Word: spacecrafts
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...pressed its steel-tipped claw into the moon's surface, leaving a small dent. Opening its claw, it deliberately gouged a small trench near its feet, curiously watching each movement to determine the nature of the lunar soil. Thus last week Surveyor 3 became the second U.S. spacecraft to achieve a successful lunar soft landing. "We've not only placed man's eyes on the moon in the form" of a TV camera," said Project Manager Benjamin Milwitzky, "but now we've also put his arms and hands there...
Three Bounces. Surveyor's pictures also showed that the spacecraft was resting on a gentle slope inside a saucer-shaped crater about 150 ft. across and 20 ft. deep. Although the camera could not peek above the crater's rim, it revealed that the crater floor was relatively smooth, pockmarked with some smaller craters and littered with pebbles and a few rocks no larger than a foot across. All in all, it appeared that the area, one of the eight selected as possible targets for the Apollo mission, was level and uncluttered enough to allow the Apollo lunar...
...initial impact on the moon-lifted by its vernier rockets, which had failed to shut down. The unexpectedly rough landing occurred, scientists believed, when the approach radar that controls the rockets became confused by the difference in elevation between the crater bottom and its rim. But the rugged spacecraft quickly proved that it had not been unduly shaken up. Shortly after it landed, it looked down and coolly photographed a nearby "footprint" made on the last bounce by one of its own footpads...
During preparations for its successful trip to the moon, Surveyor was spared a severe test that future unmanned spacecraft on missions to Mars and Venus will have to endure: dry-heat sterilization to prevent the contamination of other planets by earthly microorganisms. The terrestrial bugs can do little harm on the lifeless moon, but experts agree that their premature arrival on other planets could obliterate or alter possible native life forms before they could be studied. There is a growing feeling, nonetheless, that the U.S. may have accepted international sterilization standards that are unnecessarily high...
...high criteria require that there be less than one chance in 10,000 that a single living microorganism be aboard an unmanned spacecraft designed to land on a planet. To comply, the U.S. plans to seal its Mars-bound Voyager landing capsule in a canister and bake it for as long as 53 hours at a temperature of 257 °F.-enough heat exposure to kill even the organisms within the solid metal structures of the spacecraft. Aware that sterilization of some early Ranger moonships damaged spacecraft systems and led to the failure of missions, scientists are spending time...