“And I’ve come to realize what a tremendous feat it really was.” “When I was there working on it, it was more like, ‘We’ve got a job to do, we’re engineers, we can get the job done,’ ” said Kachmar, who joined the lab, now called Draper Laboratory, in 1965 and helped to develop the algorithms and crew procedures for the Apollo Rendezvous System, used to guide the lunar module from the command module to the moon’s surface, and back. Fifty years after Apollo 11 successfully put the first men on the Moon, engineers who worked on the mission say their feeling of pride, awe, and accomplishment are stronger than ever. Kachmar was not only thinking of the country’s achievement, but also of the 400,000 engineers, technicians, and scientists who worked on the Apollo Program during the span of its 14-year run. “We put them there, and we returned them home safely,” he said to himself. There are three men up there right now, he thought in wonderment, and two of them are actually on its surface. It was a clear night toward the end of July when he took a minute to stare at the Moon. 17, 2018 by Contributor, Elizabeth Howell.The historical significance of Peter Kachmar’s job at the MIT Instrumentation Lab didn’t hit him until a few weeks after the bulk of it was finally over. The largest celebration will likely come on July 20, 2019, when NASA celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing. ![]() An exception is Apollo 13's lunar module, which was needed to bring the astronauts back home it burned up naturally in Earth's atmosphere during the descent.īetween 20, NASA is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the various Apollo missions. The upper stages were either deliberately crashed into the moon or sent into orbit around the sun. The lunar module lower stages are mostly on the surface of their respective landing sites on the moon. Today, the command modules for all of the Apollo missions are on display at various museums. The upper stage rendezvoused with the command module and was jettisoned after the astronauts were reunited.ĭuring Apollo 13 in April 1970, the lunar module served as a temporary lifeboat after an explosion damaged the command module and service module all three astronauts returned safely to Earth. When the mission was over, the lower stage provided a launch platform and was left on the moon. The upper stage carried the crew, equipment and an ascent rocket engine the lower stage had the landing gear, lunar surface experiments and the descent rocket engine. The lunar module was 23 feet (7 m) tall and 14 feet (4 m) wide and had two sections: the upper ascent stage and the lower ascent stage. One astronaut stayed in orbit aboard the command module, while the other two descended to the lunar surface in the lunar module. It re-entered the atmosphere with its heat shield facing the planet, to defend against the high temperatures caused by atmospheric friction.Īs the mission approached the moon, the command module separated from the lunar module. The command module was the only part of the spacecraft that would return to Earth. Inside, the astronauts had about 210 cubic feet (6 cubic m) in which to move around - about the space in a car's interior. It was 10.6 feet (3.2 m) tall and 12.8 feet (3.9 m) wide at its base. ![]() The command module housed the astronauts. For most of the mission, the service module and command module were attached, with the units sometimes referred to as a single craft: the command-service module. It contained fuel tanks and oxygen/hydrogen tanks and housed the fuel cells that provided most of the power for the crew compartments. ![]() It was cylindrical, at 24.6 feet (7.5 m) long and 12.8 feet (3.9 m) in diameter. The service module provided power, propulsion and storage to the command module. Sitting atop the Saturn V rocket was the Apollo spacecraft, which had three components: the service module, the command module spacecraft and the lunar module spacecraft. This NASA schematic details the size of the Apollo space capsules, service modules and lunar landers that would ultimately take astronauts to the moon in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
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