Lunar Orbiter 5

Infobox Spacecraft
Name= Lunar Orbiter 5


Organization=NASA
Major_Contractors= Langley Research Center
Mission_Type=Orbiter
Satellite_Of= Moon
Launch= August 1, 1967 at 22:32:00 UTC
Launch_Vehicle= Atlas-Agena D
Decay= Impacted lunar surface on January 31, 1968, at Lunar coords and quad cat|2.79|S|83.1|W
Mission_Duration= 183 days
Mass= 385.6 kg
NSSDC_ID= 1967-075A
Orbital_elements=yes
Semimajor_Axis= 4,846.8 km
Eccentricity= .26
Inclination= 85°
Orbital_Period= 510.08 minutes
Apoapsis= 6,023 km
Periapsis= 194.5 km
Orbits= 1,380

Lunar Orbiter 5, the last of the Lunar Orbiter series, was designed to take additional Apollo and Surveyor landing site photography and to take broad survey images of unphotographed parts of the Moon's far side. It was also equipped to collect selenodetic, radiation intensity, and micrometeoroid impact data and was used to evaluate the Manned Space Flight Network tracking stations and Apollo Orbit Determination Program. The spacecraft was placed in a cislunar trajectory and on 5 August 1967 was injected into an elliptical near polar lunar orbit 194.5 km x 6023 km with an inclination of 85 degrees and a period of 8 hours 30 minutes. On 7 August the perilune was lowered to 100 km and on 9 August the orbit was lowered to a 99 km x 1499 km, 3 hour 11 minute period. The photographic portion of the mission ended on 18 August. The spacecraft acquired photographic data from August 6 to 18, 1967, and readout occurred until August 27, 1967. A total of 633 high resolution and 211 medium resolution frames at resolution down to 2 meters were acquired, bringing the cumulative photographic coverage by the 5 Lunar Orbiters to 99% of the Moon's surface. Accurate data were acquired from all other experiments throughout the mission. The spacecraft was tracked until it impacted the lunar surface on command at 2.79 degrees S latitude, 83 degrees W longitude (selenographic coordinates) on January 31, 1968.

External links

* [http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19770016195_1977016195.pdf DESTINATION MOON: A history of the Lunar Orbiter Program (PDF) 1976]