How fast apollo 10

Although for Apollo 11 at least, the astronauts had to fill in a customs declaration first. Moon rocks have since been donated to governments, museums or lent to scientific institutions for study. Others have remained sealed in their containers, untouched since they were collected. Analysis of the samples has revealed the history of the Moon and provided compelling evidence that the Earth and Moon formed as a result of a giant impact between an early planet and another astronomical body.

The furthest the crew walked was to a nearby crater, achieving a total distance of around half a mile. But as the missions progressed, and the time spent on the surface increased, the astronauts walked further. The lunar driving record is still held by the last man on the Moon, Gene Cernan. During his Apollo 17 landing with Harrison Schmitt, he notched-up 22 miles 35km on the clock — travelling a maximum of four miles from the spacecraft.

They were exhausted. Before blasting-off back to the command module in orbit, they were scheduled to sleep. On foot and by rover, the Apollo astronauts covered some 60 miles of the lunar surface Credit: Nasa. Apollo 10 lifts off. The CSM orbits the Moon. Apollo Landing Area 3. Censorinus crater as seen from Apollo Arago crater as seen from Apollo Triesnecker crater and Triesnecker rilles as seen from Apollo Snoopy preparing to descend.

Apollo 10 and the Vehicle Assembly Building. A lunar rille as seen from Apollo Apollo 10 going supersonic. Assembling Apollo Re-entry and splashdown. Farside crater Necho as seen by Apollo A farside area as seen by Apollo The Apollo 10 crew were all Gemini mission veterans. Apollo docking mechanism. Diagram of the Ascent Stage. Left view of LM interior. Right view of LM interior. Descent Stage. Apollo 10 mission profile.

Apollo 10 Lunar Module tests. Diagram of the Lunar Module. Apollo 10 lifts off NASA. Apollo 10 mission profile NASA. Snoopy preparing to descend NASA. Snoopy returns home NASA. David Szondy. David Szondy is a freelance journalist, playwright, and general scribbler based in Seattle, Washington.

A retired field archaeologist and university lecturer, he has a background in the history of science, technology, and medicine with a particular emphasis on aerospace, military, and cybernetic subjects.

In addition, he is the author of a number of websites, four award-winning plays, a novel that has thankfully vanished from history, reviews, scholarly works ranging from industrial archaeology to law, and has worked as a feature writer for several international magazines. He has been a New Atlas contributor since Popular Stories. Load More. Sign in to post a comment. Please keep comments to less than words. No abusive material or spam will be published. So Apollo 11 was being readied at the pad while Apollo 10 was still on its way to the Moon and NOT "being prepped" during launch.

I didn't know that part about shorting the LM on fuel. Stafford and Cernan were ready to try, for the first time, another of the operations with a significant Apollo abbreviation so cherished by the engineers - descent orbit insertion, or DOI.

At nearly hours into the mission, Stafford started the descent engine at minimum thrust - which slowly built up past 10 percent - and then 15 seconds later he increased it to 40 percent for 12 more seconds. The engine ran smoothly, with none of the chugging experienced on McDivitt's ride. Young tracked the burn optically and told the lunar module crewmen that they were moving away from him at more than 20 meters a second. Cernan did not think they were going that fast. Now they could get a close look at a proposed landing site in the Sea of Tranquility, where Apollo 11 might set down in July.

Stafford and Cernan had studied hard for what they were going to do. In a T aircraft, they had simulated this trajectory above the earth. They had pored over charts and maps of the site, and they had scrutinized the area during their hours in lunar orbit.

So the astronauts traveled easily down the approach path, calling out the names of craters, rilles, and ridges as they went along. They appeared to be traveling exactly over the track they wanted, reaching a low point of 14, meters above the surface. They took many pictures; then Stafford's camera failed as the film started to bind.

He described the landing site as much like "the desert in California around Blythe. Their landing radar worked perfectly when they tested it, and the pilots remarked that they had no visibility problems with lighting and sun angles. Young caught sight of the lunar module at a distance of kilometers; Snoopy appeared to be running across the lunar surface like a spider. At other times, using a sextant, he spotted the craft as far away as kilometers. An hour after the first descent burn, Stafford and Cernan fired the engine again, to shape the trajectory for their return to the command module.

Shoving the throttle forward for 40 seconds and percent thrust, Stafford was happy to note that there was still no chugging. Young tried to see the flames from the engine but could not. Although the lander's speed had increased by 54 meters per second, the crew again had the impression that acceleration was slow.

During these activities, the lunar module had a "hot [open] mike," which was fine with Young, since it kept him informed of what was happening in the lander.

But whenever he talked, he had a feedback of his own voice. Somebody would have to fix that before the next mission, he said. After Stafford's camera failed, he and Cernan had little to do except look at the scenery until time to dump the descent stage. Stafford had the vehicle in the right attitude 10 minutes early. Cernan asked, "You ready? He later said it was like flying an Immelmann turn in an aircraft, a combination of pitch and yaw. Stafford yelled that they were in gimbal lock - that the engine had swiveled over to a stop and stuck - and they almost were.

He called out for Cernan to thrust forward. Stafford then hit the switch to get rid of the descent stage and realized they were 30 degrees off from their previous attitude. The lunar module continued its crazy gyrations across the lunar sky, and a warning light indicated that the inertial measuring unit really was about to reach its limits and go into gimbal lock.

Stafford then took over in manual control, made a big pitch maneuver, and started working the attitude control switches.

Snoopy finally calmed down. For this first lunar module flight to the vicinity of the moon, the pilots were supposed to use the abort guidance system instead of the primary guidance system, to test performance in the lunar environment. The abort system had two basic control modes, "attitude hold" and "automatic. In correcting for a minor yaw-rate-gyro disturbance, the pilots had accidentally switched the spacecraft to the automatic mode, and the frantic gyrations resulted. From Cernan's startled ejaculation to Stafford's report that everything was under control took only three minutes.

Flight control told the crewmen they had made an error in switching, but the system was fine. They could fire the ascent engine. After the firing, the lander flew what Stafford called a "Dutch roll," yawing and pitching and snaking along. When the engine shut down, however, to the crew's surprise the attitude and flight path to the command module were correct.

From a maximum distance of kilometers, the thrust from the ascent engine moved the lunar module to within 78 kilometers of the mother ship. As the lunar module approached, Young saw it through his sextant at a distance of kilometers. Stafford and Cernan got a radar lock on the command module shortly after the insertion burn and watched with interest as the instrument measured the dwindling gap between the vehicles and demonstrated the theories of orbital mechanics in actual practice.

Cernan especially liked the steady communications that kept both crews aware of what was happening. After watching the command module from as far away as kilometers and then losing sight of it at sunset, the lunar module pilots saw Charlie Brown's flashing light with their unaided eyes at 78 kilometers. At last, the two craft were only eight meters apart, and the relative speed between them was zero. Stafford did find the ascent stage a little difficult to hold steady, just as Conrad had suspected, but Young slid the probe smoothly into the dead center of the drogue.

Stafford rammed the lunar module forward, and the capture latches closed with a loud bang. Stafford and Cernan had been gone for more than eight hours, and they were ready to get back into the command module and rest. Transfer ring equipment and closing the tunnel were easy. When all three were settled in, they cut the lander loose. Flight control then fired the ascent engine to fuel depletion seconds and sent the lunar module into solar orbit.

The crew watched it move away; Snoopy was soon out of sight. Stafford and his crew went back to tracking landmarks on the surface below for the upcoming lunar landing mission. After 31 circuits, the crew fired the service module engine to begin the return to the earth. On 26 May , Apollo 10 streaked through the early morning darkness like a shooting star, to splash down in the Pacific kilometers from Samoa and only 6 kilometers from the prime recovery ship.

The journey had taken hours, 3 minutes, 23 seconds. A helicopter picked the crew up and carried them to the U.

Princeton within the hour. This fantastic voyage was over and had revealed absolutely no reason why Apollo 11 could not negotiate the final few kilometers to the lunar surface. The trail had been blazed. More at : Apollo Family : Manned spaceflight. People : Cernan , Stafford , Young. Country : USA. Spacecraft : Apollo CSM. Projects : Apollo. Launch Sites : Cape Canaveral. Photo Gallery Apollo 10 Credit: www. Proposal to modify Apollo LEM radar programs -. Nation : USA. Program : Apollo.

Flight : Apollo Additional Details : here Request to relax Apollo LEM qualification requirements rejected -. Related Persons : Shea. Spacecraft : Apollo LM. Shea informed Grumman that a proposal they had made during the LEM Program Review on July 6 regarding broader qualification scheduling and parts deviations had been reviewed by NASA and it was considered "not in the best interests of the program to relax the requirements to the extent proposed by GAEC.

Apollo LM delivery schedule revisions -. Able to accommodate all three astronauts, the command module was also used for reentry. The service module, a 6. It provided the primary propulsion and maneuvering capability of the spacecraft. Most of the consumables oxygen, hydrogen, and propellant were also stored in this module, which was jettisoned before reentry. The lunar module also had two parts, the descent stage and the ascent stage. The descent stage, or lower part of the lunar module, contained an engine for landing on the Moon.

This stage was a 3. This stage also contained storage bays for equipment, and a ladder attached to one of the legs to give a crew access to the surface. When leaving the lunar surface, the descent stage would serve as the launch platform for the ascent stage.

The ascent stage was basically a cylindrical aluminum structure 4. During their time on the surface, the crew would live in and operate from this part of the spacecraft. It would also be used to return the crew to orbit and the command service module after surface operations were completed. Back-up crew for this mission were L. Gordon Cooper back-up commander , Donn F.