No, it’s not a flying saucer, it is the domed top to a 70 foot long vacuum tank at the Lewis Research Center’s Electric Propulsion Laboratory, Cleveland, Ohio.
The three technicians shown here in protective clothing had just emerged from within the tank where they had been cleaning in the toxic mercury atmosphere, left after ion engine testing in the tank. Lewis has since been renamed the John H. Glenn Research Center.
Ranger 7 took this image, the first picture of the Moon by a U.S. spacecraft about 17 minutes before impacting the lunar surface. The large crater at center right is the 108 km diameter Alphonsus. Above it is Ptolemaeus and below it Arzachel. Mare Nubium is at center and left. The Ranger 7impact site is off the frame, to the left of the upper left corner.
Ranger spacecraft were designed solely to take high-quality pictures of the Moon for scientific study and to scout landing sites for Apollo astronauts. Ranger 7 was the first true success in the series and represents a turning point in the American space program. It transmitted 4,308 high-quality images in its final 17 minutes of flight.
Ranger 7 was launched July 28, 1964 and arrived at the Moon on July 31, 1964.
(Above) President Barack Obama chats with Apollo 11 astronauts, from left, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins and Neil Armstrong, Monday, July 20, 2009, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, on the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing.
Nominated by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the U.S. Senate, retired Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Charles Frank Bolden, Jr., began his duties as the twelfth Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration on July 17, 2009. As Administrator, he leads the NASA team and manages its resources to advance the agency’s missions and goals.
Bolden’s confirmation marks the beginning of his second stint with the nation’s space agency. His 34-year career with the Marine Corps included 14 years as a member of NASA’s Astronaut Office. After joining the office in 1980, he traveled to orbit four times aboard the space shuttle between 1986 and 1994, commanding two of the missions. His flights included deployment of the Hubble Space Telescope and the first joint U.S.-Russian shuttle mission, which featured a cosmonaut as a member of his crew. Prior to Bolden’s nomination for the NASA Administrator’s job, he was employed as the Chief Executive Officer of JACKandPANTHER LLC, a small business enterprise providing leadership, military and aerospace consulting, and motivational speaking.
A resident of Houston, Bolden was born Aug. 19, 1946, in Columbia, S.C. He graduated from C. A. Johnson High School in 1964 and received an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy. Bolden earned a bachelor of science degree in electrical science in 1968 and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps. After completing flight training in 1970, he became a naval aviator. Bolden flew more than 100 combat missions in North and South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, while stationed in Namphong, Thailand, from 1972-1973.
After returning to the U.S., Bolden served in a variety of positions in the Marine Corps in California and earned a master of science degree in systems management from the University of Southern California in 1977. Following graduation, he was assigned to the Naval Test Pilot School at Patuxent River, Md., and completed his training in 1979. While working at the Naval Air Test Center’s Systems Engineering and Strike Aircraft Test Directorates, he tested a variety of ground attack aircraft until his selection as an astronaut candidate in 1980.
Bolden’s NASA astronaut career included technical assignments as the Astronaut Office Safety Officer; Technical Assistant to the director of Flight Crew Operations; Special Assistant to the Director of the Johnson Space Center; Chief of the Safety Division at Johnson (overseeing safety efforts for the return to flight after the 1986 Challenger accident); lead astronaut for vehicle test and checkout at the Kennedy Space Center; and Assistant Deputy Administrator at NASA Headquarters. After his final space shuttle flight in 1994, he left the agency to return to active duty the operating forces in the Marine Corps as the Deputy Commandant of Midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy.
Bolden was assigned as the Deputy Commanding General of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force in the Pacific in 1997. During the first half of 1998, he served as Commanding General of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force Forward in support of Operation Desert Thunder in Kuwait. Bolden was promoted to his final rank of major general in July 1998 and named Deputy Commander of U.S. Forces in Japan. He later served as the Commanding General of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego, Calif., from 2000 until 2002, before retiring from the Marine Corps in 2003. Bolden’s many military decorations include the Defense Superior Service Medal and the Distinguished Flying Cross. He was inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame in May 2006.
Bolden is married to the former Alexis (Jackie) Walker of Columbia, S.C. The couple has two children: Anthony Che, a lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps who is married to the former Penelope McDougal of Sydney, Australia, and Kelly Michelle, a medical doctor now serving a fellowship in plastic surgery.
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, has returned its first imagery of the Apollo moon landing sites. The pictures show the Apollo missions’ lunar module descent stages sitting on the moon’s surface, as long shadows from a low sun angle make the modules’ locations evident.
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, or LROC, was able to image five of the six Apollo sites, with the remaining Apollo 12 site expected to be photographed in the coming weeks.
The satellite reached lunar orbit June 23 and captured the Apollo sites between July 11 and 15. Though it had been expected that LRO would be able to resolve the remnants of the Apollo mission, these first images came before the spacecraft reached its final mapping orbit. Future LROC images from these sites will have two to three times greater resolution.
(Above) Apollo 14 lunar module, Antares.
(Above) Apollo 11 lunar module, Eagle.
Image width: 282 meters (about 925 ft.)
(Above) Apollo 15 lunar module, Falcon.
Image width: 384 meters (about 1,260 ft.)
(Above) Apollo 16 lunar module, Orion.
Image width: 256 meters (about 840 ft.)
(Above) Apollo 17 lunar module, Challenger.
Image width: 359 meters (about 1,178 ft.)
“The LROC team anxiously awaited each image,” said LROC principal investigator Mark Robinson of Arizona State University. “We were very interested in getting our first peek at the lunar module descent stages just for the thrill — and to see how well the cameras had come into focus. Indeed, the images are fantastic and so is the focus.”
Although these pictures provide a reminder of past NASA exploration, LRO’s primary focus is on paving the way for the future. By returning detailed lunar data, the mission will help NASA identify safe landing sites for future explorers, locate potential resources, describe the moon’s radiation environment and demonstrate new technologies.
“Not only do these images reveal the great accomplishments of Apollo, they also show us that lunar exploration continues,” said LRO project scientist Richard Vondrak of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “They demonstrate how LRO will be used to identify the best destinations for the next journeys to the moon.”
The spacecraft’s current elliptical orbit resulted in image resolutions that were slightly different for each site but were all around four feet per pixel. Because the deck of the descent stage is about 12 feet in diameter, the Apollo relics themselves fill an area of about nine pixels. However, because the sun was low to the horizon when the images were made, even subtle variations in topography create long shadows. Standing slightly more than ten feet above the surface, each Apollo descent stage creates a distinct shadow that fills roughly 20 pixels.
The image of the Apollo 14 landing site had a particularly desirable lighting condition that allowed visibility of additional details. The Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Package, a set of scientific instruments placed by the astronauts at the landing site, is discernable, as are the faint trails between the module and instrument package left by the astronauts’ footprints.
Launched on June 18, LRO carries seven scientific instruments, all of which are currently undergoing calibration and testing prior to the spacecraft reaching its primary mission orbit. The LROC instrument comprises three cameras — two high-resolution Narrow Angle Cameras and one lower resolution Wide Angle Camera. LRO will be directed into its primary mission orbit in August, a nearly-circular orbit about 31 miles above the lunar surface.
Goddard built and manages LRO, a NASA mission with international participation from the Institute for Space Research in Moscow. Russia provided the neutron detector aboard the spacecraft.
(Above) Space Shuttle Enterprise approaches the runway on the second to last Approach and Landing Test.
The Approach and Landing tests were conducted to verify orbiter aerodynamics and handling characteristics in preparation for orbital flights with the Space Shuttle Columbia beginning in April 1981.
(Above) Three S-IB stages near completion at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF) near New Orleans, Louisiana, in November 1967.
Developed by the Marshall Space Flight Center and built by the Chrysler Corporation at MAF, the 90,000-pound booster utilized eight H-1 engines; each producing 200,000 pounds of thrust for the Saturn IB launch vehicle’s first stage.
(Above) Mission Operations Director Gene Kranz reacts to news of a delay in the launch of Challenger on August 30, 1983. This scene was recorded in the mission operations control room (MOCR) of JSC’s mission control center.
FAST FACTS: STS-8 was the third flight of Space Shuttle Challenger, and the eighth shuttle flight. It conducted the first night launch and night landing.