Moon Apollo Metric Mapping Camera Data

Primary Authors

Arizona State University

Originators

NASA, Johnson Space Center

Publisher

USGS Astrogeology Science Center

Publication Date

2012-09-25

Abstract

The Apollo Metric Mapping Cameras were carried on the Apollo 15, 16, and 17 missions to map Earth’s Moon with a high degree of geometric fidelity. This archive collection consists of 7247 usable “Mapping” or Metric Camera frames. These data result from a NASA-funded Apollo Image digitization project managed by Dr. Mark S. Robinson of Arizona State University (ASU). This archive consists of original, raw or unprocessed digital scans (full resolution 16-bit TIFF files, 1.3 Gbytes each) of the original flight films carried to the Moon by the Apollo missions, now in storage in the Film Archive, Building 8 at the NASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (see also http://apollo.sese.asu.edu/). The Metric photographs were acquired with a Leica DSW700 photogrammetric scanner allowing for very high geometric and radiometric fidelity, and were scanned at very high spatial resolutions (up to 200 pixels/mm, pixel size = 5 microns) and an extended bit depth (14-bit A/D, 16384 shades of gray) to ensure that as much of the information content of the film is preserved. This archive includes only the usable frames (as compared to “unusable” frames, a designation used by NASA with the original Apollo mission data acquisition), although the ASU collection includes both usable and unusable frames. Unusable frames often contain only image artifacts, are very saturated, or include imaging of objects other than the lunar surface. Lower-resolution digital versions and a summary of these frame designations can be found at the Lunar and Planetary Institute (http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/apollo/catalog/metric/). In addition to mission, instrument and archive documentation and data, the archive collection includes these usable frame collections for the Apollo Metric “Mapping” Cameras (7247 usable, 2906 unusable, 10153 total): Apollo 15: 2616 usable (760 unusable, 3376 total) Apollo 16: 2491 usable (989 unusable, 3480 total) Apollo 17: 2140 usable (1157 unusable, 3297 total) Metric Camera Description: The Apollo spacecraft system included a vacant area in the Service Module, called the Scientific Instrumentation Module (SIM) Bay, reserved for new instrumentation designed to meet Apollo mission lunar surface mapping goals. Beginning with Apollo 15, CSM SIM Bays contained a variety of instruments designed to characterize the Moon and its environment, including cameras as well as x-ray, alpha-particle, gamma-ray, and mass spectrometers to investigate the properties of the lunar surface. One of the cameras was the Apollo Lunar Metric Mapping Camera, frequently referred to as the Metric camera. During Apollo 15, 16, and 17 missions, over 7000 frames were acquired by the Apollo Lunar Mapping Cameras, resulting in coverage of ~20% of the Moon's surface at resolutions of about 10-20 m/pixel. The Metric camera was produced by the Fairchild Corporation, and collected images of the Moon from lunar orbit through the Apollo 15, 16, and 17 missions. The Metric camera consisted of three systems: 1) The camera, which collected images of the lunar surface imprinted with reseau marks to compensate for film shrinking during processing 2) the stellar camera, which collected simultaneous exposures of the off-axis starfield in order to record the orientation of the spacecraft when each lunar image was obtained, and 3) the laser altimeter, which was used to determine and record the spacecraft's altitude over the lunar surface. Because the Service Module would be ejected prior to the Command Module's reentry into the Earth's atmosphere, the exposed film from the camera systems in the SIM Bay had to be retrieved during the return journey to Earth through an extravehicular activity (EVA). The Command Module Pilots of the last three Apollo missions--Al Worden (Apollo 15), Ken Mattingly (Apollo 16) and Ron Evans (Apollo 17)--performed EVAs in cislunar space to retrieve the exposed film canisters from the SIM Bay. References: Masursky, H., Colton, G. W., & El-Baz, F. (Eds.). (1978). Apollo Over the Moon: A View from Lunar Orbit NASA SP 362. Washington, DC: Scientific and Technical Information Office 1978, National Aeronautics and Space Administration. https://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-362/cover.htm Lawrence, S.J., et al. (2008). The Apollo digital image archive: New research and data products. Paper presented at National Lunar Science Conference, NASA Lunar Science Institute, Moffett Field, CA. http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/nlsc2008/pdf/2066.pdf Speyerer, E., et al. (2006). Scanning Apollo Flight Films and Reconstructing CSM Trajectories. Eos Transactions, American Geophysical Union, 87(52), Fall Meeting Supplemental. http://abstractsearch.agu.org/meetings/2006/FM/U41C-0825.html Robinson, M. S., et al. (2008). The Apollo Digital Image Archive. Paper presented at 39th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston, TX. http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2008/pdf/1515.pdf Edmundson, K. L., et al. (2016). Photogrammetric processing of Apollo 15 Metric Camera oblique images. International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, XLI-B4, 375-381. https://doi.org/10.5194/isprs-archives-XLI-B4-375-2016

Purpose

In 2006, Arizona State University and the NASA Johnson Space Center began an ambitious project to scan the original flight films carried to the Moon by the Apollo astronauts on their mission, including the Metric camera photographs, for posterity.

Contact and Distribution

Format

Grey Scale

Access Constraints

Please credit Dr. Mark Robinson and noted authors

Access Scope

PDS

Use Constraints

none

Series Id

AxxC-L-MC-2-SCANNED-IMAGES-V1.0

Edition

September 2012

Edition Name

Archive Date

Supplemental Information

http://apollo.sese.asu.edu/, http://apollo.sese.asu.edu/METRIC_PREVIEW/index.html

Native Data Set Environment

GDAL, ISIS v3

Astrogeology Theme

Astronaut Training, Exploration, Geomorphology, Image Processing, Remote Sensing, Selenology

Mission Names

Apollo

Instrument Names

MET

Online Package Link

https://astrogeology.usgs.gov/search/map/moon_apollo_metric_mapping_camera_data

External File Size

archive

Online File Link

https://pdsimage.wr.usgs.gov/Missions/Apollo/Metric_Camera/

Contact Address

2255 N. Gemini Drive

Contact City

Flagstaff

Contact State

AZ

Contact Postal Code

86001

Contact Email

astroweb@usgs.gov

Currentness Reference

Publication date

Progress

Complete

Update Frequency

None planned

Logical Consistency

see processing description

Completeness Report

This collection consists of 7247 usable Metric Camera frames.

Process Description

These raw digital scans of the Apollo flight films were processed using a standard set of procedures. First, unexposed portions of the film along the edges of a scanned frame were cropped, and the frame was straightened. Second, the background was removed from all scans by assuming that the average DN values of the unexposed regions at the edge of each raw scanned image represent the background (i.e., film base and fog). Third, a flatfield correction (derived from the actual image data) removed vignetting to the first order. Fourth, the reseau patterns (the small white crosses visible on published Apollo images) were removed from the images. Fifth, a logarithmic histogram transformation was applied to the image to produce a virtual print that simulated the natural contrast of a conventional paper print. Sixth, since the uncompressed images produced by the initial scanning process result in extremely large images, the scale is reduced by a factor corresponding to the square root of 2 (which serves to reduce the image size by 50% to 1.2 Gbytes for the 16-bit file).

Lineage

Process Date

2006-09-01

Source Title

Apollo Metric Camera Data Set

Source Online Linkage

{http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/apollo/browse,https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/missions/index.html,http://pdsimage.wr.usgs.gov/archive/a15c-l-mc-2-scanned-images-v1.0/,http://pdsimage.wr.usgs.gov/archive/a16c-l-mc-2-scanned-images-v1.0/,http://pdsimage.wr.usgs.gov/archive/a17c-l-mc-2-scanned-images-v1.0/}

Source PDS Archive

Apollo

PDS Status

PDS 3 Archived

Attribute Accuracy Report

Best Effort

Geospatial Information

Target

Moon

System

Earth

Minimum Latitude

-90

Maximum Latitude

180

Minimum Longitude

-180

Maximum Longitude

90

Direct Spatial Reference Method

Raster

Object Type

Grid Cell

Bit Type (8, 16, 32)

16

Quad Name

Radius A

1737400

Radius C

1737400

Bands

1

Map Scale (hard-copy)

200 pixels/mm

Horizontal Coordinate System Units

Degrees

Longitude Direction

Positive East

Longitude Domain

-180 to 180