On July 20, 1969, the day humanity made history again, NASA astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first two humans to land on the Moon. They surfaced a day later using the ascent stage of their Eagle lander. Thus, on July 21, 1969, Apollo 11’s Eagle lunar ascent stage lifted off the surface of the Moon to meet the orbiting Columbia command module . The crew then closed the hatch and the command module returned to Earth.
However, a new study suggests that part of Apollo 11’s ‘Eagle’ Lunar Module (LM), which was believed to have crashed on the moon, may still be orbiting our satellite.
California astronomical enthusiast James Meador performed simulations of the predicted orbit of the LM’s ascent stage using the General Mission Analysis Tool (GMAT), which was developed by NASA as part of the GRAIL spacecraft, and discovered that it can still orbit the moon at about 100 kilometers, the same distance that it was abandoned.
“A rough analysis indicates that Eagle would be more than 125 kilometers above the surface in approximately 25% of the crossings. If radar is supposed to be capable of detecting objects at this altitude, then four judiciously chosen 2-hour observation periods should provide sufficient coverage to possibly relocate one of the most important artifacts in the history of space exploration, ”he says. Piss.
Recall that unlike this Apollo 11 module, the Apollo 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17 lunar ascent modules deliberately slammed into the Moon to help calibrate the seismometers that the astronauts had left on the surface.
