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".
-
Photo of the high-quality SSTV image received from Apollo 11 at Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station
-
Photo of the high-quality SSTV image before the scan conversion
-
Photo of the high-quality SSTV image before the scan conversion
-
Westinghouse camera on the Lunar surface during Apollo 11
Read more about this topic: Apollo TV Camera
Famous quotes containing the words apollo, lunar, television and/or camera:
““Epic poem,—ten thousand lines—revolution of July—composed it on the spot—Mars by day, Apollo by night,—bang the field-piece, twang the lyre.””
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
“A bird half wakened in the lunar noon
Sang halfway through its little inborn tune.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“So by all means let’s have a television show quick and long, even if the commercial has to be delivered by a man in a white coat with a stethoscope hanging around his neck, selling ergot pills. After all the public is entitled to what it wants, isn’t it? The Romans knew that and even they lasted four hundred years after they started to putrefy.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)
“In what camera do you taste
Poison, in what darkness set
Glittering scales and point
The tipping tongue?”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)