Lunar Orbiter Image Restoration Project: Last Mile

Until the original tapes were found, stored in an abandoned McDonalds Restaurant on site at Ames Research Center, and subsequently read and remastered using totally unavailable equipment built from scratch, this represents our best view of of the rugged slopes of the central peaks of Copernicus crater, a facsimile of a photograph developed in lunar orbit and radioed back to Earth from Lunar Orbiter V, August 17, 1967. For comparison, see the photographs that follow below [USGS]. 

From moonandback video, May 2010

Dennis Wingo

The Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP) is a public/private project to recover, from the original master tapes, the image data from the five spacecraft NASA sent to the moon in the 1960’s and provide it to the scientific community and the public.  The first is done through a peer review process and then the data is provided to the National Space Science Data Center (NSSDC) for archiving.  We also have a public website through NASA at the Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI) at the NASA Ames Research Center.  This missive is to explain the background of the mission, the character of the data, and why it is important to our scientific and national history.

At this time we have completed over 90% of the work necessary to archive and publish these images.  However, sometimes that last 10% is the hardest and we have in the dozens of terabytes of data to complete the processing of our image captures.  Why doesn't NASA pay for this?  They have paid for the vast majority of our work.  NASA’s Space Science Mission Directorate, NASA Ames, and and SSERVI have been magnificent in support of our work.  However, NASA’s budget is severely constrained, and for legacy projects like this, it is our work in technoarchaeology (literally the archaeology of technology) that is saving this data for posterity.

Field of view captured in by Lunar Orbiter V in 1967, shown in the image further above, outlined on a more recent photographic survey by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), LROC M181302109R, spacecraft orbit 11832, January 15, 2012 [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

When we started this project, it was only to save the images of Lunar Orbiter’s II and III.  However, in 2011 NASA asked us how much it would cost to complete all five orbiters.  We estimated $400,000.  NASA provided $300,000 of this, leaving a gap of $100,000.  This is why we ask for your support in our crowdfunding effort, to complete this task.  These images, provided on the SSERVI website, will be free to the public with no copyright.  The American taxpayer paid for this effort and even though our company has also contributed materially to the effort and we are extending this through your generous donations through crowdfunding, we want this to be provided free of charge, or any intellectual property right restrictions.

Detail from LOIRP Lunar Orbiter V (Image 151-H1 -Copernicus Central Uplift) The LOIRP Image was derived from the original analog tapes from the LO ground stations and has 4x the dynamic range of the LO film archive. This image with a resolution of about 2 meters, taken on August 16, 1967 from 103 km. This version of the LO-V-151-H image is from the original ground station tape from the Woomera ground station in Australia (tape W5-58).

NASA had stored these original analog data tapes for over four decades, but if it were not for our project and former NASA archivist Nancy Evan’s preservation of the tape drives in her barn, this archive at its best quality would be lost to history.  Following is a description of the Lunar Orbiters, their camera, the images and what we are doing to preserve this legacy of the early Apollo program.

Background on the Lunar Orbiter

In 1966-67 NASA sent five spacecraft to the Moon to do a high resolution photo reconnaissance of the surface in preparation for the manned Apollo lunar landings.  This was the first time in human history, other than a few closeups before impact from the Ranger spacecraft, that the moon had been seen up close and personal.

Enjoy the full post from Dennis Wingo, HERE.

Related Posts:

Another original earthrise, recovered (January 18, 2014)

"Abandoned McDonalds" key to Lunar Orbiter legacy (August 19, 2013)

Lunar Orbiter images last seen 47 years ago (June 11, 2013)

Tranquility Base at high-resolution before Apollo 11 (August 2, 2012)

Ranger 8 impact on 'new' Lunar Orbiter photograph (July 31, 2012)

Changing the conversation about the economic development of the Moon (July 16, 2012)

The Spirit of the Lunar Orbiters lives in LOIRP (July 12, 2012)

Space Quarterly preview: Future Lunar Bases (February 24, 2012)

The LOIRP time machine looks back 43 years (June 3, 2010)
New releases from Lunar Orbiter II (1966) - (May 7, 2010)
Boulders of Copernicus (December 11, 2009)
LOIRP: Boulder Trails on the Moon (December 10, 2009)
Lunar Orbiter's originals vs. LOIRP restorations (December 9, 2009)
New restored detail from Lunar Orbiter II (December 8, 2009)
LOIRP configures second FR-900 tape drive (November 12, 2009)
The importance of lunar water (September 28, 2009)
LOIRP remasters the Moon's South Pole (August 14, 2009)
Lockheed Martin donates Clean-Room to LOIRP (August 12, 2009)
LOIRP astounds again, re-release of LO-II0162 (1967)
with each of three high-res sub-frames (August 10, 2009)
Full Earth, as seen by Orbiter V (August 7, 2009)
Lunar Orbiter III-154-H2 (June 16, 2009)
LOIRP recovers Lunar Orbiter IV lunar South Pole image from 1967 (June 16, 2009)
LOIRP recovers detail of Fra Mauro and future landing site of Apollo 14 (June 11, 2009)
New LOIRP high res Lunar Orbiter image of western Oceanus Procellarum (June 10, 2009)
LOIRP recovers image of Ranger 8 impact (June 9, 2009)
LOIRP's "Pictures of the Century" (March 23, 2009)
More astounding new detail from LOIRP (February 26, 2009)
Breakthrough in Lunar Orbiter photograph remastering (February 20, 2009)

Another original earthrise, recovered

On the left is a newly recovered and enhanced image of the Earth and Moon taken by Lunar Orbiter IV on 19 May 1967. On the right is how the image has looked in NASA's records - until now [LOIRP/Moonviews.com].

Keith Cowing

Lunar Orbiter Image Restoration Project
Moonviews.com

The other day, as we were going through tapes from Lunar Orbiter IV we came across a picture of the Earth and the Moon - one that was not instantly familiar to us.

Read the full description,
and familiarize yourself with
the important work
of the LOIRP, HERE.

Apollo 12 ALSEP first to measure dust accumulation

Apollo 12 ALSEP, Central Station, with DTREM (Lunar Dust Collector) marked with arrow. Alan J. Bean, EVA-1;  Oceanus Procellarum, November 19, 1969 (AS12-47-6927) [NASA/JSC/ALSJ].

A dataset thought to have been lost, from an ingenious experiment deployed on the Moon by Apollo astronauts more than four decades ago, has been rediscovered and analyzed. As a result, the Lunar Dust Collector deployed as integral to the Apollo 12 ALSEP system, has become the first instrument to record a measurable rate of dust accumulation on the lunar surface. 

The news is timely, of course, coming the beginning of the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) science mission, and arriving on November 19, the 44th anniversary of the Apollo 12 expedition.

Keith Cowing
Moonviews.com (LOIRP)

The Lunar Dust Detector, attached to the corner of (the ALSEP Central Station, pictured above), left by the Apollo 12 astronauts, made the first measurement of lunar dust accumulation. As the matchbox-sized device's three solar panels became covered by dust, the voltage they produced dropped.

When Neil Armstrong took humanity's first otherworldly steps in 1969, he didn't know what a nuisance the lunar soil beneath his feet would prove to be. The scratchy dust clung to everything it touched, causing scientific instruments to overheat and, for Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt, a sort of lunar dust hay fever. The annoying particles even prompted a scientific experiment to figure out how fast they collect, but NASA's data got lost.

Retrieving a surface sample behind boulders on a crater rim at Apollo 17 Science Station 5, Taurus Littrow valley; December 12, 1972 - Lunar module pilot and geologist Harrison Schmitt already carries a substantial sampling of abrasive, fine lunar dust on his moon suit. Schmitt endorsed development of 'dust mitigation' technology as a high priority for program planners prior to establishing 'extended human activity' on the Moon (Eugene Cernan - AS17-145-22157) [NASA/JSC/ALSJ].

Or, so NASA thought. Now, more than 40 years later, scientists have used the rediscovered data to make the first determination of how fast lunar dust accumulates. It builds up unbelievably slowly by the standards of any Earth-bound housekeeper, their calculations show -- just fast enough to form a layer about a millimeter (0.04 inch) thick every 1,000 years. Yet, that rate is 10 times previous estimates. It's also more than speedy enough to pose a serious problem for the solar cells that serve as critical power sources for space exploration missions.

Read the balance of Keith's excellent write up, HERE.

Related Posts:

Lunar Laser Ranging: The Millimeter Challenge (November 19, 2013)

Measuring almost nothing, looking for the almost invisible, Paul Spudis (October 18, 2013)

Toxicity of lunar dust (July 2, 2012)

Expectations for the LADEE LDEX (March 23, 2012)

The Dust Management Project (August 9, 2010)

Long term degradation of optics on the Moon (March 4, 2010)

Dust transport and lunar swirls (February 21, 2010)

Dust accumulation on Apollo reflectors and the exosphere (February 16, 2010)

Moon dust hazard influenced by solar elevation (April 17, 2009)

Understanding lunar dust and future habitation (March 2, 2009)

Respiratory toxicity of lunar highland dust (June 25, 2008)

"Abandoned McDonald's" key to Lunar Orbiter legacy

August 15 (Bloomberg) -- In an installment of "Secret Valley" Bloomberg Businessweek's Ashlee Vance visits NASA's Ames Research Center (ARC) where a "forgotten McDonald's," nicknamed "McMoon's," serves as headquarters for the Lunar Orbiter Image Restoration Project (LOIRP), a donation-driven labor of love designed  to digitize and rescue the fifty year old photographic record of the Lunar Orbiter project (1966-1967) [Bloomberg].

View the Video (2:50) HERE. (HT: Keith Cowing)

Lunar Orbiter images last seen 47 years ago

Lunar Orbiter 2 frame 159 (H2), an approximately 4.5 by 6 kilometers stretch of lunar mare 250 km southwest of Copernicus. One of three high-resolution photographs swept up, developed, scanned and radioed back to Earth in 1966. The fully-restored, previously incomplete session has been restored by the Lunar Orbiter Image Restoration Project (LOIRP).

Keith Cowing
LOIRP

After being forgotten for nearly 47 years, three high resolution images taken by the Lunar Orbiter II spacecraft have been rediscovered by the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP).

It is unlikely that anyone has seen these images since they were sent back to Earth. Indeed, it is unlikely that very many people saw them at that time either.

The three high resolution images were taken along with a medium resolution image on 23 November 1996 at 17:05:39 GMT. The center point of the images was 26.94 West Longitude, 3.196 degrees North Latitude. The images were taken at an altitude of 43.6 km and the image resolution is 0.93 meters.

Thumbnail of the medium resolution image, from the Lunar and Planetary Institute catalog. The area captured at high resolution in November 1966 is outlined at center. The area seen in "H2" above is outlined in yellow. This region is characterized by ejecta and secondary craters, primarily radiant from the Copernicus impact from 250 km northeast.

We recently came across these three images (#2159) and noticed that they do not appear online at the LPI Lunar Orbiter database. Only the medium resolution image gets mentioned at LPI.

These three images were retrieved from original Lunar Orbiter program analog data tapes yet they appear nowhere in NASA's publications. They do appear on microfilm archives at LOIRP and are mentioned in a simple data log online at LPI. LOIRP has a more extensive computer printout of this data that shows more detail about the images - but not the images themselves.

Among the highest resolution Wide Angle Camera images of the region, among LROC images thus far released to the Planetary Data System (PDS), the area of interest is smaller than a postage stamp, above the right (east) central edge of this 32.4 km-wide field of view from LROC Wide Angle Camera (WAC) observation M166025782C (604 nm), LRO orbit 9601, July 23, 2011; 62.86° angle of incidence, resolution 55.85 meters per pixel from 40.64 km [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

Unless someone happened to be looking through this microfilm collection (LOIRP has the only extant copy) then it is pretty safe to assume that no one has actually seen these images since a technician saw them on a TV monitor in 1966.

Read the full article, catch up on the Lunar Orbiter Image Restoration Project,
and discover how you can help, HERE.

Do large impacts always erase surface mineralogy?

Our present all-encompassing view of the nearside landmark lunar crater Copernicus seems only a little different than the best photography from Earth. Only 20 degrees west and less than 10 degrees north of the 'center' of the Moon's tidally-locked hemisphere, the round rim appears only slightly oblong from angle seen from our backyards. Its general brightness, both inside and out, wash out much of the detail seen in this LROC Wide Angle Camera (WAC) monochrome (649 nm) montage made up of observations in six orbital passes in January 2010. Long recognized differences can easily be confirmed between the northwest quadrant and the remaining three-quarters of the crater floor may be more extraordinary than previously believed possible [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

EDITORIAL NOTE: One of a handful of features on the Moon's nearside detectible to the naked eye, it's amazing what there is still to be learned about the majestic crater Copernicus. Not as young and bright as Tycho, with rays streaming over an entire hemisphere, it's rays are impressive enough and the larger Copernicus is distinctive enough be the namesake for an entire lunar Age, the "Copernican," the Moon's most modern period, encompassing features less than about 1.1 billion years old.

This has made the Copernican family of excavations very valuable to planetary scientists who utilize Earth's Moon as the Rosetta Stone of the Solar System (and, increasingly, our Earth - the planet with which it has shared precisely the same space in the universe for approximately 4.575 billion years.

Most likely mapped first by Galileo, the 93 kilometer impact crater has since his time been drawn and redrawn with with increasing precision and appreciation. Since the 19th century, and definitely since the latter half of the 20th century, Copernicus may be the lunar crater most individually photographed from Earth. A highly oblique orbital image captured from Lunar Orbiter 2, November 24, 1966, is one of only a handful of images popularly celebrated as a "Photograph of the Century." 

Detail (highly resampled) from Lunar Orbiter 2-162, oblique view from 26 km over the lunar surface south of Copernicus crater, November 24, 1966 [Moonviews].

That delicate telemetry was recovered and reprocessed by the phenomenal Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP) in 2009. Without question, we have learned a great deal about the Moon since 1957, but, until recently, not very much more about Copernicus crater than might have been inferred using a decent telescope here on Earth. It's complexity and subtle albedo has defied definitive understanding.

We have known for some, for example, it has at least two (or three) central peaks, and mulled over tantalizing indications of a twin set of widespread rays - hinting at a near simultaneous double impact. High-resolution analysis of its wide interior achieved greatest progress in study of the continued arrival of unambiguously remote sensing from India's Chandrayaan-1 and the U.S. Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) after beginning its on-going mission in close polar orbit in 2009. 

Hints that the northwest quadrant of its interior floor is very distinct from the remaining three-fourths slowly have finally come into focus, hopefully to stay.

The demarcation between the character of the western and eastern north floor of Copernicus has just become more obvious as images from LRO continued to improve. Those differences are particularly striking in spectral analysis, by the Clementine orbiter in 1994, for example. LROC WAC observation M147109260CE (643 nm), spacecraft orbit 6813, December 16, 2010; angle of incidence 77.97° at 60 meters per pixel resolution, from 43.13 km [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

Now the distinguished lunar and planetary scientist Carle Pieters and a team at Brown University have added another set of clues to sharp lines from remote sensing of the northwest quarter of the floor of Copernicus that might have everyone refining or completely revising set theories about what happens in those fantastic and brief hours immediately following a highly energetic crater-forming impact.

Pre-existing mineral deposits on the Moon (sinuous melt, above) have survived impacts powerful enough to melt rock. Not detectable in the crater image (inset), deposits are visible only in light at certain wavelengths [NASA/Deepak Dhingra].

Brown University — April 2 — Despite the unimaginable energy produced during large impacts on the Moon, those impacts may not wipe the mineralogical slate clean, according to new research led by Brown University geoscientists.

The researchers have discovered a rock body with a distinct mineralogy snaking for (28.9 km) across the floor of Copernicus crater, a 60-mile-wide hole on the Moon’s near side. The sinuous feature appears to bear the mineralogical signature of rocks that were present before the impact that made the crater.

The deposit is interesting because it is part of a sheet of impact melt, the cooled remains of rocks melted during an impact. Geologists had long assumed that melt deposits would retain little pre-impact mineralogical diversity.

Large impacts produce giant cauldrons of impact melt that eventually cool and reform into solid rock. The assumption was that the impact energy would stir that cauldron thoroughly during the liquid phase, mixing all the rock types together into an indistinguishable mass. Identifying any pre-impact mineral variation would be a bit like dumping four-course meal into a blender and then trying to pick out the potatoes.

But this distinct feature found at Copernicus suggests that pre-existing mineralogy isn’t always blended away by the impact process.

“The takeaway here is that impact melt deposits aren’t bland,” said Deepak Dhingra, a Brown graduate student who led the research. “The implication is that we don’t understand the impact cratering process quite as well as we thought.”

Close up view of the feature marked with light green, designated "Surrounding Melt (Fe-Ca rich Pyroxene)" in the study illustration immediately above. LROC Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) observation M175408129R, spacecraft orbit 10984, November 8, 2011; resolution 41 cm per pixel from 26.06 kilometers [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

The findings are published in online early view in the journal Geophysical Research Letters .

Copernicus is one of the best-studied craters on the Moon, yet this deposit went unnoticed for decades. It was imaging in 83 wavelengths of light in the visible and near-infrared region by the Moon Mineralogy Mapper — M3 — that made the deposit stand out like a sore thumb.

M3 orbited the Moon for 10 months during 2008-09 aboard India’s Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft and mapped nearly the whole lunar surface. Different minerals reflect light in different wavelengths at variable intensities. So by looking at the variation at those wavelengths, it’s possible to identify minerals.

In the M3 imaging of Copernicus, the new feature appeared as an area that reflects less light at wavelengths around 900 and 2,000 nanometers, an indicator of minerals rich in magnesium pyroxenes. In the rest of the crater floor, there was a dominant dip beyond 950 nm and 2400 nm, indicating minerals rich in iron and calcium pyroxenes. “That means there are at least two different mineral compositions within the impact melt, something previously not known for impact melt on the Moon,” Dhingra said.

It is not clear exactly how or why this feature formed the way it did, the researchers say. That’s an area for future study. But the fact that impact melt isn’t always homogenous changes the way geologists look at lunar impact craters.

“These features have preserved signatures of the original target material, providing ‘pointers’ that lead back to the source region inside the crater,” said James W. Head III, the Scherck Distinguished Professor of Geological Sciences and one of the authors of the study. “Deepak’s findings have provided new insight into the fundamentals of how the cratering process works. These results will now permit a more rigorous reconstruction of the cratering process to be undertaken.”

Carle Pieters, a professor of geological sciences at Brown and the principal investigator of the M3 experiment, was one of the co-authors on the paper, with Peter Isaacson of the University of Hawaii.

Tranquility Base at high-resolution before Apollo 11

On Monday, August 1 the Lunar Orbiter Image Restoration Project (LOIRP) released another 'newly retrieved' medium resolution frame 2085 M, originally photographed by Lunar Orbiter II on November 20, 1966, from its vantage point 51.4 kilometers over the southwest Mare Tranquillitatis (0.8°N, 23.7°E).

The Lunar Orbiter Image Restoration Project (LOIRP) has released an image from 1966, showing 'Tranquility Base' before the arrival of Apollo 11, newly-retrieved from once-discarded Lunar Orbiter telemetry tapes using restored and equipment built from scratch to read them.

It was early mid-morning on the Sea of Tranquility and the eventual landing site of Apollo 11 (small blue arrow in the thumbnail image, above) only 32 months later, when Lunar Orbiter II photographed the historic location. 

A very large version of the image, newly retrieved from the original taped telemetry returned from the JPL orbiter, at a digital resolution of 16500 x 18564 pixels (598.3 Mb) is housed at the NASA Lunar Science Institute, HERE. Original reproductions of second-generation photographs, along with image references, are available at the Lunar and Planetary Science Institute, HERE.

A large 1650 x 1856 version is available from the Moonviews.com website, HERE. Detailed full-resolution views of the landing site of Apollo 11 before and after July 20, 1969 are visible in the images below.

A rough outline of the field of view captured by Lunar Orbiter II traced out on the global LROC Narrow and Wide Angle Camera mosaic on the LROC QuickMap web-application, at a resolution of 64 meters. The Apollo 11 landing site is indicated by the red cross [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

The Apollo 11 descent stage (blue arrow) is clearly visible when the LROC QuickMap is reset to 2 meters resolution, a close match to the full resolution close-up on the same area photographed by Lunar Orbiter II a year and eight months before the landing, below

A quick examination of the 16500 x 18564, 600 Mb full resolution version of LO-II-085 shows the landing site and many details of the vicinity familiar to those acquainted with mission details, before the arrival of Apollo 11. Excellent detail for this media, even without teasing out more detail using present-day software [NASA/JPL/LOIRP/NLSI].

Ranger 8 impact on 'new' Lunar Orbiter photograph

Thumbnail of newly retrieved medium resolution frame 2069-M, a roughly 27 km-wide field of view northwest of the eventual landing site of Apollo 11, captured by Lunar Orbiter II, November 20, 1966. One year and 9 months earlier, almost to the hour, on February 20, 1965, the Ranger 8 spacecraft, performing as it was designed, impacted this part of Mare Tranquillitatis at the spot indicated by the blue arrow. Newly retrieved from original tapes by the Lunar Orbiter Image Restoration Project (LOIRP) and released July 30, 2012 [Lunar and Planetary Institute reference - Large at LOIRP and very large at the NASA Lunar Science Institute].

It helps to know precisely where to look. Because the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera has previously surveyed and identified the location of the Ranger 8 impact with the Narrow Angle Camera (see below), and because such a large version of the Lunar Orbiter II medium resolution photograph was made available by LOIRP on the NLSI servers, it took little work to separate out the impact rays from the general washout of the terrain. The resolution above appears to be between 1.5 and 2 meters per pixel [NASA/JPL/LOIRP/NLSI].

The Ranger 8 impact at 1 meter per pixel resolution, picked out from the background (2.635°N, 24.784°E) of the LROC NAC/WAC global mosaic available using the LROC QuickMap. The slight increase in elevation running north-south through the impact zone (the Ranger 8 spacecraft arrived from the west by southwest - from the left side of these fields of view) is genuine. The terrain, at just over 2000 meters below the global mean elevation, is comparable to what was explored by Armstrong and Aldrin in 1969 [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

The most recently released of several LROC high-resolution NAC observations including the Ranger 8 impact (at center). The wide variety of illuminations in the record-breaking survey allows for detailed examination of the impact site. LROC NAC observation M185719511L, LRO orbit 12450, March 7, 2012; angle of incidence 11.8° with a resolution of 0.92 meters, from 107.7 kilometers altitude [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

Probably among the best shots of the central impact zone augered out by Ranger 8, from LROC NAC observation M170579736R, orbit 10272, September 13, 2011; angle of incidence 16.1° at 0.49 meters resolution, from 44.64 kilometers.

Earlier Posts and background on LOIRP (Moonviews.com):
Anniversary of Ranger 8 (February 20, 2009)
LOIRP recovers image of Ranger 8 impact (June 9, 2009)
Ranger 8 (April 4, 2010) 
LROC: Coordinates of Robotic Spacecraft (April 9, 2010)
The Spirit of the Lunar Orbiters lives on at LOIRP (July 12, 2012)

Apollo era data important to science and exploration

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera WAC observation M147109260C (643nm), LRO orbit 6813, December 16, 2010; 60.3 meters resolution, angle of incidence 78° from 43.1 km. The central peaks and interior of Copernicus were first surveyed at high resolution more than 40 years ago, by Lunar Orbiter V.  With restored and sometimes rebuilt equipment the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP) continues to remaster that photography, often essentially for the first time. At the just-completed 5th annual NASA Lunar Science Institute Forum, LOIRP presented a comparison of original, remastered and LRO high-resolution images of the Copernicus crater central uplift. The area detailed in the images that follow is designated with the yellow arrow [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

Wingo, Cowing and Epps

Moonviews.com (LOIRP)

NSLI 5th Annual Forum, July 2012

The Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP) Comparison of LO Copernicus Central Uplift with LRO LROC Mosaic. Poster presented by the LOIRP at the 2012 Lunar Science Forum.

In 1966-1967 NASA sent five spacecraft to the Moon to map potential landing areas for the Apollo program as well as for the first global map of a planetary body other than the Earth. Lunar Orbiterʼs I-III were in equatorial orbits with a periselene of ~44km and an aposelene of ~4000 km. Lunar Orbiterʼs IV-V were in polar orbits at various altitudes for global mapping and follow up on LO-I-II. Using a visible light 70mm film camera, each spacecraft took ~210 medium resolution and ~210 high resolution images.

The LOIRP project has focused first on recovering LO-II, LO-III, and LO-V images as they have the most relevance to modern high resolution images. To date we have recovered and restored over 550 of the ~1200 images from these three missions. Raw tape data as well as finished .tiff files are being provided to the Planetary Data System. LOIRP has shown the viability of our restoration process and these images are released to the public at the NLSI website.

A resampled reduction of LROC Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) frame M150646945L further roughs out the small field of view compared in the following images, demonstrating the quality of the remastered Lunar Orbiter data and allowing for a highly accurate search for possible changes in a landscape over nearly a half-century [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

Film Scan of LO-V-151H. The LO 640 mm camera mapped the Moon with maximum resolutions ~2 meters on the LO-V Mission. The Solar Azimuth is 91.58 degrees. This resolution was not equaled until the LRO mission presently in orbit.This version of the LO-V-151-H image is from the USGS archives and was scanned from the original GRE film from the Lunar Orbiter mission. The image resolution is ~2 meters per pixel. The dynamic range of the GRE film is reduced (250-1) compared to the original analog data from the spacecraft due to the method of filming used at the time. Hansen, T.P. Guide to Lunar Orbiter Photographs, NASA SP-242, NASA Scientific and Technical Information Office, Washington D.C., 1970. The Boeing Company, Lunar Orbiter I Photographic Mission Summary, NASA CR-782, April 1967.

LOIRP LO-V-151-H1 Copernicus Central Uplift. The LOIRP Image is derived from the original analog tapes from the LO ground stations and have 4x the dynamic range of the LO film archive. This image with a resolution of ~2 meters, was taken on August 16, 1967 at an Altitude of 103.15 km. This version of the LO-V-151-H image is from the original ground station tape from the Woomera ground station (tape W5-58). The original recording preserves the original dynamic rage of the image from the spacecraft 70mm film. The chart on the left shows the film density reading of the 70mm film. This information is encoded as a grey scale chart at the end of each framelet on the images. The chart shows that the low and the high greys were clipped on the GRE film. The increase in dynamic range is 4x or 1000-1. This difference is clearly seen when comparing the GRE image on the left to the LOIRP digitized image [Moonviews].

LROC Copernicus Central Uplift. The LROC imaging camera took a series of images of the Copernicus central uplift that were assembled into a mosaic. The resolution of this image is ~1.8m. The image was taken at ~102 km with a solar azimuth close to the same as LO. The above image is a portion of the recently released LROC mosaic of the interior of the Copernicus crater. This image, with a resolution of ~1.8 meters was taken in late June of 2012. The solar azimuth and orientation of the LRO with respect to the ground track over the crater is virtually identical to the LO-151H image. This allows researchers to investigate the movement of rocks tumbling down the slopes of the central uplift (the peak is approximately the middle of the above images), as well as to determine whether or not rocks have broken due to small impacts or from the thermal stress of the dramatic temperature swings on the surface of the Moon. http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc_browse/view/copern_mosaic [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

Original Moonviews Post

The Spirit of the Lunar Orbiters lives in LOIRP

Newly retrieved high-resolution frame (Lunar Orbiter II-13-H2) showing a roughly 4 km-wide area in  south Mare Tranquillitatis, originally photographed, processed and radioed back to Earth by the Lunar Orbiter spacecraft November 18, 1966. It is the center (h2) of three sequential high-res frames captured simultaneous to the imaging of medium resolution Lunar Orbiter observation 2-013. It has been remastered and just released by the remarkable Lunar Orbiter Image Restoration Project (LOIRP) working on the campus of NASA's Ames Research Center in California [Moonviews].

Joel Raupe

Lunar Pioneer

In addition to the five spacecraft the United States presently has in lunar orbit, the legacies left behind by the five Lunar Orbiter spacecraft dispatched in 1966 and 1967, ahead of the manned Apollo landings, collectively amount to a sixth mission, still active and present in more than spirit. Because of the vision and resourcefulness of a special group of engineers and scientists the original tapes containing the raw radio signal returned by the Lunar Orbiters is methodically being processed, essentially for the first time, almost fifty years later. The most recent release of frames originally photographed by Lunar Orbiter II late in 1966 provide us with an easy demonstration of where this growing new library of half-century-old observations fits into our 21st century understanding of the Moon.

Any new craters? On December 21, 2009 the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera team swept up much of the territory photographed at high resolution by Lunar Orbiter II in November 1966. The field of view in L2013-H2 is here outlined in yellow. LROC Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) observations M116072806L & R, orbit 2239; angle of incidence 80.6° at 0.96 meters resolution, from 46.3 km [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

Much of the area in the three Lunar Orbiter II high-resolution photographs was surveyed at least once, under a high angle of illumination (80.7°) at slightly better than 1 meter resolution, December 21, 2009. The upper right hand portion of Lunar Orbiter frame 2013 (h2) is also available in the body of Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera high-resolution Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) observations presently released to the Planetary Data System.

Newly retrieved by the Lunar Orbiter Image Restoration Project (LOIRP), the medium resolution Lunar Orbiter frame 2011 (M) shows a roughly 45 km-wide area in south central Mare Tranquillitatis originally photographed by Lunar Orbiter II, November 18, 1966 (1525 UT). Of the three high-resolution frames of the area, engineered to be captured at the same opportunity, the center frame, h2, is thinly outlined in very pale yellow at the direct center, and is detailed above [Moonviews].

A 3200 square kilometer field of view showing the immediate area of southeast Mare Tranquillitatis visible in a set of two medium and three high-resolution Lunar Orbiter photographs newly retrieved and just released by the Lunar Orbiter Image Restoration Project (LOIRP). The white rectangle outlines cover the area of the lunar surface in two LROC NAC observations overlapping the high-resolution Lunar Orbiter II frames. Fields of view in the Lunar Orbiter high-resolution frames were re-surveyed at high-resolution by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, 45 years later. LROC QuickMap at 64 meters resolution, LROC WAC Global 100 meter monochrome mosaic [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

LROC QuickMap 4000 meter resolution context view showing the 3200 square km area of the southeast Sea of Tranquility framed in the image immediately above. This part of the Tranquillitatis basin averages out at a bit higher elevation than elsewhere, and is populated by ancient inundated ghost crater rims with the coherent spatter of secondary craters. As our understanding of lunar morphology deepens it has become less clear whether Mare Tranquillitatis constitutes a true basin. Regardless, however, episodic re-floodings by molten material has left behind some of the Moon's deepest mare strata, even if Tranquility is not as clearly defined, horizontally and vertically, as the Serenitatis, Crisium, Nectaris or Imbrium basins nearby [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

The story behind the recovery and retrieval of Lunar Orbiter photography is pretty amazing. The precision design of the spacecraft and their cameras - designed to shoot simultaneous images on film, to then develop that film and televised the result back to Earth - through to the 21st century story labor of love behind how unique and original tapes were housed in a former McDonalds and the nearly extinct drives and software needed even to begin reading those rediscovered tapes were brought online reads like a detective story. The result has been  to retrieve images at a quality better than any that had been available for decades, and a virtual sixth mission to complement the present-day 21st century flotilla now in orbit (after a very long drought).

The "older" photography can be used for a variety of important purposes, but in the context of the robust LRO photographic survey, now beginning an unprecedented third year in lunar orbit, no price can be placed on the opportunity to search out the rate of new impacts among the slow changes in the lunar landscape over five decades. And despite its clear strengths as a marvel of engineering and on-time, on budget performance, even the LRO will not be capable of surveying the entire lunar surface at high-resolution (though, so far, the LROC team surveyed much more than half). The release of newly retrieved Lunar Orbiter images. like these "fresh" from 1966, fills some of those gaps nicely, and also provides the opportunity to see the same area of the Moon at high resolution under different lighting conditions.

Meanwhile, the LROC Wide Angle Camera has been able to survey the entire visible lunar surface under a variety of lighting conditions at an extraordinary "medium" resolution.

The original and latter history of the Lunar Orbiter legacy amounts to a heroic story, one made possible by forward-thinking scientists like Gene Shoemaker, and thoughtful people who might have tossed the tapes but instead carefully packed them. Their rediscovery and the dedicated people who rebuilt the capacity to read those tapes makes for interesting reading as well. It also provides us with a lesson about the transitory nature of magnetic and digital media.

Today's Blue-Ray may be tomorrow's Eight-Track tape!

Some earlier posts and background on LOIRP (Moonviews.com):
The LOIRP time machine looks back 43 years (June 3, 2010)
New releases from Lunar Orbiter II (1966) - (May 7, 2010)
Boulders of Copernicus (December 11, 2009)
LOIRP: Boulder Trails on the Moon (December 10, 2009)
Lunar Orbiter's originals vs. LOIRP restorations (December 9, 2009)
New restored detail from Lunar Orbiter II (December 8, 2009)
LOIRP configures second FR-900 tape drive (November 12, 2009)
LOIRP remasters the Moon's South Pole (August 14, 2009)
Lockheed Martin donates Clean-Room to LOIRP (August 12, 2009)
LOIRP astounds again, re-release of LO-II0162 (1967)
with each of three high-res sub-frames (August 10, 2009)
Full Earth, as seen by Orbiter V (August 7, 2009)
Lunar Orbiter III-154-H2 (June 16, 2009)
LOIRP recovers Lunar Orbiter IV lunar South Pole image from 1967 (June 16, 2009)
LOIRP recovers detail of Fra Mauro and future landing site of Apollo 14 (June 11, 2009)
New LOIRP high res Lunar Orbiter image of western Oceanus Procellarum (June 10, 2009)
LOIRP recovers image of Ranger 8 impact (June 9, 2009)
LOIRP's "Pictures of the Century" (March 23, 2009)
More astounding new detail from LOIRP (February 26, 2009)
Breakthrough in Lunar Orbiter photograph remastering (February 20, 2009)

Inside the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project

The "McMoon" facility on the campus of Ames Research Center [Moonviews].

Maggie Koerth-Baker
boingboing

If these photos of NASA's Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project look suspiciously like they might actually have been taken inside an abandoned McDonalds ... well, that's very observant of you. All of those film canisters you see in the first image are actually spools of 70mm magnetic tape containing the analog originals of images taken by the Lunar Orbiter spacecraft in 1966 and 1967. After sitting in storage for decades—most notably in a barn in California—the tapes were brought to the NASA Ames Research Center in 2007. Since then, some of the originals have been digitized and preserved. (There's a good chance you saw a few in 2008, when the first preserved images were released.) Others are still in process. There's not much funding for this type of work, and it can get expensive, as it involves maintaining extremely rare FR-900 tape drives.

Read the entire post at boingboing.net

Re-release of Iconic Copernicus 'Image of the Century'

Newly processed high-resolution detail from an unprecedented oblique view of the interior of Copernicus captured by Lunar Orbiter 2, from the "Image of the Century" photographed November 24, 1966. Higher and full resolution images are linked to the Moonviews (LOIRP) announcement, HERE [LOIRP].

Keith Cowing
Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project
moonviews.com
NASAWatch.com

Today an iconic image from the initial exploration of the Moon is being re-released showing detail that could not have been seen using technology available at the time the photo was taken. This image features a dramatic view inside the majestic crater Copernicus - a view that left millions in awe when it was first released.

This image was announced at the First Global Space Exploration Conference, co-sponsored by the AIAA and IAF, in Washington, DC.

Between 1966 and 1967 NASA sent five Lunar Orbiter spacecraft to the Moon. Their job was to survey the surface to help determine landing sites for the upcoming Apollo missions. In addition to their recon role, these spacecraft also contributed to the nascent scientific understanding of the Moon. But every once in a while these spacecraft also served as artists, snapping photos of this nearby world in a way that human eyes had never been able to see before.

New magnification possible using the 21st century techniques employed by LOIRP. Higher and full resolution images are linked to the Moonviews (LOIRP) announcement, HERE [LOIRP].

Once such image was taken of crater Copernicus on 24 November 1966 by the Lunar Orbiter 2 spacecraft. What made this photo so unique was the oblique angle it was taken at as well the close proximity of the spacecraft to its target. The image was taken at an altitude of 45 km (27.1 miles) at a distance of approximately 207.7 km (~125 miles) from the center of the crater. Instead of looking down, the spacecraft looked sideways at the Moon.

The bouldered area of the central peaks of Copernicus seen newly sampled at "100 percent" in the image further up were swept up by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera in orbit 909, September 9, 2009; LROC Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) observation M107006443R; resolution 1.15 meters (shown here at 4 meters per pixel) from an altitude of 130.11 kilometers [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

For the first time people saw the Moon as a world with mountains and boulders and other features (some of them strange) that were not apparent from photos where the view was looking straight down. So taken were people at the time that Life Magazine took to calling the photo "The Picture of the Century"

Read about the full details in the original article, HERE.

IAU names craters to honor Columbia crew

Craters in this grouping on the southeast side of the ancient Apollo basin have been preliminarily named in honor of the crew members of Space Shuttle Columbia, who perished during re-entry February 1, 2003.  Though some in the group seem to be large secondary craters from the same event Husband, formerly Borman L, is older than the others  Field of view from Chang'e-2 global high-Sun mosaic [CAS/CNSA/CLEP].

Keith Cowing, at the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Program (LOIRP) website "Moonviews" reports a crater grouping in Apollo basin (35.7°S, 208.0°E) has been provisionally designated by the International Astronomical Union to honor of each of the seven astronauts who died in the catastrophic failure of Space Shuttle Columbia February 1, 2003.

Columbia crater group, in context with Apollo basin and craters there named after the Space Shuttle Challenger group, among others. The larger crater at center left, named in honor of Apollo 1 crew member Roger Chafee, is roughly 50 km across  [NASA/USGS/ASU].

Locating the Columbia crater group (arrow) in Apollo basin, itself nested near the edge of the South Pole-Aitken basin, on an orthographic projection of the lunar farside. False color elevation map from LROC Wide Angle Camera digital terrain model (WAC DTM) [NASA/GSFC/ASU].