Moon Camera ‘Roused’

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31107, 9 July 1966, Page 15

Moon Camera ‘Roused’

(N.Z.P.A. Reuter—Copyright)

PASADENA (California), July 8.

After taking a week to thaw out, America’s robot photographer on the moon has resumed snapping close-up pictures of the lunar surface.

Surveyor I, the television spacecraft which soft-landed o n the moon’s barren Ocean of Storms on June 2, came back to life on Tuesday after United States space officials had just about given up hope.

The sjcwt craft had lain dormant for the two-week-long deep freeze lunar “night” and a seven-day barrage of radio signals had failed to rouse it until the sun’s rays had charged its solar batteries.

Then it added 24 new pictures to the 10,338 sent back

last month, showing a possible landing site for United States astronauts. “The camera works as well or better than when we shut it off,” was the elated official verdict. Engineers will wait until the lunar shadows lengthen

before starting a new picturetaking session on Monday, and space officials have a series of tests scheduled for the 325 million dollar (£ll6 million) robot before the sun disappears over the horizon again early on Thursday. One of the tests will in-

volve firing the three large retro-rockets which slowed Surveyor during the final stages of its moon descent, to see if any lunar dust is kicked up. None of the elusive particles have so far been seen.

Surveyor will also scan the Ocean of Storm’s pockmarked terrain to see if any new meteorite craters have been added in the last three weeks. Scientists also plan to switch on Surveyor’s camera in the lunar sunset on Wednesday and keep it operating for two hours to capture spectacular pictures of the sun’s corona—usually seen from earth only during an eclipse. They also hope to prove (or disprove) the theory that the moon is completely airless. With only the fiery halo of gases from the sun’s corona showing above the lunar horizon, even a few molecules of air might diffuse the light enough to be recorded in a picture.