View allAll Photos Tagged commandmodule
Animated GIF created from Apollo 17 images of the Command Service Module flying over Taurus Littrow Valley as it catches up to the Lunar Module, in a higher orbit.
There are only four images that I could find so the animation is very short.
Larger version - I didn't reduce the scale (but I did crop) of the images.
To view animation, download image then drag to an open browser where it will play.
Pima Air and Space Museum
NORTH AMERICAN ROCKWELL
APOLLO COMMAND MODULE (MOCKUP)
The Apollo command module is the NASA spacecraft that flew astronauts from the Earth to the Moon and back.
In 1961, NASA awarded the contract for the command module to then North American Aviation. It was a continuation of the "capsule" spacecraft design used in the Mercury and Gemini Programs. The Apollo command module was larger to accommodate three astronauts and used advanced computers and navigational equipment on the longer lunar flights. For most of the flight, the command module was attached to the service module which contained the propulsion, environmental, electrical, control and fuel systems.
Unlike the previous NASA spacecraft, the Apollo command module was built with a docking assembly and hatch so that it could dock with the lunar module. The lunar module would detach and land on the moon with two astronauts leaving the command module and its pilot in lunar orbit until their return.
Thirty-five command modules were built, with 15 of them being launched on manned space missions. These included eleven Apollo missions, three Skylab missions, and the Apollo Soyuz Test Project. The rest of the modules were used in various Earthbound tests or unmanned test flights.
This command module mockup was built by North American Rockwell for the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite during their reporting of the Apollo missions. Made up of surplus command module panels, equipment, couches and other parts, it gave television viewers a visual of the interior of the spacecraft. During the Apollo missions, there was limited live and recorded footage for use by the networks. Mockups, models, graphics and other visual aids were important tools for reporters to help fill in the visual narrative of an Apollo mission.
The mockup was later used in the Ron Howard & Tom Hanks HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon. In the miniseries, the mockup was used by Emmett Seaborn, a fictitious news anchor with the fictitious NTC network.
Technical Specifications (Command Module Without Service Module):
Length: 30 ft-10 in
Diameter: 10 ft-7 in
Interior 210 cubic feet
Weight: 12.251 Ibs. (without service module)
Crew: 3
Pima Air and Space Museum
NORTH AMERICAN ROCKWELL
APOLLO COMMAND MODULE (MOCKUP)
The Apollo command module is the NASA spacecraft that flew astronauts from the Earth to the Moon and back.
In 1961, NASA awarded the contract for the command module to then North American Aviation. It was a continuation of the "capsule" spacecraft design used in the Mercury and Gemini Programs. The Apollo command module was larger to accommodate three astronauts and used advanced computers and navigational equipment on the longer lunar flights. For most of the flight, the command module was attached to the service module which contained the propulsion, environmental, electrical, control and fuel systems.
Unlike the previous NASA spacecraft, the Apollo command module was built with a docking assembly and hatch so that it could dock with the lunar module. The lunar module would detach and land on the moon with two astronauts leaving the command module and its pilot in lunar orbit until their return.
Thirty-five command modules were built, with 15 of them being launched on manned space missions. These included eleven Apollo missions, three Skylab missions, and the Apollo Soyuz Test Project. The rest of the modules were used in various Earthbound tests or unmanned test flights.
This command module mockup was built by North American Rockwell for the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite during their reporting of the Apollo missions. Made up of surplus command module panels, equipment, couches and other parts, it gave television viewers a visual of the interior of the spacecraft. During the Apollo missions, there was limited live and recorded footage for use by the networks. Mockups, models, graphics and other visual aids were important tools for reporters to help fill in the visual narrative of an Apollo mission.
The mockup was later used in the Ron Howard & Tom Hanks HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon. In the miniseries, the mockup was used by Emmett Seaborn, a fictitious news anchor with the fictitious NTC network.
Technical Specifications (Command Module Without Service Module):
Length: 30 ft-10 in
Diameter: 10 ft-7 in
Interior 210 cubic feet
Weight: 12.251 Ibs. (without service module)
Crew: 3
Edited Apollo 9 image of an astronaut half out of the Command Module and looking at the docked Lunar Module.
NASA invited members of the media to view the Orion spacecraft which will be used for the Artemis 1 Moon mission, which is currently scheduled for 2021.
The spacecraft has successfully completed four months of testing at NASA’s Plum Brook Station near Sandusky, Ohio, and is scheduled to return to Kennedy Space Center for final assembly.
The NASA Glenn Research Center’s Plum Brook Station’s Space Environments Complex (SEC) is home to the largest space simulation vacuum and electromagnetic interference chamber in the world.
Edited Apollo 9 image of the Command Service Module seen from the Lunar Module, both in Earth orbit.
Kansas Cosmosphere
The fact that you are able to view the actual Apollo 13 Command Module Odyssey is due a remarkable twenty-year effort by the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center to save the spacecraft.
Following the conclusion of the Apollo 13 mission in April 1970, Odyssey was shipped back to Downey, California, to the North American Rockwell factory where it had been built. The purpose of this move was to conduct an intensive post-flight inspection on the spacecraft, which was normal procedure for all Apollo spacecraft returning from a mission. During these post-flight inspections, many components and systems were removed from the spacecraft to evaluate how they withstood the rigors of the mission. If problems were found, engineering changes would be made to future Command Modules. In addition, many parts were removed to reuse on other missions or were placed in storage as spare parts.
The unusual aspect of Odyssey's post-flight inspection was that virtually its entire interior was removed. Literally tens thousands of parts and systems were placed in government storage throughout the country or sent to the companies that had built them for evaluation. Even though the American public thought the Apollo 13 drama was one of NASA's finest hours, the space agency did not see it that way. They saw the mission as a failure and pressured the Smithsonian Institution -which owned the spacecraft - to send it out of the country. After being placed on short-term display at the Kennedy Space Center, and then in storage for many years, Odyssey was sent to an aviation museum in Paris, France, for exhibition. There it would remain, still gutted and lacking the dignity it so deserved, for more than 15 years.
In the early 1990s, the Cosmosphere began efforts to work with the Smithsonian to develop a plan to bring Apollo 13 back to the United States for restoration and public display. The political challenges in working with both the American and French governments to gain control of such an important historical artifact were immense. Finally in 1995, all political elements fell together and the Smithsonian formally requested that Odyssey be returned to the United States in order to conduct one of the most important and complex restoration projects ever attempted on a space artifact. The only group in the world with the expertise and capability to conduct the restoration was the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center.
The Cosmosphere located nearly 80,000 pieces from the spacecraft, Odyssey, in hundreds of warehouses and storage sites throughout the nation. This work was made all the more difficult because many of the pieces had been recycled after the Apollo 13 mission and flown on other Apollo spacecraft, which greatly added to the amount of paperwork and time involved. In an extraordinary example of thorough detective work, virtually every piece now in the spacecraft has been fully documented to have been inside Odyssey on the day of its launch.
Finally, in November 1995, Odyssey arrived back on American soil and in Hutchinson. Cosmosphere restoration craftsmen began their own two-year long saga to evaluate, disassemble and then completely restore the spacecraft back to its original, immediate post-flight condition. The restoration was completed in full view of hundreds of thousands of museum visitors.
In December 1997, Odyssey's restoration was formally concluded. The spacecraft is now one of the most complete flown Apollo spacecrafts in existence. Its restoration is widely considered one of the most important, complete and historically accurate restorations conducted on a major American space artifact.
Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum
Apollo Command Module Boilerplate
A boilerplate is a simplified metal model created to test specific aspects of the real spacecraft, such as water landings, launch abort escape rockets, or recovery systems. It duplicates the size, weight, shape, and center of gravity of the actual vehicle.
This particular boilerplate is BP-1101A. NASA used it for flotation tests in the Gulf of Mexico in July, 1965. After some modifications, NASA used it for additional ocean testing in 1966 and 1967.
On Ioan from the National Air and Space Museum.
The command module shows the escape rocket (at top of picture) to be used in an abort take-off to pull the command module clear.
Edited Apollo 13 image of the damaged Service Module soon after it was released prior to the splash down of the Command Module. The Moon is near the center of the image and part of the Command Module is in the upper-left corner. Processing variant.
Carried Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins to the Moon and back during their historic Apollo 11 voyage in July 1969.
Edited Apollo 17 image (taken from the ascending Lunar Module) of the Command Service Module flying over the Taurus Littrow Valley (where the Lunar Module had just take off from) in a lower orbit to catch up to the Lunar Module. These images look interesting because it looks as if the CSM is flying through a valley on the Moon.
NASA invited members of the media to view the Orion spacecraft which will be used for the Artemis 1 Moon mission, which is currently scheduled for 2021.
The spacecraft has successfully completed four months of testing at NASA’s Plum Brook Station near Sandusky, Ohio, and is scheduled to return to Kennedy Space Center for final assembly.
The NASA Glenn Research Center’s Plum Brook Station’s Space Environments Complex (SEC) is home to the largest space simulation vacuum and electromagnetic interference chamber in the world.
Edited Apollo 17 image (taken from the ascending Lunar Module) of the Command Service Module in a lower lunar orbit than the Lunar Module. This was to let the CSM catch up with the Lunar Module (lower orbits are faster than higher orbits which leads to the weird (but true!) situation in orbital mechanics: if you want to go faster around a planet (or moon), you need to brake). Color/processing variant.
This is the Display-Keyboard for the Apollo Guidance Computer. It might not look it, but this was pretty advanced stuff for the 1960s.
Lunar Module Pilot seat with a storage for the Flight Plan, Malfunction Procedures, CSM Updates and the Crew Log
Gene Cernan first flew aboard Gemini 9 and performed a highly risky EVA, his next flight was as Lunar Module Pilot aboard Apollo 10, which flew the Lunar Module to within a few miles of the lunar surface in preparation of the Apollo 11 mission. His final mission was as Commander of Apollo 17, when he became the last person to leave his footprints on the surface of the moon. Here he is posing with my framed Apollo 17 checklist page, which came from his personal collection and spent 3 days on the lunar surface during his Apollo 17 mission.
Rocket Science. Apollo Control Panel.
Dove gray on black; charcoal; white.
Standard width microfiber.
Alexei Leonov was one of the original group of Cosmonauts along with Yuri Gagarin, he was the first human ever to walk in space. And he was also the commander of the Russian half othe the Apollo /Soyuz mission, which achieved the first docking of American / Russian spacecraft
Kansas Cosmosphere
The fact that you are able to view the actual Apollo 13 Command Module Odyssey is due a remarkable twenty-year effort by the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center to save the spacecraft.
Following the conclusion of the Apollo 13 mission in April 1970, Odyssey was shipped back to Downey, California, to the North American Rockwell factory where it had been built. The purpose of this move was to conduct an intensive post-flight inspection on the spacecraft, which was normal procedure for all Apollo spacecraft returning from a mission. During these post-flight inspections, many components and systems were removed from the spacecraft to evaluate how they withstood the rigors of the mission. If problems were found, engineering changes would be made to future Command Modules. In addition, many parts were removed to reuse on other missions or were placed in storage as spare parts.
The unusual aspect of Odyssey's post-flight inspection was that virtually its entire interior was removed. Literally tens thousands of parts and systems were placed in government storage throughout the country or sent to the companies that had built them for evaluation. Even though the American public thought the Apollo 13 drama was one of NASA's finest hours, the space agency did not see it that way. They saw the mission as a failure and pressured the Smithsonian Institution -which owned the spacecraft - to send it out of the country. After being placed on short-term display at the Kennedy Space Center, and then in storage for many years, Odyssey was sent to an aviation museum in Paris, France, for exhibition. There it would remain, still gutted and lacking the dignity it so deserved, for more than 15 years.
In the early 1990s, the Cosmosphere began efforts to work with the Smithsonian to develop a plan to bring Apollo 13 back to the United States for restoration and public display. The political challenges in working with both the American and French governments to gain control of such an important historical artifact were immense. Finally in 1995, all political elements fell together and the Smithsonian formally requested that Odyssey be returned to the United States in order to conduct one of the most important and complex restoration projects ever attempted on a space artifact. The only group in the world with the expertise and capability to conduct the restoration was the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center.
The Cosmosphere located nearly 80,000 pieces from the spacecraft, Odyssey, in hundreds of warehouses and storage sites throughout the nation. This work was made all the more difficult because many of the pieces had been recycled after the Apollo 13 mission and flown on other Apollo spacecraft, which greatly added to the amount of paperwork and time involved. In an extraordinary example of thorough detective work, virtually every piece now in the spacecraft has been fully documented to have been inside Odyssey on the day of its launch.
Finally, in November 1995, Odyssey arrived back on American soil and in Hutchinson. Cosmosphere restoration craftsmen began their own two-year long saga to evaluate, disassemble and then completely restore the spacecraft back to its original, immediate post-flight condition. The restoration was completed in full view of hundreds of thousands of museum visitors.
In December 1997, Odyssey's restoration was formally concluded. The spacecraft is now one of the most complete flown Apollo spacecrafts in existence. Its restoration is widely considered one of the most important, complete and historically accurate restorations conducted on a major American space artifact.
Apollo 11 Command Module "Columbia" on display sans protective display enclosure at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum in Washington D.C. The Museum is undergoing renovations before celebrating it's 40th anniversary in 2016. (08/16/15)
In 1971, the US and the USSR agreed to carry out a docking in orbit of the Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft. This project was called the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP). An airlock was needed to transition from the American cabin pressure system of 5 pounds per square inch pure oxygen to the Soviet mixed oxygen/nitrogen system at normal atmospheric pressure (about 14.7 psi). NASA contracted with North American Rockwell, the CSM contractor, to build the Docking Module (DM). On the front was mounted the three-leaf androgynous docking system, which was jointly designed by US and Soviet engineers. It could be used in either a passive (retracted) or active (extended) docking configuration. The DM launched with the Apollo on July 15, 1975 and was used in the historic docking with Soyuz 19 two days later. After undocking on July 19, the American crew of Stafford, Brand and Slayton performed scientific experiments in the DM.
The Smithsonian's DM is the backup to the flight DM. It was transferred from NASA to the Smithsonian in 1980.
Edited Apollo 9 image of an astronaut half out of the Command Module and looking at the docked Lunar Module.
15 May 1987, Moscow, USSR --- Tourists view a mock-up of the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz international space mission at the Cosmos Pavilion, a museum devoted to the Soviet space program. --- Image by © Roger Ressmeyer/CORBIS
Edited Apollo 17 image (taken from the ascending Lunar Module) of the Command Service Module flying over the Taurus Littrow Valley (where the Lunar Module had just take off from) in a lower orbit to catch up to the Lunar Module. These images look interesting because it looks as if the CSM is flying through a valley on the Moon.
Edited Apollo 17 image (taken from the ascending Lunar Module) of the Command Service Module flying over the Taurus Littrow Valley (where the Lunar Module had just take off from) in a lower orbit to catch up to the Lunar Module. These images look interesting because it looks as if the CSM is flying through a valley on the Moon. Processing variant.
This is a good profile shot of the Command Module. The black trapezoidal shape near the door is the bezel for one of the two forward-facing windows.
As I mentioned elsewhere, the side window is as substitute, made of plastic in a wooden frame. Right after Apollo 7's return to Earth, the original window was removed to let engineers look into a condensation problem.
Edited Apollo 17 image (taken from the ascending Lunar Module) of the Command Service Module in a lower lunar orbit than the Lunar Module. This was to let the CSM catch up with the Lunar Module (lower orbits are faster than higher orbits which leads to the weird (but true!) situation in orbital mechanics: if you want to go faster around a planet (or moon), you need to brake). Color/processing variant.
This isn't my best quality photo, and the barriers are still in place. The cool part is the cylinder to the right foreground. That's a Lunar Module leg strut, one of the lot manufactured in Montreal. I don't know if it's a flight spare or a rejected part.