While we were busy figuring out our database woes, the 40 year anniversary of the NASA moon landing was heating up. Timing was not our friend. During this time the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) took a gander at the moon, found the landing sites, and took pictures. They last longer.
The satellite reached lunar orbit June 23 and captured the Apollo sites between July 11 and 15. Though it had been expected that LRO would be able to resolve the remnants of the Apollo mission, these first images came before the spacecraft reached its final mapping orbit. Future LROC images from these sites will have two to three times greater resolution.
“The LROC team anxiously awaited each image,” said LROC principal investigator Mark Robinson of Arizona State University. “We were very interested in getting our first peek at the lunar module descent stages just for the thrill — and to see how well the cameras had come into focus. Indeed, the images are fantastic and so is the focus.”
