Free Astronomy Magazine May-June 2019

20 MAY-JUNE 2019 ASTRONAUTICS possible to use many standard systems, Lunar Orbiters turned out to be very different. The budget would have been sufficient for five operational satellites, plus one for technical trials. It was expected that three successful flights would have been sufficient to exam- ine all the sites on the list of the first Apollo landing. The spacecraft had to travel an elliptical orbit with a 61-km perilune on the near hemisphere in a path se- A POLLO 11 − Aldrin carrying experiment packages. [NASA, Project Apollo Archive]