Moon landing shock: Weather threatened to strand NASA's Apollo 11 in the middle of Pacific
NASA’S first Moon landing astronauts safely returned to Earth 50 years ago yesterday but the perilous return came dangerously close to stranding the Apollo 11 crew in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Apollo 11: Moment Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong land on moon
NASA landed the first man on the Moon half-a-century ago on July 20, 1969. The first Moon landing was accomplished by astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, while pilot Michael Collins stayed in lunar orbit. Four days later, the three American heroes completed the final leg of their journey and splash landed in the Pacific Ocean on July 24. But this incredibly critical part of the mission was also one the most dangerous ones with bad weather interfering with NASA’s original landing plans.
On July 24, when the Apollo 11 crew was still about 47,000 miles from Earth, the three astronauts prepared to land in the Pacific.
Originally, the astronauts were to guide their Command Module Columbia to a landing site for recovery about 950 miles southwest of Hawaii.
The day before, however, deteriorating weather forced NASA to move the landing site by 250 miles to the northeast.
NASA said: “The aircraft carrier USS Hornet, CVS-12, the prime recovery ship for Apollo 11, was speeding for the new splashdown target area.”
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But with overcast skies obscuring all sight, the USS Hornet could no longer rely on celestial navigation to locate Apollo 11.
Celestial navigation, or astronavigation, uses the relative position of the stars and the horizon to pinpoint the location of a ship.
Without clear access to the skies, the USS Hornet instead had to rely on another ancient navigation technique – dead reckoning.
In naval navigation, dead reckoning estimates a ship’s position by charting out a route from an original fixed position.
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Using this method, mariners who know the direction and speed at which they have been sailing can estimate their position on a map.
Thankfully, the USS Hornet’s estimates proved spot on, and the Apollo 11 crew was safely recovered.
Overcast skies made stellar navigation impossible
When the Columbia spacecraft landed in the Pacific, the USS Hornet was only about 13 miles from the splashdown site and 932 miles southwest of Hawaii.
NASA said: “Overcast skies made stellar navigation impossible, so Hornet used the ancient mariner’s technique of dead reckoning to arrive on time and at the proper position to recover crew and spacecraft.
“Hornet’s commanding officer Captain Carl J Seiberlich chose the slogan Hornet Plus 3 for the operation, signifying the safe recovery of the three Apollo 11 astronauts.”
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The last few minutes of Apollo’s descent to Earth were also incredibly frightening.
According to NASA, the Columbia spacecraft plummeted to Earth at more than 24,700mph.
And as the spacecraft flew through the atmosphere, a radio blackout cut off all communications for four minutes.
At 10,000ft above the Pacific, the Columbia deployed its parachutes and safely glided down into the water.
Upon return, the three Apollo 11 astronauts had to go into quarantine in the unlikely event they picked up an unknown bug on the Moon’s surface.