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Apollo 11

Apollo 11 Mission Report (MSC-00171)

  • Source document: 1969-11-apollo-11-mission-report-msc-00171.pdf

  • Original: NASA, Apollo 11 Mission Report, MSC-00171, prepared by the Mission Evaluation Team and approved by George M. Low (Manager, Apollo Spacecraft Program), Manned Spacecraft Center, Houston, November 1969. NTRS document ID 19700008096 / accession N70-17401. 359 pages.

  • Available online: Internet Archive — Apollo 11 Mission Report; also NTRS 19700008096.

Summary

Section titled “Summary”

The comprehensive official engineering-and-science report on Apollo 11 — the single most complete primary document on the mission. Compiled by the Mission Evaluation Team a few months after the flight, it walks the mission end to end (launch → translunar → descent and landing → surface operations → ascent and rendezvous → return and recovery) and then evaluates every spacecraft system, the lunar-surface science, the biomedical results, mission objectives, launch-vehicle performance, and a numbered anomaly summary. It is the authoritative cross-check behind the planning documents, the air-to-ground transcript, and the crew’s debriefing: where those give intent or first-person narrative, this report gives the consolidated, quantified record. Section 11, “The Lunar Surface,” is in effect a condensed companion to the Preliminary Science Report.

Document structure

Section titled “Document structure”
  • §1–3 Summary / Introduction / Mission Description — the mission in brief (launch July 16, 1969; landing at 102:45:40 GET; splashdown at 195¼ hr).
  • §4 Pilots’ Report — the crew’s narrative, incl. §4.12 Lunar Surface Operations (egress, exploration, experiment deployment, ingress, the lost rest period).
  • §5 Lunar Descent and Ascent, §6 Communications, §7 Trajectory.
  • §8 CSM Performance, §9 LM Performance, §10 Extravehicular Mobility Unit Performance.
  • §11 The Lunar Surface — 11.1 Geology, 11.2 Surface Mechanics, 11.3 Examination of Lunar Samples, 11.4 Passive Seismic, 11.5 Laser Ranging Retro-Reflector, 11.6 Solar Wind Composition, 11.7 Photography.
  • §12 Biomedical Evaluation (incl. 12.5 Lunar Contamination and Quarantine), §13 Mission Support, §14 Assessment of Mission Objectives (14.1 Location of Landed LM, 14.2 Lunar Field Geology), §15 Launch Vehicle, §16 Anomaly Summary, §17 Conclusions, and Appendices A–E (vehicle/experiment descriptions, spacecraft histories, postflight testing, data availability, glossary).

Key takeaways

Section titled “Key takeaways”
  • As-landed location. The LM landed in the southwestern Sea of Tranquility at 0°41′15″N, 23°26′E (ref. lunar map ORB-II-6(100)), ~20 km southwest of Sabine D and ~25 km southeast of Surveyor V. In the final 2½ minutes Armstrong took manual control and flew ~1100 ft downrange of the nominal point; the LM came to rest tilted ~4.5° backward (east).
  • The landing-site geology (§11.1). West crater — a sharp-rimmed, blocky ray crater ~180 m across and ~30 m deep, ~400 m east of the landing point, with an ejecta apron of metre-to-5-metre blocks — is the “blocky crater the size of a football field” the crew avoided. A 33-m crater ~50 m east of the LM (with a block pile on its floor) and a doublet crater ~10 m west were the other local landmarks. The site was first identified during the stay by matching the crew’s description of the avoided crater to West crater. Regolith thickness is estimated at 3–6 m from crater depths.
  • Samples (§11.2–11.3). ~47 lb (~21 kg) of material returned, field-classified into Type A (fine-grained vesicular crystalline), Type B (medium-grained crystalline), Type C (breccia), and Type D (fines). Crystalline rocks date to 3–4 billion years (⁴⁰K/⁴⁰Ar), with 20–160 Myr cosmic-ray surface exposure; titanium and zirconium enriched, alkalis/volatiles depleted, indigenous organics < 1 ppm, and abundant solar-wind noble gases in the fines and breccias.
  • Deployed experiments (§11.4–11.6). The passive seismometer operated through the first lunar day (data from late July 20 until commanded off at lunar sunset on August 3), despite operating temperatures up to 50 °F above plan. The laser retro-reflector supports Earth–Moon ranging to ~15 cm (McDonald Observatory). The solar-wind foil (0.4 m² effective area) was deployed ~6 m from the LM.
  • EMU and crew (§10, §12). The extravehicular mobility unit performed well, with lower-than-expected metabolic rates; surface exploration was completed in the allotted 2½ hours.
  • Return and quarantine (§12.5). After Pacific splashdown the crew donned biological isolation garments, entered the Mobile Quarantine Facility aboard USS Hornet, and were taken with the samples to the Lunar Receiving Laboratory.

Concepts extracted

Section titled “Concepts extracted”

Mission & spacecraft

Section titled “Mission & spacecraft”

EVA & surface operations

Section titled “EVA & surface operations”

Surface experiments

Section titled “Surface experiments”

Samples & geology

Section titled “Samples & geology”

Landing-site imaging

Section titled “Landing-site imaging”