Apollo 11 Mission – Paper

Mission Robert Marino October 24, 2010 I. Introduction and Thesis Apollo 11 departed from Cape Kennedy, Florida Complex-39 at 9:32a. m. on July 16, 1969. The Lunar Module named Eagle landed in the Sea Tranquility at 4:18 p. m. EDT. The mission was simple: put a man on the Moon and return. The mission was a great success and the command and service module Columbia returned back to Earth on July 24, 1969 at 12:50:35 p. m. Neil Alden Armstrong was the first man to set foot on the Lunar Surface and Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin was the second, because of this mission we have a better understanding of the Moon. NASA, n. d. ). II. Lunar Mission a) Perform a manned lunar mission and return safely to Earth. b) “During their stay on the Moon, the astronauts setup scientific experiments, took photographs and took lunar samples. (Greyzeck, 2010). ” III.

Apollo 11 Discoveries a) Apollo 11 mission was full of scientific activities. b) “The astronauts carried out the planned sequence of activities that included deployment of a Solar Wind Composition (SWC) experiment, collection of a larger sample of lunar material, panoramic photographs of the region near the anding site and the lunar horizon, close up photographs of in place lunar surface material, deployment of a Laser-Ranging Retroreflector (LRRR) and a Passive Seismic Experiment Package (PSEP), and collection of two core-tube samples of the lunar surface. (NASA. n. d. ). ” c) Lunar Dust Detector IV. Apollo Mission Broadcast a) “Apollo 11 was recorded at three tracking stations on Earth in Goldstone, California, Honeysuckle Creek, and Parkes in Australia. (Leonard, 2010). ” V. Conclusion a) Apollo 11 was a major accomplishment is the history of space exploration for the

United States. Apollo 11 departed from Cape Kennedy, Florida Complex-39 at 9:32a. m. on July 16, 1969. The Lunar Module named Eagle landed in the Sea of Tranquility at 4:18 p. m. EDT. The mission was simple: put a man on the Moon and return. The mission was a great success and the command and service module Columbia returned back to Earth on July 24, 1969 at 12:50:35 p. m. Neil Alden Armstrong was the first man to set foot on the Lunar Surface and Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin was the second, because of this mission we have a better understanding of the Moon. (NASA, n. d. ).

The mission to the moon was not just about getting there and putting a man on the surface but was also about collecting scientific data and returning safely to earth. “Six hours after landing at 4:17 p. m. EDT, Neil A. Armstrong took the “Small Step” into our greater future when he stepped off the Lunar Module, named “Eagle,” onto the surface of the Moon, from which he could look up and see Earth in the heavens as no one had done before him. (NASA, 2002). “During their stay on the Moon, the astronauts set up scientific experiments, took photographs, and collected lunar samples (Greyzeck, 2010). Apollo 11 was the first mission where man walked on the moon and came back to Earth. The Apollo 11 mission’s spacecraft was named the Command and Service Module (CSM). It was made of two distinct units, the Command Module (CM), which housed the crew, the spacecraft operations systems, and held the re-entry equipment. The other unit was the Service Module (SM) which was what carried most of the consumables, which are, oxygen, water, helium, fuel cells, and fuel. It also held the main propulsion system(Greyzeck, 2010). The Apollo 11 mission was a mission full of scientific activities.

The Apollo mission carried back 46 pounds of Lunar Rock along with other lunar soil samples. “The astronauts carried out the planned sequence of activities that included deployment of a Solar Wind Composition (SWC) experiment, collection of a larger sample of lunar material, panoramic photographs of the region near the landing site and the lunar horizon, close-up photographs of in place lunar surface material, deployment of a Laser-Ranging Retroreflector (LRRR) and a Passive Seismic Experiment Package (PSEP), and collection of two core-tube samples of the lunar surface. NASA Top, 2003) (NASA. n. d. )”. “One of the major surprises from study of the record of neon from the sun in lunar soil samples was evidence for two solar gas components with distinct isotopic compositions. ( Nevills, 2007). ” There were many lunar samples brought back on the Apollo mission, of the samples two of them were basalts and breccias. Basalts are solidified rock from molten lava. Basalts were found at the Eagle landing site and are approximately 3. 6 to 3. 9 billion years old. Breccias are rocks that have been broken up and formed back together in different forms.

The moon is changing due to the fact that it is being hit by meteors and breccias are constantly changing and forming. Many volcanic regions on earth have breccias. (Lunar and Planetary Institute, 2010). “Prior to the Apollo landings, it was thought that there would be a heavy dust layer deposited on the experiment packages during Lunar Module ascent and possibly from other long term sources. This experiment was designed to measure this dust layer deposition and was performed on Apollo 11, 12, 14, and 15.

On Apollo 11, it was attached to the passive Seismic Experiment and measured the power output from a set of solar cells. The dust accumulation proved to be much lower than expected, and the results from this experiment were also used to monitor the long term degradation of solar cells from radiation and thermal effects. This was considered to be engineering rather than a scientific experiment. ” (Lunar and Planetary, 2010). One of the advancement from the Apollo 11 mission was the ability to watch a satellite broadcast from space on live television.

One of the difficulties of live lunar feed was that the signal NASA was trying to read came from Galileo spacecraft, and was supposed to have been transmitted by a big satellite. The plan was that NASA had large radio antennas to capture live feed. The radio antennas were stationed at Goldstone and Honeysuckle Creek. When it came time to receive the signal the radio antennas were on the wrong side of the earth. (Technology Television, 2010). The rush was on to figure out how to broadcast the lunar event.

The engineers figured out that they need to send the signal to smaller antennas and then from those smaller antennas feed the rest of the United States. The problem was that these antennas were not capable of receiving a weak signal, so the engineers decided to reduce the signal from the MFSN station, so it could pick up the signal to send to the television. The problem with doing that was it created poor signal quality unlike it would have been with the satellite they had powered by batteries on the moon.

What needed to be done was the engineers had to keep the minimum required power on the radio transmitters so that it did no weaken the batteries too quickly. Another problem arose with the weak signal; it was not compatible with the ground equipment. To combat this problem MSFN needed to convert the signal so the picture on the televisions was in the right size and quality. The final solution was to record the event with a camera and feed the broadcast to the United States. (Technology Television, 2010). The crew of Apollo 11 returned to earth on July, 24 1969 at 12:50:35 p. m. EDT and was picked up by the recovery ship U.

S. S Hornet in the Pacific Ocean. The three Apollo 11 astronauts were kept in what is called a Mobile Quarantine Facility (MQF) until August 10th to make sure that they did not bring back any unknown bacteria from the moon. Apollo 11 was a major accomplishment is the history of space exploration for the United States. Reference Grayzeck, E. (2010, July/August 23). Apollo 11 Command and Service Module (CSM). In Apollo 11, Retrieved from http://nssdc. gsfc. nasa. gov/nmc/masterCatalog. do? sc=1969-059A Lunar and Planetary Institute. (2010). Apollo 11 Mission. Retrieved August 22, 2010, from http://www. pi. usra. edu/lunar/missions/apollo/apollo_11/samples/ NASA. (n. d. ). Mission Summary. In Apollo 11. Retrieved from http://www. nasm. si. edu/collections/imagery/apollo/as11/a11sum. htm Nevills, A. (2007, November/December 23). Genesis Findings Solve Apollo Lunar Soil Mystery. In Apollo 11. Retrieved from http://www. nasa. gov/mission_pages/genesis/media/ Technology Television Quality. (n. d. ). Clavius. Retrieved September 5, 2010, from http://www. clavius. org/tvqual. html Leonard, D. (2006) Tale of the TV Tapes: Apollo 11 Mission Archive Mystery Unspools. Retrieved from http://www. space. com