Steve Jurvetson

The original USB — Unified S-Band, a common communication channel used during the Apollo missions. With just 20 Watts, they could communicate with Houston from the moon. And a single antenna combined voice, television, command, tracking and ranging. From the Future Ventures’ Space Collection. This fully redundant Command Module S-Band Amplifier output was routed to the High Gain and Omni-Directional antenna's on the CSM. It is stamped Serial No. 0006 Even today, this type of specialty vacuum tube is among the most efficient and compact types of RF amplifier. As a result, many high-tech satellites still feature these devices. This photo and detailed analysis come from the Ken Shirriff blog, which became popular with places like Hackaday: “How did the Apollo astronauts communicate 240,000 miles back to Earth? With an amplifier that was just 20 watts, built from special traveling-wave tubes. I look inside this amplifier in my latest blog post” Flickr file: www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/51319874206/in/feed-22706-1626635793-1-72157719556711443 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License .

From the Future Ventures’ Space Collection. Photos by technoarchaeologist Curious Marc, who is getting my heroic Apollo artifacts working again! Stay tuned, so to speak. This unit takes the phase-modulated signal and FM TV signal, combines them, modulates them, and amplifies them before sending them to the main amplifier. It also has the receiver circuitry. It also has interesting ranging circuitry: NASA sent a pseudo-random ranging sequence to the spacecraft and this box amplified and returned the signal. On the ground, they measured how long the signal took (by correlating the returned signal with the sent signal), which gave them an accurate distance to the spacecraft. Since this box includes amplification, it can be used without the main amplifier, and they could do that on Apollo if the main amplifier failed. From Spaceaholic: "Apollo Command Module Unified S-Band Transponder (manufactured by Motorola, Inc., Military Electronics Division, Scottsdale, Ariz.). The Unified S-Band Transponder was the only method of exchanging voice communications, tracking, biomedical, and ranging, transmission of pulse code modulated (PCM) data and television, and reception of uplinked data from Mission Control once the Apollo Command Module was outside a range of 1500 nautical miles and line of sight from Manned Space Flight Network (MSFN) ground stations strung around the Earth (within that range, VHF was available). The term "Unified" is applicable because the communications system combined the functions of (signal) acquisition, telemetry, command, voice, television and tracking on one radio link. This design resulted in fewer antennas/electronics assemblies (and thus decreased complexity and weight) on both the spacecraft and the ground station segments of the MSFN. The Unified S-Band Equipment (USBE) onboard the Apollo Command Module, Lunar Module, Lunar Rover were absolutely critical to the successful execution of the Apollo program; and reliability was assured through the implementation of full redundant, heavily tested design. The Electronic assembly hosts a redundant architecture consisting of two phase-locked transponders and one frequency modulated transmitter housed in single, gasket-sealed, machined aluminum case, 9.5 by 6 by 21 inches. The unit weighs 32 pounds, operated from 400 Hertz power, with RF output of 300 milliwatts, with a fixed transmit frequency of 2287.5 Megahertz (MHZ) / receive frequency 2106.4 MHZ. The S-band transponder is a double-superheterodyne phase-lock loop receiver that accepted a phase-modulated radio frequency signal containing the updata and up-voice subcarriers, and a pseudo-random noise code when ranging was desired. This signal is supplied to the receiver via the triplexer integral to the S-band power amplifier equipment and presented to three separate detectors: the narrow- band loop phase detector, the narrow-band coherent amplitude detector, and the wide-band phase detector. In the wide-band phase detector, the intermediate frequency is detected, and the 70-kiloHertz up-data and kilohertz up-voice subcarriers are extracted, amplified, and routed to the up-data and up-voice discriminators in the premodulation processor. When operating in a ranging mode, the pseudo-random noise ranging signal is detected, filtered, and routed to the S-band transmitter as a signal input to the phase modulator. In the loop- phase detector, the intermediate frequency signal is filtered and detected by comparing it with the loop reference frequency. The resulting dc output is used to control the frequency of the voltage-controlled oscillator. The output of the voltage controlled oscillator is used as the reference frequency for receiver circuits as well as for the transmitter. The coherent amplitude detector provided the automatic gain control for receiver sensitivity control. In addition, it detected the amplitude modulation of the carrier introduced by the high-gain antenna system. This detected output was returned to the antenna control system to point the high- gain antenna to the ground station. When the antenna pointed at the ground station, the amplitude modulation was minimized. An additional function of the detector was to select the auxiliary oscillator to provide a stable carrier for the transmitter, whenever the receiver lost lock. The S-band transponders could transmit a phase- modulated signal with the initial transmitter frequency obtained from one of two sources: the voltage controlled oscillator in the phase-locked disband receiver or the auxiliary oscillator in the transmitter. Selection of the excitation was controlled by a coherent amplitude detector. The S-band equipment also contains a separate FM transmitter which permitted scientific, television, or playback data to be sent simultaneously to the ground while voice, real-time data, and ranging were being sent via the transponder." Flickr file: www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/51319733651/in/feed-22706-1626631616-1-72157719561989546 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License .

Official NASA model of the C-5 Nuclear Booster. Cast aluminum painted black & white with two nose cones for two versions of the last stage. The Saturn C-5N was a successor design for Apollo's Saturn V launch vehicle which would have had a nuclear thermal third stage. This one change would have increased the payload of the standard Saturn V to Low Earth orbit from 118,000 kg to 155,000 kg. In the solid core nuclear design (see diagram below), liquid hydrogen is heated to a high temperature in a nuclear reactor and then expands through a rocket nozzle to create thrust. The external nuclear heat source theoretically allows a higher effective exhaust velocity and is expected to double or triple payload capacity compared to chemical propellants that store energy internally. Here's a nice video overview by Amy Shira Teitel, and written summary here. The NERVA (Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application) Program was a collective effort between the US Atomic Energy Commission and NASA. The Saturn C-5N was designed as an evolutionary successor to the Saturn V, intended for the planned crewed mission to Mars by 1980, it would have cut crewed transit times to Mars to about 4 months, instead of the 8–9 months of chemical rocket engines. However the Mars mission, along with all work related to the evolutionary successors of the Saturn V, was cancelled in 1972 by the Nixon Administration. The ground testing of the Nuclear thermal rocket engines intended for the Saturn C-5N still hold a number of combined rocket thrust and specific impulse records. Photograph by Steve Jurvetson under a CC-BY-2.0 free license. Flickr file: www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/51827449679 Short URL: flic.kr/p/2mXPe9B This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 International License .

From Curious Marc. I bet the original Soviet designers of this device never imagined it could be revived as a cuckoo clock with sounds from Soviet space transmissions. From the FV artifact tour, Part I. Flickr file: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/51319535682/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License .

Vintage scale model of the lunar orbiter spacecraft, measuring approximately 22 x 15 x 18", and features four solar panels, the directional and omni-directional antennas (all of which fold up for launch), and the central station showing tanks, camera lenses, detectors, and other systems. From the personal collection of Charlie Dry, a former Apollo test astronaut and research engineer and senior scientific analyst at NASA. The Lunar Orbiter program consisted of five unmanned lunar orbiter missions launched by the United States between 1966 and 1967. The crafts were designed to help select Apollo landing sites by mapping the surface of the moon; as a result, these orbiters provided the first photographs from lunar orbit. In addition to the near global photographic coverage of the Moon, Lunar Orbiter provided additional information that aided Apollo. The micrometeoroid experiments recorded 22 impacts showing the average micrometeoroid flux near the Moon was about two orders of magnitude greater than in interplanetary space but slightly less than the near Earth environment. The radiation experiments confirmed that the design of Apollo hardware would protect the astronauts from average and greater-than-average short term exposure to solar particle events. Analysis of the spacecraft orbits found evidence of gravity perturbations, which suggested that the Moon was not gravatationally uniform. Instead it appeared as if buried concentrations of mass were under the mare deposits. By discovering and defining these "mascons," Lunar Orbiter made it possible for the Apollo missions to conduct highly accurate landings and precision rendezvous. After depleting their film supplies, all five Lunar Orbiters were purposely crashed onto the Moon to prevent their radio transmitters from interfering with future spacecraft. Photo by Steve Jurvetson uploaded on Flickr under a Creative Commons CC-BY-2.0 free license. Flickr file: www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/50024117333 Short URL: flic.kr/p/2jdsFgB This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 International License .

The manual focus and shallow focal plane made it a fun exercise in focusing on being present. :) When it worked, it was like a little present... more below. Photo by Steve Jurvetson uploaded on Flickr under a Creative Commons CC-BY-2.0 free license. Flickr file: www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/36914951593 Short URL: flic.kr/p/Yf3M1D Also on Wikimedia Commons. Wikimedia Commons file: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Testing_Zhongyi_Speedmaster_lens.jpg This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 International License .

This design pre-dates the digital clocks of the later Soyuz designs. It flew on one of the early Soyuz T spacecraft, which started as a military design in 1967 and went through a complete redesign in the late 70’s with a launch escape system and solar cells. This was the first spacecraft to ferry three astronauts in space suits (unlike the slapdash Voskhod space race entrant). Flight 10 of Soyuz T was the first manned pad abort as the rocket blew up on the pad; the launch escape tower pulled the astronauts away to safety at 20 G’s. The clock module provides current Moscow time, preset announcement time, and a stopwatch. The stopwatch is used for the propulsion system engine burn timing, to make sure it burns for the calculated time to reach the mission trajectory. It also flew in the Buran space shuttle and Almaz military space station (below). I could use some help with the translation notes above. Спасибо большое! Flickr file: www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/8328690534 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License .