Westinghouse Apollo Lunar Television Camera
In October 1964, NASA awarded Westinghouse the contract for the Lunar TV Camera. Stan Lebar, the Program Manager for the Apollo Lunar TV Camera, headed the team at Westinghouse that developed the camera that brought pictures from the Moon's surface. The camera was first tested in space during the Apollo 9 mission in March 1969. This is the camera that was used on Apollo 11, and captured humanity's first step on another celestial body on 21 July 1969.
- Usage: Apollo 9 (Earth orbit), Apollo 11 (lunar surface), Apollo 13, Apollo 14, Apollo 15, Apollo 16 (back-up to the lunar surface color camera, never used)
- Transmitted Resolution (lines x samples): 320x250 (10 frame/s mode) / 1280x500 (0.625 frame/s mode, never used)
- Sensor Resolution: Up to 650 TV lines vertically, horizantal resolution dependant on bandwidth
- Bandwidth: 4 Hz to 500 kHz
- Black and white
- Sensor: 1 Secondary Electron Conduction (SEC) Tube
- Analog FM transmission
The camera was built by Westinghouse, was 11 by 6 by 3 inches (280 mm × 150 mm × 76 mm) in size, and weighed 7.25 pounds (3.29 kg), It consumed 6.25 watts of power. It had four interchangeable lenses: "telephoto", "wide-angle", "lunar day" and "lunar night".
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Photo of the high-quality SSTV image received from Apollo 11 at Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station
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Photo of the high-quality SSTV image before the scan conversion
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Photo of the high-quality SSTV image before the scan conversion
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Westinghouse camera on the Lunar surface during Apollo 11
Read more about this topic: Apollo TV Camera
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