50 years ago today, Apollo 16 passed by the far side of the #Moon, out of contact with #Earth, and encountered serious problems.
The problems facilitated this photograph. One of my favourites - it instantly conveys the awe-inspiring nature of human space exploration: 1/7
Due to a problem with the SPS engine (needed to get them home), the crew had to station-keep for 4 hours while Mission Control considered whether the landing should be aborted. Even an Apollo 13-style use of the LM's descent engine to propel them home was being considered. 2/7
The crew struggled to keep track of each other as they tried to stay no more than one mile apart and the radar only intermittently 'locked-on'. A complex rendezvous was eventually required too. The following is a summary from the mission transcripts of these moments... 3/7
..they are an incredible reminder of the risks that were taken during Apollo and that these guys really were actively flying these rudimentary-looking spacecraft around the Moon. A far cry from today's spaceflight.
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This is not a scene from a #scifi movie - this is real life #OTD 1962!
For the 60th anniversary of John Glenn's historic flight, the imagery has been brought into the 21st century. Full images documenting the flight in THREAD: #ApolloRemastered 1/7
Glenn became the 1st American to orbit Earth on 20th February 1962.
The 60-year-old 16mm flight film (thanks @steveslater1987) has undergone a transformative process, utilising over 1,000 image samples of the film per image, to bring out never-before-seen detail: 2/7
Glenn has been waiting for over two hours in the small, darkened Mercury capsule. He had entered the capsule at around 6am local time. In 6 minutes the gantry would retract and at 09:47 the countdown would finally reach zero. 3/7
Classic design - that Apollo 11 patch.
NASA had no input initially, with @AstroMCollins taking the lead on design. The crew agreed it should represent a peaceful landing, by the US. It was Jim Lovell who suggested the American Eagle, which Collins traced from a @NatGeo mag... 1/6
onto some tissue paper. He then sketched in the lunar surface and later the Earth (albeit incorrectly, as it should be rotated 90 degrees). Tom Wilson, the crew's simulator instructor overheard a conversation about further developing the design and suggested the eagle should 2/6
carry an olive branch as a symbol of peace. Collins sketched this in. The crew agreed on a black sky and gold lettering for the mission name, but Armstrong didn't agree with spelling out "Eleven" as it wouldn't translate globally so they agreed on "Apollo 11". The crew also 3/6