How NASA Broadcast the First Live Video From the Moon
The camera for Apollo 11 was specially built to withstand extreme lunar conditions for the duration of the mission.
The Lunar Rover wasn't used until the Apollo 15 mission, so the camera used for Apollo 11 had more limitations.
Live video from the Moon was transmitted back to Earth using advanced technology and a network of receiving stations.
Apollo 11, the NASA mission to send people to the moon, ran from July 16 to July 24, 1969. Not much can match this historic event, but the camera and filming methods used deserve attention.
Besides landing the first humans on the moon successfully, NASA also managed to broadcast the whole thing live. The Apollo 11 lunar launch ranks as one of television's most-seen events for generations.
The live broadcasts let millions experience humans taking steps in space. I can't even begin to imagine the excitement people had leading up to the mission, but luckily we can still watch the footage today. So how was broadcasting this historical event in real-time even possible all those years ago?
NASA got in touch with Westinghouse Electric company, which led to the development of a specialized camera for Apollo 11 to record this key moment. Westinghouse Electric company developed a modified slow-scan television (SSTV) camera.
The lunar environment posed challenges for the camera's design, so it was modified with special features to be able to work in space. The Moon's temperature swings between 121°C (250°F) in sunlight to -157°C (-251°F) in darkness, making standard cameras useless. The camera needed to function in both very bright conditions and deep shadows. Its design enabled clear recordings even in minimal light.
Without air in space, there was no convection or conduction to regulate temperature. Engineers at Westinghouse Electric Company designed the camera to prevent overheating in this environment.
The camera also had to last long enough in space to work for the duration of the Apollo 11 mission. It was absolutely essential for it to be energy efficient and capable of running the spacecraft's power (which was limited). So the camera's power consumption was also taken into consideration to make sure it wouldn't affect the spacecraft's energy resources too much.
The camera saved bandwidth by transmitting images in a slow-scan format and had a frame rate of 10 frames per second. The video was black-and-white and had a resolution of 320 lines. The footage looks very blurry and pixelated to viewers today, and the video was choppy as the astronauts moved on the Moon's surface. However, it could be a lot worse. Even low quality footage of something so historic is better than not having footage at all, and this represented the best space transmission technology at that time.
The Apollo 11 mission did not use a Lunar Rover because it didn't exist back then. A Lunar Roving Vehicle first appeared in 1971 during the Apollo 15 mission.
Shooting video on the Moon was only half the battle. NASA faced the challenge of sending signals across 250,000 miles of space in real-time. The antenna used contained gold-plated wire to direct image or sound signals to Earth. The live broadcast met technical problems because of distance, signal loss, and low power on the Moon.
NASA used the Unified S-band system to combine video, voice, and other data into one signal, making it easier to send everything from the Moon to Earth without needing multiple antennas. A Westinghouse slow-scan TV camera took video at 10 frames per second instead of the normal 30 frames. The lower speed helped save power as well as reduce data size.
Three stations on Earth received the signal, and it moved through ground networks (but also via satellites) to NASA's Mission Control in Houston, Texas. The raw feed was converted to work with TV broadcasts. This is because the format used in the camera for Apollo 11 was incompatible with standard TV broadcasting, so the signal had to be converted to 30 frames per second (fps) using a scan conversion process, which actually degraded the image quality even further when it was seen on television. Though the process reduced picture quality, it made live global broadcasts possible and TV networks across Earth shared these broadcasts with viewers across the world.
Remember, the lunar rover wasn't part of Apollo 11's toolkit—it would come into play on later missions—so the astronauts had fewer options for camera placement. The footage we see of Apollo 11's ascent from the Moon is from a 16mm camera inside the Lunar Module, looking out the window as the astronauts lifted off.
Even so, this close-up vantage point delivered some of the most memorable footage in history. Afterward, NASA decided to leave the Westinghouse camera right where it was, along with other gear left on the surface, to lighten the load for the journey back. That means the very camera used to show the world this milestone moment is still sitting on the Moon today.
Most people remember Neil Armstrong's 'One Small Step,' but it's easy to forget that NASA also pulled off another incredible feat—broadcasting from the Moon's surface in real-time.
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