Word: surveyor
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...frigid lunar night finally ended, sunlight once again splashed its warmth on the man-made visitor, Surveyor I. After its two-week hibernation at -250° F., the spaceship showed no sign of reviving. Its receiver, turned on ever since it landed on the moon almost four weeks before, seemed incapable of picking up radioed signals and translating them into the commands that would awaken the space traveler's other instruments. Day after day, the scientists at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena tried to make contact; day after day, their only response was silence...
Aware that the intense lunar cold might well have changed the operating frequency of Surveyor's receiver, the JPL men tried varying the tuning of their own equipment. Still they got no answer. Then, last week, a signal from an 85-ft. parabolic antenna in Australia's Tidbinbilla Valley finally got through-near the spaceship's original frequency. Surveyor's transmitter obeyed the order, turned on, and reported in response to queries that all electrical and mechanical systems were functioning once more. Surveyor was again a fully operational spacecraft...
...With Surveyor's graphic pictures and clear telemetry before them, scientists were able to draw their firmest conclusions yet about the lunar terrain. At a Washington press conference, they announced that the moon's surface pre sented no great obstacles to a manned lunar landing; its consistency is almost earthlike, and its bearing strength -about 5 Ibs. per sq. in.-is more than enough to support the weight of Apollo's Lunar Excursion Module. "In one sentence," said JPL Project Scientist Leonard Jaffe, "the moon surface looks like a soil, not very hard, with rocks and clods...
Scientific Rhapsody. Its work done for the lunar day, Surveyor reported that its batteries were charged nearly to capacity, giving scientists added hope that the craft could be revived after sunrise on June 29. To conserve electrical energy, Surveyor sent occasional reports on its condition for only the first few days of the lunar night, then lapsed into silence, using electricity only for small thermal-control heaters, which protect electronic equipment that could be damaged by extreme cold...
...matter how Surveyor fares in the darkness, however, it has already accomplished enough to generate some inspired scientific prose. Rhapsodized NASA Associate Administrator Homer Newell: "Today Surveyor stands alone in the dark on the desolate plain of the Ocean of Storms, a solitary artifact of men who live on another body of the solar system, 240,000 miles away...