User:Branson03/tracked

Main Article: Apollo missions tracked by independent parties

Aside from NASA, various entities and individuals observed through various means the Apollo missions as they took place. For later missions NASA released information via the press explaining where third party observers could expect to see the various craft at specific times (assuming launch was on schedule).

Observers of all missions
Many people claim that "the Soviets closely tracked the Apollos all the way to the Moon and back.", although no evidence of this has been presented. The Soviets did monitor the missions at the Space Transmissions Corps, which was "fully equipped with the latest intelligence-gathering and surveillance equipment". Vasali Mishin ("The Moon Programme That Faltered."), in Spaceflight. 33 (March 1991): 2-3 describes how the Soviet Moon programme lost energy after Apollo.

In Australia, Honeysuckle Creek monitored transmissions from Apollo missions, from:
 * Tidbinbilla radio telescope made observations.
 * Carnavon received radio transmissions
 * Deaking Switching Station was the switching station for the Apollo television broadcasts.

Apollo 8

 * December 21, 1968 - 18:00 UT - Amateur astronomers (H.R. Hatfield, M.J. Hendrie, F. Kent, Alan Heath, and M.J. Oates) in the UK photographed what might have been a fuel dump from the jettisoned S-IVB stage.


 * Pic du Midi Observatory (in the French Pyrenees); the Catalina Station of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory (University of Arizona); Corralitos Observatory, New Mexico, then operated by Northwestern University; McDonald Observatory of the University of Texas; and Lick Observatory of the University of California all filed reports of observations.


 * Dr. Michael Moutsoulas at Pic du Midi reported an initial sighting around 17:10 UT on December 21 with the 1.1-meter reflector as an object (magnitude near 10, through clouds) moving eastward near the predicted location of Apollo 8. He used a 60-cm refractor to observe a cluster of objects which were obscured by the appearance of a nebulous cloud at a time which matches a firing of the service module engine to assure adequate separation from the S-IVB. This event can be traced with the Apollo 8 Flight Journal, noting that launch was at 0751 EST or 12:51 UT on December 21.


 * Justus Dunlap and other at Corralitos Observatory (then operated by Northwestern University) obtained over 400 short-exposure intensified images, giving very accurate locations for the spacecraft.


 * The 2.1m Struve telescope at McDonald, from 01:50-2:37 UT observed the brightest object flashing as bright as magnitude 15, with the flash pattern recurring about once a minute.


 * The Lick observations during the return coast to Earth produced live TV pictures broadcast to West Coast viewers via KQED-TV in San Francisco.


 * An article in the March 1969 issue of Sky and Telescope ("Optical Observations of Apollo 8" by Harold B. Liemon (Geo-Astrophysics Laboratory, Boeing Scientific Research Laboratories), pp. 156-160) compiled a number of observations (Boeing was a NASA subcontractor).


 * The first post-launch sightings were from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) station on Maui, and observed the TLI burn near 15:44 UT on December 21. (The Smithsonian Institute is funded by the US government).


 * Table Mountain, a Deep Space Netowrk station, reports that they tracked all the Apollo lunar missions except 17.

Apollo 10

 * A list of sightings of Apollo 10 were reported in "Apollo 10 Optical Tracking", Sky and Telescope, July 1969, pp. 62-63.

Apollo 11

 * The Bochum Observatory director (Professor Heinz Kaminski) was able to provide confirmation of events and data independent of both the Russian and US space agencies.


 * A compilation of sightings appeared in "Observations of Apollo 11", Sky and Telescope, November 1969, pp. 358-359.


 * The Madrid Apollo Station, part of the Deep Space Network, built in Fresnedillas, near Madrid, Spain tracked Apollo 11.


 * Goldstone in California tracked Apollo 11.


 * At Jodrell Bank Observatory in the UK the telescope was used to observe the mission, as it had been many years previously for Sputnik.

Apollo 12
Paul Maley reports several sightings of the Apollo 12 Command Module. 

Apollo 12 brought samples from Surveyor 3 back to Earth. These samples were determined to have been exposed to lunar conditions. 

Apollo 13
Chabot Observatory calendar records an application of optical tracking during the final phases of Apollo 13, on 17 April 1970. "Rachel, Chabot Observatory's 20-inch refracting telescope, helps bring Apollo 13 and its crew home. One last burn of the lunar lander engines was needed before the crippled spacecraft's re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere. In order to compute that last burn, NASA needed a precise position of the spacecraft, obtainable only by telescopic observation. All the observatories that could have done this were clouded over, except Oakland's Chabot Observatory, where members of the Eastbay Astronomical Society had been tracking the Moon flights. EAS members received an urgent call from NASA Ames Research Station, which had ties with Chabot's educational program since the 60's, and they put the Observatory's historic 20-inch refractor to work. They were able to send the needed data to Ames, and the Apollo crew was able to make the needed correction and to return safely to Earth on this date in 1970."

Apollo 14
The Corralitos Observatory photographed Apollo 14.

Apollo 16
Jewett Observatory at Washington State University reported sightings of Apollo 16.

Apollo 17
Sven Grahn describes several amateur sightings of Apollo 17.