was rolling when the photos were taken, and that it was this roll that brought the Earth into view. The visualization establishes the precise timing of the roll and, for the first time ever, identifies which window each photograph was taken from.The key to the new work is a set of vertical stereo photographs taken by a camera mounted in the Command Module's rendezvous window and pointing straight down onto the lunar surface. It automatically photographed the surface every 20 seconds. By registering each photograph to a model of the terrain based on LRO data, the orientation of the spacecraft can be precisely determined.Andrew Chaikin's article Who Took the Legendary Earthrise Photo From Apollo 8? appeared in the January, 2018 issue of Smithsonian magazine. It includes the story of the making of this visualization.A Google Hangout discussion of this visualization between Ernie Wright (creator of the visualization), Andrew Chaikin, John Keller (LRO project scientist), and Aries Keck (NASA media specialist) was held on December 20, 2013. A replay of that hangout is available here.Ernie Wright presented a talk about the making of this animation at the 2014 SIGGRAPH Conference in Vancouver. He also wrote a NASA Wavelength blog entry about Earthrise that includes links to educator resources related to LRO. ||

On December 24, 1968, Apollo 8 astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders became the first humans to witness the Earth rising above the moon's barren surface. Now we can relive the astronauts' experience, thanks to data from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Complete transcript available.Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel. || This is a new, ultra-high definition (UHD, or 4K) version of the Earthrise visualization first published in 2013.In December of 1968, the crew of Apollo 8 became the first people to leave our home planet and travel to another body in space. But as crew members Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders all later recalled, the most important thing they discovered was Earth.Using photo mosaics and elevation data from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), this video commemorates Apollo 8's historic flight by recreating the moment when the crew first saw and photographed the Earth rising from behind the Moon. Narrator Andrew Chaikin, author of A Man on the Moon, sets the scene for a three-minute visualization of the view from both inside and outside the spacecraft accompanied by the onboard audio of the astronauts.The visualization draws on numerous historical sources, including the actual cloud pattern on Earth from the ESSA-7 satellite and dozens of photographs taken by Apollo 8, and it reveals new, historically significant information about the Earthrise photographs. It has not been widely known, for example, that the spacecraft was rolling when the photos were taken, and that it was this roll that brought the Earth into view. The visualization establishes the precise timing of the roll and, for the first time ever, identifies which window each photograph was taken from. ||

This video is a montage of NASA archival footage from the Apollo 8 mission.Youtube: https://youtu.be/1LZ0gPZf7nk || Music: "People Can't Stop Chillin'" by Sports (@sportsband)Complete transcript available. ||

Path 75:02:00 − 80:01:50. The path of the Apollo 13 spacecraft near the Moon. The one-minute animation covers five hours of real time, at 10 seconds per frame. The view is centered on the lunar north pole, with the center of the near side facing the top of the frame. Versions both with and without the annotations in the bottom right are available, as are the separate components (Moon and path with alpha, starry background). || Using color and elevation maps from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) mission, these visualizations recreate with unprecedented fidelity what the crew of Apollo 13 could see as they flew around the far side of the Moon. Several Apollo 13 photographs are at the bottom of the page for comparison. These visualizations have been incorporated into the multimedia recreation of the entire Apollo 13 mission in real time at apolloinrealtime.org.Apollo 13 would have been the third lunar landing mission in the Apollo program. But 56 hours into the flight, an explosion in the Service Module changed the flight into a rescue mission. The crew was forced to use the Lunar Module as a lifeboat, and rather than landing on the Moon, they were limited to observing and photographing it from hundreds of kilometers above the surface.Recreating what they saw requires not only excellent maps but also knowledge of the spacecraft's flight path — all of the animations on this page are views from the position of the spacecraft at specific times during their flight behind the Moon, using the same focal lengths as the lenses on board.The trajectory used for these visualizations was derived from the position and speed at pericynthion (closest point to the Moon) listed in Table 4-III of the Apollo 13 Mission Report. The inclination and nodes were found using a second point on the path from Table 4-II — the center of the Moon and two points on the path are sufficient to define the orbit plane. The resulting orbital elements are:Perifocal Distance  1988.8 kmEccentricity  1.4462Inclination  173.7°Longitude of the Ascending Node  -150.74°Argument of Periapsis  28.7°Mean Anomaly at Epoch  0°Epoch  April 15, 1970 00:33:57 UTGravitational Parameter  4904.87 km3/s2See also a slightly different and more complete reconstruction by Daniel Adamo in the Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics (Adamo 2008).The time ranges shown in the captions refer to Ground Elapsed Time (GET), the number of hours and minutes since liftoff, which occurred on April 11, 1970 at 1:13 p.m. Houston time. The Path and Perilune animations cover five hours of flight in a single minute of running time, but the rest of the animations cover five or ten minutes of flight in one or two minutes, speeding up time by a factor of only 5. When played back at 6 fps, the animations run at real-time speed. ||

This classic photograph of the Earth was taken on December 7, 1972. This is a version of the image prepared for use on the hyperwall. The original caption is reprinted below:View of the Earth as seen by the Apollo 17 crew traveling toward the moon. This translunar coast photograph extends from the Mediterranean Sea area to the Antarctica south polar ice cap. This is the first time the Apollo trajectory made it possible to photograph the south polar ice cap. Note the heavy cloud cover in the Southern Hemisphere. Almost the entire coastline of Africa is clearly visible. The Arabian Peninsula can be seen at the northeastern edge of Africa. The large island off the east coast of Africa is the Republic of Madagascar. The Asian mainland is on the horizon toward the northeast. ||

Explore amazing archival images from NASA’s Apollo program. || The closest look we’ve had at the moon came from the launch of NASA’s Apollo program in the 1960s. Between 1967 and 1972, a series of missions landed the first men on the moon. Equipped with handheld cameras, Apollo astronauts documented their journey, capturing photos of the moon and its rocky terrain through surveys conducted from lunar orbit and on the ground. The collection of moon exploration photos includes up-close views of impact craters, mountain ranges, volcanic channels and maria—dark regions believed to have been formed from molten rock. The images are part of a massive archive of more than 14,000 photos taken by Apollo astronauts. Explore the images to learn more about the Apollo program and see select shots from the missions. ||

This entry offers a set of stereoscopic images of the lunar suface captured during the Apollo mission 15. The images feature craters: Krieger, Rocco and Ruth and their surrounding areas. Imagery is offered in various modes, such as: left and right stereo stills, with and without captions and scale information, and 3D anaglyphs. For related entries and more information, please visit: #3530: Apollo 15 Rectified Anaglyph Stereo Panorama #3531: Apollo 15 Rectified Stereo Panorama - Left and Right Eye imagery Data Notes:August 4, 1971 The lunar stereo still imagery provided in this page used as source material archived panoramic recitifed film photographs. Nearly all the panoramic photographs from the Apollo 15, 16 and 17 missions have been rectified and are archived in the NASA/GSFC campus. The rectification process corrected the camera and viewing distortions, as it results in a vertical projection of the lunar surface.The rectified photographs are more accurate for stereoscopic use than the original panoramic photographs. Detailed information is provided below:Image Collection: Panoramic Mission: 15Magazine: PCamera: 610-mm (24-in.) ITEK panoramic cameraRevolution: 72Latitude/Longitude: 29° N/ 45°W Lens Focal Length: 24 inchStereo Pairs:AS15-P-10320 (Forward Camera Look), AS15-P-10325 (After Camera Look)Camera Altitude: 109 kmSun Elevation: 20°Film type: 3414Film Width: 5 inchImage Width: 45.24 inch Image Height: 4.5 inch Film Color: black and whiteFeatures: Craters Krieger, Rocco, RuthLow resolution lunar stereo imagery can be found at the Apollo Image Atlas Panoramic Catalog hosted by the Lunar and Planetary Institute.For a detailed index map of panoramic camera photographs, composite of all REVs, please visit: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/mapcatalog/apolloindex/apollo15/as15indexmap01/ ||

The Apollo program was designed to land men on the Moon and return them safely to Earth. Apollo 15 was the ninth manned mission of a series and the fourth to land men on the moon. The mission was the first flight of the Lunar Roving Vehicle, which enabled astronauts to explore the geology of the lunar regions. Orbital science experiments and science photography were performed on the Apollo missions during lunar orbit. Several types of cameras were used during the missions to perform the photography experiments. During Apollo 15, 16 and 17 missions, panoramic cameras were used to capture high-resolution imagery in monoscopic and stereoscopic modes to study the lunar surface. This page offers a corrected stereoscopic pair in Anaglyph 3D mode captured during Apollo mission 15. The imagery features craters: Krieger, Rocco and Ruth. You can navigate the online image by using the zoom and pan controls at the bottom center of the online image viewer and use the inset red box at the upper left corner as a reference. Red/Cyan stereo glasses are required to view it properly. For related entries, please see below: #3529: Apollo 15 Rectified Stereo Stills: KRIEGER #3531: Apollo 15 Rectified Stereo Panorama - Left and Right Eye imagery Data Notes:August 4, 1971 The lunar stereo still imagery provided in this page used as source material archived panoramic recitifed film photographs. Nearly all the panoramic photographs from the Apollo 15, 16 and 17 missions have been rectified and are archived in the NASA/GSFC campus. The rectification process corrected the camera and viewing distortions, as it results in a vertical projection of the lunar surface.The rectified photographs are more accurate for stereoscopic use than the original panoramic photographs. Detailed information is provided below:Image Collection: Panoramic Mission: 15Magazine: PCamera: 610-mm (24-in.) ITEK panoramic cameraRevolution: 72Latitude/Longitude: 29° N/ 45°W Lens Focal Length: 24 inchStereo Pairs:AS15-P-10320 (Forward Camera Look), AS15-P-10325 (After Camera Look)Camera Altitude: 109 kmSun Elevation: 20°Film type: 3414Film Width: 5 inchImage Width: 45.24 inch Image Height: 4.5 inch Film Color: black and whiteFeatures: Craters Krieger, Rocco, RuthLow resolution lunar stereo imagery can be found at the Apollo Image Atlas Panoramic Catalog hosted by the Lunar and Planetary Institute.For a detailed index map of panoramic camera photographs, composite of all REVs, please visit: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/mapcatalog/apolloindex/apollo15/as15indexmap01/ ||

This page provides a rectified and digitally corrected stereoscopic panoramic pair from Apollo mission 15, featuring craters Krieger, Rocco and Ruth. The imagery is provided for left and right eye separately and in various dimensions. This stereoscopic pair served as the source material for entry: #3530: Apollo 15 Rectified Anaglyph Stereo Panorama You can navigate the online image by using the zoom and pan controls at the bottom center of the online image viewer and use the inset red box at the upper left corner as a reference. The imagery in the online viewer has been provided for cross-eyed viewing purposes. For related content and more information, please visit: #3529: Apollo 15 Rectified Stereo Stills: KRIEGER Data Notes:August 4, 1971 The lunar stereo still imagery provided in this page used as source material archived panoramic recitifed film photographs. Nearly all the panoramic photographs from the Apollo 15, 16 and 17 missions have been rectified and are archived in the NASA/GSFC campus. The rectification process corrected the camera and viewing distortions, as it results in a vertical projection of the lunar surface.The rectified photographs are more accurate for stereoscopic use than the original panoramic photographs. Detailed information is provided below:Image Collection: Panoramic Mission: 15Magazine: PCamera: 610-mm (24-in.) ITEK panoramic cameraRevolution: 72Latitude/Longitude: 29° N/ 45°W Lens Focal Length: 24 inchStereo Pairs:AS15-P-10320 (Forward Camera Look), AS15-P-10325 (After Camera Look)Camera Altitude: 109 kmSun Elevation: 20°Film type: 3414Film Width: 5 inchImage Width: 45.24 inch Image Height: 4.5 inch Film Color: black and whiteFeatures: Craters Krieger, Rocco, RuthLow resolution lunar stereo imagery can be found at the Apollo Image Atlas Panoramic Catalog hosted by the Lunar and Planetary Institute.For a detailed index map of panoramic camera photographs, composite of all REVs, please visit: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/mapcatalog/apolloindex/apollo15/as15indexmap01/ ||