Apollo lunar surface experiments
The science Apollo 11 deployed on the Moon. The Early Apollo Scientific Experiments Package (EASEP) — flown only on this short first landing, in place of the larger ALSEP of later missions — comprised the Passive Seismic Experiment (with a modified dust detector) and the Laser Ranging Retroreflector; the Solar Wind Composition foil was a separate experiment set out during the same EVA. This map groups them and draws on the EASEP Handbook for the hardware, principal investigators, and deployment, and on the Preliminary Science Report for first results; the Apollo 11 Mission Report (§11.4–11.6) adds each instrument’s early on-surface performance.
Concepts
Section titled “Concepts”- Early Apollo Scientific Experiments Package (EASEP) — the package (Passive Seismic + LRRR, plus a dust detector), its solar power/central station, and the assigned experiment numbers.
- Passive Seismic Experiment (S‑031) — seismometer probing the lunar interior (PI Gary Latham).
- Lunar seismicity and interior structure (PSE results) — what the seismometers found: the quantified quiet Moon, three moonquake classes, crust/cumulate/molten-core structure.
- Laser Ranging Retroreflector (S‑078) — 100-reflector array for Earth–Moon ranging to ~15 cm (PI C. O. Alley).
- Lunar laser ranging: results and legacy — what the reflector delivered: first returns (Lick, Aug 1, 1969), centimeter ranging, the Moon’s 3.8 cm/yr recession, relativity tests.
- Solar Wind Composition experiment (S‑080) — aluminum foil trapping solar-wind gases, deployed alongside EASEP but a separate experiment (PI Johannes Geiss).