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Space sciences

Moon surface photo taken with Lunar Orbiter IV

This is a portion of the Lunar Orbiter IV telephoto frame 172 taken by the spacecraft on its 31st orbit during its broad photographic survey of the Moon. When this frame was exposed, the spacecraft was traveling in a northerly direction which is towards the top of the picture when the edge data are positioned on the left. The spacecraft altitude was 1,870 miles above the lunar surface. The approximate selenographic coordinates for the center of the area shown are 68 degrees West, 43 degrees South.

Moon surface photo taken with Lunar Orbiter IV

An area of lunar surface displaying evidence of a very complicated geological history is seen in this portion of a Lunar Orbiter IV telephone picture made near the western edge of the Moon's visible surface. The large crater at right center is Riccioli, about 100 miles in diameter. Much of the area is covered by a blanket of debris deposited when the Mare Orientale, many miles further west, was formed by the impact of a giant meteorite.

Scale model of the Saturn I launch vehicle

Photograph showing a one-third scaled model of the Saturn I Block II launch vehicle. Ground wind investigations form an indispensible part of the painstaking research program that lies behind successful flights of launch vehicles of all sizes, and the National Aeronautics And Space Administration Langley Research Center has specialized in such wind-tunnel studies for many years. Here, in a cooperative program with the George C.

Satellite testing at Langley Research Center

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration conducted ground inflation tests on a 100-foot diameter, inflatable spherical satellite in a Naval hangar facility near Weeksville, North Carolina. The ground tests were preliminary to the orbiting of Echo I from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on August 12, 1960. Echo I, the world's first passive communications satellite, was designed and developed by the NASA Langley Research Center.

Model of the Apollo manned lunar spacecraft

Photograph showing a one-fourth scale Apollo manned lunar spacecraft model in the Impacting Structures Facility at Langley Research Center, Virginia. Investigations of earth landing characteristics are conducted on this model. Test conditions are being selected to simulate parachute letdown, although a parachute is not attached to the model in the photo. The model is swung by an overhead device to obtain the desired landing velocities. Landing tests are being made to determine accelerations and motions during sand landings of the spacecraft.

Conducting Space Flight Simulations Testing

Devices like the Rendezvous Docking Simulator in this photo at the NASA Langley Research Center are being developed by NASA scientists to explore, under controlled laboratory conditions, many complex aspects of space flight. The facility will enable scientists to determine man's ability to complete a rendezvous in either Earth of lunar orbit during the final 200 feet of the docking maneuver. Two research pilots ride in a full-scale model of the Gemini spacecraft and, by operating its controls, bring it into gentle, final contact with a target vehicle.

Model of Manned Orbiting Research Laboratory

A 1/30th scale model of a proposed Manned Orbiting Research Laboratory (MORL) system under extensive investigation at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Langley Research Center, Virginia. The MORL system, capable of year-long missions, could provide scientists with many opportunities for scientific and engineering research which cannot be performed on Earth. The MORL is based on maximum use of NASA space systems being developed or in existence. The study model shows one concept of a Manned Orbiting Research Laboratory with the Saturn IV stage of the Saturn I launch vehicle.

Space simulation testing facility

Realistic laboratory devices like the Visual Docking Simulator used at the National Aeronautics And Space Administration Langley Research Center play an ever-increased role in NASA's space research as scientists seek to learn how well human pilots can do the job of bringing two orbiting spacecraft to a safe, accurate docking. From the co-pilot's point of view inside the simulated Gemini cockpit, the image of the Agena, with United States painted clearly on its side, looms through the left hand window. Instrument dials glow in the darkness as the pilot gently moves his control handle.

Testing of a communications satellite

Scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Langley Research Center complete the first inflation tests of a 135-foot rigidized, inflatable sphere in connection with the Echo II passive communications satellite program. The purpose of the test, which was conducted in the same dirigible hangar at Weeksville, North Carolina, where the 100-foot Echo I sphere was tested some months ago before it was launched into orbit, was to verify the structural strength of the newly designed sphere.