How did Apollo 11 communicate with mission control?

When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the moon in 1969, a S-Band Transponder designed and built by General Dynamics was the only communications link the Apollo 11 Astronauts had to NASA’s mission control and millions of people watching on Earth.

How did Apollo astronauts navigate?

Apollo astronauts used three navigation systems to determine the proper flight paths to the Moon and back to Earth. An optical navigation system consisted of a scanning telescope and a sextant. With these instruments the astronauts could take star sights and plot the position of their spacecraft.

What did the command module do while the astronauts were on the Moon?

A Command Module would house the three-person crew on liftoff and landing and during the trip to and from the Moon. A Service Module would carry various equipment and the rocket engine needed to guide the spacecraft into lunar orbit and then send it back to…

How does Mission Control communicate with astronauts?

Messages travel through space as radio waves, just like the radio waves that you receive with a car radio. Each spacecraft has a transmitter and a receiver for radio waves as well as a way of interpreting the information received and acting on it. NASA has huge radio receivers to gather information from space missions.

How do we communicate with astronauts?

Astronauts have devices in their helmets which transfer the sound waves from their voices into radio waves and transmit them to the ground (or other astronauts in space). This is how a radio at home works radio waves are often thought to be a form of sound but they are not sound waves.

What ways can astronauts communicate with their friends and families back on Earth?

These days, astronauts can communicate with their families via email, and chat with the public on Twitter. Technology even allows astronauts to have video chats with their loved ones, as well as with schools. Another popular method over the years has been ham radio.

How many of the Apollo missions returned data from the Moon?

Six of the missions (Apollos 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17) achieved this goal. Apollos 7 and 9 were Earth orbiting missions to test the Command and Lunar Modules, and did not return lunar data. Apollos 8 and 10 tested various components while orbiting the Moon, and returned photography of the lunar surface.

What was the purpose of the Apollo 11 mission?

30th Anniversary of Apollo 11 – July, 1999 The Apollo program was designed to land humans on the Moon and bring them safely back to Earth. Six of the missions (Apollos 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17) achieved this goal. Apollos 7 and 9 were Earth orbiting missions to test the Command and Lunar Modules, and did not return lunar data.

What happened to Apollo 13’s command module?

The splashdown of Apollo 13 is only a little over an hour away, and the spacecraft is now down to the final component that remains, the Command Module. The damaged Service Module is gone, as is the Lunar Module Aquarius that successfully supported them all the way back from the Moon.

When does the transcript begin in the Apollo 11 countdown?

The transcript begins at the start of a hold in the Apollo 11 countdown at the three-and-a-half-hour point before launch.