Chapter 11 Notes

Mercury Missions

6 missions One man Took place from 1961-1963 (initiated

in 1958) Developed hardware for spaceflight

and return to Earth Showed how humans would survive

in space Orbit the Earth and return

Gemini Missions

1964-1966 10 missions 2 astronauts in vehicle Improved techniques for spacecraft

control (maneuver and docking) , and spacewalking

To subject astronauts to longer flights

Accomplished missions equivalent to going to moon and back

Apollo 1—explosion, 3 astronauts lose their lives, fire in the command module during test

Apollo 7—first manned spaceflight in the Apollo program, test the vehicle and support facilities in Earth’s orbit

Apollo 8– 1968—first mission to orbit the moon (circumlunar), first manned flight of Saturn V rocket

Apollo 9—tested lunar module and ability to rendezvous with the command module, 10 days in earth’s orbit

Apollo 10—last stages of testing lunar equipment, lunar module was flown manned around the moon and descended 8 miles without landing

Apollo 11—1969—first astronauts set foot on the moon, even through technical problems

Apollo 12—first major scientific experiments set up on the Moon, retrieve equipment left by Surveyor 3

Apollo 13—1970—explosion causes mission to abort, circle the moon and return to Earth in lunar module

Apollo 14—First landing in the lunar mountains, find places for future landings

Apollo 15—1971—first use of lunar roving vehicle

Apollo 16—crew explores mountains, conduct inflight experiments

Apollo 17—last, longest mission/first geologist visits

Luna 3—1959—Russian space probe returns first pictures of the Moon’s far side

Ranger 7—1964—US receives perfect photos from unmanned probe/it crash lands on the moon

Surveyor 1—1966—first of 7 US Surveyor missions/makes a perfect soft landing on the Moon/ Goal was to prepare for landing astronauts on the Moon by analysis of lunar soil

Lunar Orbiters—1966— 5 of them launched by US/photographed virtually the entire Moon

Clementine—1994—placed in lunar orbit/goal was to conduct a two-month survey of the Moon’s surface/ important aspect was to collect data on mineral content of Moon rocks/helped map huge impact basins/early signals indicated the presence of water

Clementine continued—carried cameras to collect images/ one image shows that the crust on the side of the Moon that faces earth is much thinner than the crust on the far side/ a global map of the Moon that shows its composition was created based on light data

The Lunar Prospector—1998—spent a year orbiting the Moon from pole to pole/resulting maps confirmed Clementine’s data/confirmed that the Moon has an iron-rich core/carried instruments to map the Moon’s gravity, magnetic field, and elements in the lunar crust/using Prospector, scientists prepared maps showing the location of water ice at each pole