November 11, 2019 - An Encore Performance
An Encore Performance After the history-making Apollo 11 mission, which landed the first astronauts on the Moon, NASA raised the bar. Apollo 12, launched fifty years ago this week, proved that astronauts could achieve lunar landings with almost pinpoint accuracy. Astronauts Alan Bean (above) and Charles “Pete” Conrad landed their Lunar Module Intrepid about 180 meters (600 ft) feet from the robotic Surveyor 3 spacecraft, which had landed on the Moon in April 1967. The astronauts walked to Surveyor 3 and detached parts of it for later study back on Earth. The third Apollo 12 astronaut, Richard Gordon, orbited the Moon in the Command Module Yankee Clipper while Bean and Conrad spent over a day on the Moon, including eight total hours outside the lunar module conducting two separate EVAs.
Image credit: NASA
Weekly Calendar
November 11 - 17, 2019
Holidays - Sky Events - Space History
Monday 11
Remembrance Day (Canada)
Veteran’s Day
Mercury transit over Sun (Europe, Africa, Mideast, S America, N America, Oceania)
1875: Vesto Slipher born
1966: Gemini XII launched
1982: STS-5 Columbia launched
Tuesday 12
Vesta at opposition
Full Moon 8:34 AM ET
1833: Great Leonid Meteor Shower
1980: Voyager 1 flies past Saturn
1981: STS-2 Columbia launched
2014: Philae probe becomes first spacecraft to land on a comet
Wednesday 13
1971: Mariner 9 becomes first spacecraft to orbit Mars
1978: Einstein Observatory (HEAO-2) launched
Thursday 14
1969: Apollo 12 launched, second lunar landing mission
2008: STS-126 Endeavour launched
2011: Soyuz TMA-22 launched carrying ISS Expedition 29/30 crew
Friday 15
1738: William Herschel born
1973: First powered flight of X-24B lifting body
1988: Green Bank 300-foot radio telescope collapses
1988: Soviet Shuttle Buran launched
Saturday 16
1962: Saturn SA-3 launched
1973: Skylab 4 crew launched on 84-day mission
1974: Interstellar message broadcast from Arecibo radio telescope
2009: STS-129 Atlantis launched
Sunday 17
Leonid meteor shower
1970: Luna 17 lands on Moon; Lunokhod 1 rover becomes first wheeled vehicle on Moon
2016: Soyuz MS-03 launched carrying ISS Expedition 50/51 crew