the Apollo Lunar Module

The Apollo Lunar Module was the lander portion of the Apollo spacecraft built for the US Apollo programme by Grumman to achieve the transit from cislunar orbit to the surface and back. The module was also known as the LM from the manufacturer designation (often pronounced "lem," from NASA's early name for it, Lunar Excursion Module).

The module was designed to carry a crew of two and rested on four landing legs. It consisted of two stages—the descent stage module and the ascent stage. The total mass of the module was 15,264 kg, with the majority (10,334 kg) in the descent stage. Initially unpopular because the many delays in its development significantly stretched the projected timeline of the Apollo programme, the LM eventually became the most reliable component of the Apollo/Saturn system, the only one never to suffer any failure that significantly impacted a mission, and in at least one instance (LM-7 Aquarius) greatly exceeded its design requirements.

Article of the Week

SPACEYARD: A white dwarf, also called a degenerate dwarf, is a small star composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. As white dwarfs have mass comparable to the Sun's and their volume is comparable to the Earth's, they are very dense. Their faint luminosity comes from the emission of stored heat. They comprise roughly 6% of all known stars in the solar neighborhood. The unusual faintness of white dwarfs was first recognized in 1910 by Henry Norris Russell, Edward Charles Pickering and Williamina Fleming; the name white dwarf was coined by Willem Luyten in 1922.
White dwarfs are thought to be the final evolutionary state of all stars whose mass is not too high—over 97% of the stars in our Galaxy. After the hydroge-fusing lifetime of a main-sequence star of low or medium mass ends, it will expand to a red giant which fuses helium to carbon and oxygen in its core by the triple-alpha process. If a red giant has insufficient mass to generate the core temperatures required to fuse carbon, an inert mass of carbon and oxygen will build up at its center. After shedding its outer layers to form a planetary nebula, it will leave behind this core, which forms the remnant white dwarf. Usually, therefore, white dwarfs are composed of carbon and oxygen. It is also possible that core temperatures suffice to fuse carbon but not neon, in which case an oxygen-neon-magnesium white dwarf may be formed. Also, some helium white dwarfs appear to have been formed by mass loss in binary systems.

source: wikipedia encyclopedia

Article of the Week

Did you Know?

SPACEYARD:

that the US National Reconnaissance Office includes clues to the identity of their classified satellites in their mission patches (pictured)?

…that the record for the most people on a single spacecraft for the duration of its flight is eight, aboard Space Shuttle Challenger on STS-61-A in 1985?

…that the first two SpaceShipTwo spacecraft will be named VSS Enterprise and VSS Voyager, reportedly after spacecraft in Star Trek?

source: wikipedia

Did you Know?

Remembering On this Day: "Spaceflight"

SPACEYARD: Remembering On this D A white dwarf, also called a degenerate dwarf, is a small star composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. As white dwarfs have mass comparable to the Sun's and their volume is comparable to the Earth's, they are very dense. Their faint luminosity comes from the emission of stored heat. They comprise roughly 6% of all known stars in the solar neighborhood. The unusual faintness of white dwarfs was first recognized in 1910 by Henry Norris Russell, Edward Charles Pickering and Williamina Fleming; the name white dwarf was coined by Willem Luyten in 1922.
White dwarfs are thought to be the final evolutionary state of all stars whose mass is not too high—over 97% of the stars in our Galaxy. After the hydroge-fusing lifetime of a main-sequence star of low or medium mass ends, it will expand to a red giant which fuses helium to carbon and oxygen in its core by the triple-alpha process. If a red giant has insufficient mass to generate the core temperatures required to fuse carbon, an inert mass of carbon and oxygen will build up at its center. After shedding its outer layers to form a planetary nebula, it will leave behind this core, which forms the remnant white dwarf. Usually, therefore, white dwarfs are composed of carbon and oxygen. It is also possible that core temperatures suffice to fuse carbon but not neon, in which case an oxygen-neon-magnesium white dwarf may be formed. Also, some helium white dwarfs appear to have been formed by mass loss in binary systems.

source: wikipedia encyclopedia

ay: "Spaceflight"