Lunar Orbiter 3
| Lunar Orbiter 3 | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Launch of Lunar Orbiter 3 |
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| NSSDC ID | 1967-008A | |||||||||
| Mission goal | Preparation of manned moon landings | |||||||||
| Client | NASA | |||||||||
| Launcher | Atlas - Agena D | |||||||||
| construction | ||||||||||
| Takeoff mass | 385.6 kg | |||||||||
| Course of the mission | ||||||||||
| Start date | February 5, 1967, 01:17 UTC | |||||||||
| launch pad | Cape Canaveral LC-13 | |||||||||
| End date | October 9, 1967 | |||||||||
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Lunar Orbiter 3 was the third of five lunar probes in the lunar orbiter program of the US space agency NASA . With the Lunar Orbiter program, the moon was to be photographed and mapped in order to find landing sites for the space probes of the Surveyor program as well as for the manned moon landing .
mission
Lunar Orbiter 3 launched on February 5, 1967 and reached the moon on February 8. At 21:54 UTC the probe swiveled into an orbit between 210 and 1802 km altitude with an orbit inclination of 20.9 °. The circulation time was three hours and 25 minutes.
After four days, the orbit was lowered. The height of the railway was only between 55 and 1847 km. The image capture began on February 15th and lasted until February 23rd. From March 2nd, 1967, the recordings were read out and transmitted to earth. On March 4, 1967, a motor in the camera's transport mechanism burned out, which meant that 25% of the images could not be read. In total, the mission produced 149 medium-resolution images and 477 high-resolution images, including from Surveyor 1's landing site . Lunar Orbiter 3 was deliberately crashed on October 9, 1967 and hit 14.3 ° N, 97.7 ° W.
Web links
- Lunar Orbiter 3 in the NSSDCA Master Catalog (English)
- Bernd Leitenberger: Lunar Orbiter
- Lunar Orbiter in the Encyclopedia Astronautica (English)