Surveyor 3
Surveyor 3 on the Moon, photographed by Alan Bean over two years after it landed
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| Mission type | Lunar lander |
|---|---|
| Operator | NASA |
| COSPAR ID | 1967-035A |
| SATCAT no. | 02756 |
| Mission duration | 2 days and 17 hours |
| Spacecraft properties | |
| Manufacturer | Hughes Aircraft |
| Launch mass | 1,026 kilograms (2,262 lb) |
| Landing mass | 302 kilograms (666 lb) |
| Start of mission | |
| Launch date | April 17, 1967, 07:05:00 UTC |
| Rocket | Atlas LV-3C Centaur-D |
| Launch site | Cape Canaveral LC-36B |
| End of mission | |
| Last contact | May 3, 1967 |
| Lunar lander | |
| Landing date | April 20, 1967, 00:04:53 UTC |
| Landing site | 2°56′S 23°20′W / 2.94°S 23.34°W |
Surveyor 3 was the third lander of the American uncrewed Surveyor program sent to explore the surface of the Moon. Launched on April 17, 1967, Surveyor 3 landed on April 20, 1967, at the Mare Cognitum portion of the Oceanus Procellarum (S3° 01' 41.43" W23° 27' 29.55") . It transmitted a total of 6,315 TV images to the Earth.
As Surveyor 3 was landing (in a crater, as it turned out ), highly reflective rocks confused the spacecraft's lunar descent radar. The engines failed to cut off at 14 feet (4.3 meters) in altitude as called for in the mission plans, and this delay caused the lander to bounce on the lunar surface twice. Its first bounce reached the altitude of about 35 feet (10 meters). The second bounce reached a height of about 11 feet (three meters). On the third impact with the surface—from the initial altitude of three meters, and velocity of zero, which was below the planned altitude of 14 feet (4.3 meters), and very slowly descending —Surveyor 3 settled down to a soft landing as intended.
This Surveyor mission was the first one that carried a surface-soil sampling-scoop, which can be seen on its extendable arm in the pictures. This mechanism was mounted on an electric-motor-driven arm and was used to dig four trenches in the lunar soil. These trenches were up to seven inches (18 centimeters) deep. Samples of soil from the trenches were placed in front of the Surveyor's television cameras to be photographed and the pictures radioed back to the Earth. When the first lunar nightfall came on May 3, 1967, Surveyor 3 was shut down because its solar panels were no longer producing electricity. At the next lunar dawn (after 14 terrestrial days, or about 336 hours), Surveyor 3 could not be reactivated, because of the extremely cold temperatures that it had experienced. This is in contrast with the Surveyor 1, which was able to be reactivated twice after lunar nights, but then never again.
Surveyor 3 became famous after the crewed mission Apollo 12 used it as a landing target site. Landing within walking distance on 19 November 1969, the crew took several pictures of the probe and removed some pieces which were returned to Earth. Surveyor 3 is the only probe visited by humans on another world.
The television camera on Surveyor 3 consisted of a vidicon tube, two 25 and 100 millimeter focal length lenses, shutters, filters, and an iris mounted along an axis inclined about 16 degrees to the central axis of the spacecraft. The TV camera was mounted under a mirror that could be moved in azimuth (horizontally) and elevation (vertically). The operation of the camera was completely dependent upon the receipt of proper commands from the Earth. Frame-by-frame coverage of the lunar surface was obtained over the complete 360 degrees in azimuth, and from +40 degrees above the plane normal to the camera's Z-axis to −65 degrees below this plane. Both 600-line and 200-line modes of TV camera operation were used. The 200-line mode transmitted over an omnidirectional antenna and scanned one frame every 61.8 seconds. A complete video transmission of each 200-line picture required 20 seconds and used a bandwidth of 1.2 kHz. The 600-line pictures were transmitted over a directional antenna. These pictures were scanned as often as once every 3.6 seconds. Each 600-line picture required a nominal one second to be read from the image vidicon, and its transmission required a 220 kHz bandwidth, using digital picture transmission. The TV photos were displayed back on the Earth on a slow-scan TV monitor that was coated with a long-persistence phosphor. Its persistence had been selected to match the nominal maximum frame rate. One frame of TV identification was received for each incoming TV photo, and the picture was displayed in real-time at a rate compatible with that of the incoming image. These data were recorded on a video magnetic-tape recorder. The camera returned 6315 pictures between April 20 and May 3, 1967, including views of the spacecraft itself, panoramic lunar surveys, views of the mechanical surface digger at work, and of the Earth itself during a solar eclipse.
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