Multimedia Gallery
- Topic: Navigating In Space
First tested by Pioneer 4, this 26-meter antenna would later become part of the Deep Space Network.
This antenna at Goldstone, California has become a symbol of space communication.
Alphonsus crater taken by Ranger 9 Spacecraft.
Left to right: Apollo 8 astronauts James A. Lovell Jr., William A. Anders, and Frank Borman.
Celestial navigation involved taking readings with a sextant that were automatically fed into the Apollo Guidance Computer.
Astronauts used celestial sightings to update data stored in this computer, which calculated the spacecraft’s velocity and location.
To determine position in space, an Apollo astronaut located a specific star using a telescope and then took a fix using a sextant.
Length: 25 Minutes, 15 Seconds
Ed Collen, a NASA engineer, built this prototype device as a backup for Apollo astronauts in case their primary navigation system failed.
This primary atomic frequency standard, a hydrogen maser, served as the stable frequency source for the master clock.
