Despite this failure, the spacecraft still returned almost 500 high-resolution images and 149 medium-resolution images. However, the mechanism which advanced the film into the developer failed on March 4, leaving about a quarter of the images unable to be developed and scanned. After all the images were captured, most were developed and transmitted back to Earth. Four days into the mission, the spacecraft lowered its perilune – the lowest point in its orbit around the Moon – from 200 kilometers to 55 kilometers to obtain higher resolution images. The spacecraft’s mission lasted from February 8 to 23, 1967. Its primary mission was to survey candidate landing sites identified by Orbiters 1 and 2 at a higher resolution to confirm their suitability. Lunar Orbiter 3 launched on February 5, 1967, on an Atlas-Agena rocket on a three-day trip to the Moon. The film was developed in the spacecraft using a process from a then classified reconnaissance satellite called Samos E-1 and transmitted digitally back to Earth for analysis. They weighed 385 kilograms and consisted of a cone with four fixed solar panels, a propulsion system, and a camera system that used two lenses to expose images onto the same frame of 70-mm film – an 80-mm lens for medium resolution and a 610-mm lens for high resolution. This week in rocket history is Lunar Orbiter 3, one of the missions that prepared for the Apollo moon landings.įollowing on from the Ranger series of impactors, the Lunar Orbiter spacecraft were a series of spacecraft that NASA sent into lunar orbit to survey the surface for candidate landing sites for the future Apollo missions. IMAGE: Liftoff of Lunar Orbiter III from Complex 13 on 5 February 1967.
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