Surveyor 6
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| Missing image Surveyor_NASA_lunar_lander.jpg Surveyor 6 | |
| Organization: | NASA |
| Major Contractors: | Hughes Aircraft |
| Mission Type: | Lunar Science |
| Satellite of: | Moon |
| Launch: | November 7, 1967 at 07:39:00 UTC |
| Launch Vehicle: | Atlas-Centaur |
| Decay: | Landed on moon November 10, 1967, 01:01:06 UTC at 0.49 deg N - 1.40 deg w. |
| Mission Duration: | 65 hours |
| Mass: | 299.6 kg after landing |
| NSSDC ID: | 1967-112A |
| Webpage: | NASA NSSDC Master Catalog (http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/database/MasterCatalog?sc=1967-112A) |
| Orbital elements | |
|---|---|
| Semimajor Axis: | N/A |
| Eccentricity: | N/A |
| Inclination: | N/A |
| Orbital Period: | N/A |
| Apogee: | N/A |
| Perigee: | N/A |
| Orbits: | Lunar soft landing. |
| Instruments | |
| Television : | Transmit closeup pictures of the lunar surface |
Surveyor 6 was the sixth lunar lander of the Surveyor program that explored the Moon.
- Launched November 7, 1967; landed November 10, 1967
- Weight on landing: 625 lb (280 kg)
Surveyor 6 landed on the Sinus Medii. A total of 30,027 images were transmitted to Earth.
This spacecraft was the fourth of the Surveyor series to successfully achieve a soft landing on the moon, obtain postlanding television pictures, determine the abundance of the chemical elements in the lunar soil, obtain touchdown dynamics data, obtain thermal and radar reflectivity data, and conduct a Vernier engine erosion experiment. Virtually identical to Surveyor 5, this spacecraft carried a television camera, a small bar magnet attached to one footpad, and an alpha-scattering instrument as well as the necessary engineering equipment. It landed on November 10, 1967, in Sinus Medii, 0.49 deg in latitude and 1.40 deg w longitude - the center of the moon's visible hemisphere. This spacecraft accomplished all planned objectives and also performed a successful 'hop' rising approximately 4 m and moving laterally about 2.5 m to a new location on the lunar surface. The successful completion of this mission satisfied the Surveyor program's obligation to the Apollo project. On November 24, 1967, the spacecraft was shut down for the 2 week lunar night. Contact was made on December 14, 1967, but no useful data were obtained.
Lunar soil surveys were completed using photographic and alpha particle backscattering methods. In a further test of space technology Surveyor 6's engines were restarted and burned for 2.5 seconds in the first Lunar liftoff. This created 150 lbf (700 N) of thrust and lifted the vehicle 12 feet (4 m) from the Lunar surface. After moving west 8 ft (2.5 m) the spacecraft was once again successfully soft landed. The spacecraft continued functioning as designed.
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Science experiments
Television
The TV camera consisted of a vidicon tube, 25 and 100 mm focal length lenses, shutters, polarizing filters (as opposed to color filters used on the previous Surveyer cameras), and iris mounted nearly vertically and surmounted by a mirror that could be adjusted by stepping motors to move in both azimuth and elevation. The polarizing filters served as analyzers for the detection of measurement of the linearly polarized component of light scattered from the lunar surface. An auxiliary mirror was used for viewing the lunar surface beneath the spacecraft. The frame by frame coverage of the lunar surface provided a 360 deg azimuth view and an elevation view from approximately +90 deg above the plane normal to the camera z axis to -60 deg below this same plane. Both 600 line and 200 line modes of operation were used. The 200 line mode transmitted over an omnidirectional antenna and scanned one frame each 61.8 seconds. A complete video transmission of each 200 line picture required 20 seconds and utilized a bandwidth of 1.2 kHz. Most transmissions consisted of the 600 line pictures, which were telemetered by a directional antenna. The frames were scanned each 3.6 seconds. Each frame required nominally 1 second to be read from the vidicon and utilized a 220 kHz bandwidth for transmission. The optical surfaces were the cleanest of any mission because of a redesigned mirror hood. The television images were displayed on a slow scan monitor coated with a long persistency phosphor. The persistency was selected to optimally match the nominal maximum frame rate. One frame of TV identification was received for each incoming TV frame and was displayed in real time at a rate compatible with that of the incoming image. These data were recorded on a video magnetic tape recorder and on 70 mm film. The camera performance was excellent in terms of both the quantity and quality of pictures. Between lunar landing, lunar 'second' landing, and the lunar first day sunset on November 24, 1967, 29,914 pictures were taken and transmitted.
Alpha-Scattering Surface Analyzer
The alpha-scattering surface analyzer was designed to measure directly the abundances of the major elements of the lunar surface. The instrumentation consisted of an alpha source (curium 242) collimated to irradiate a 100 mm diameter opening in the bottom of the instrument where the sample was located and two parallel but independent charged particle detector systems. One system, containing two sensors, detected the energy spectra of the alpha particles scattered from the lunar surface, and the other, containing four sensors, detected energy spectra of the protons produced via reactions (alpha and protons) in the surface material. Each detector assembly was connected to a pulse height analyzer. A digital electronics package, located in a compartment on the spacecraft, continuously telemetered signals to earth whenever the experiment was operating. The spectra contained quantitative information on all major elements in the samples except for hydrogen, helium, and lithium. Curium collected on the collimator films and was scattered by the gold plating on the inside bottom of the sensor head. This resulted in a gradually increasing background and reduction of the sensitivity technique for heavy elements. One proton detector was turned off during the second day of operation because of noise. A total of 43 hours of data was obtained from November 11 to November 24, 1967. The final data were obtained 4 hours after local sunset. However, after the spacecraft 'hopping' maneuver on November 17, 1967, the sensor head was upside down. Measurements were continued in order to obtain information on solar protons and cosmic rays. Therefore, data for the purpose of the chemical analysis of lunar surface material were obtained only during the first 30 hours of operation. During this period, 27 hours and 44 min of data were known to be noise free.
External links
- Surveyor Program Results (PDF) 1969 (http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19690027073_1969027073.pdf)
- REDIRECT Template:PD-USGov-NASAnl:Surveyor 6