They ignited the third stage of the Saturn V rocket one final time, and injected themselves into an orbit around the moon! This was called Translunar Injection (TLI). Translunar Insertion (TLI)Īfter orbiting one and a half times around the Earth, and 2 hours and 52 minutes into the mission, the most incredible moment in human exploration occured. Notice how, as you approach about 11km/s, the orbit rapidly becomes infinitely large. When the orbit becomes very large, you will need to zoom out to "Moon scale". Make the initial velocity a bit bigger, and notice how the orbit becomes elliptical. Press the "full screen" button in the lower right corner to make your life easier. Once the applet is loaded (which can take some time), press "play" to start the simulation. The following applet simulates this parking orbit. At this speed, it takes about 90 minutes to go around the earth. Its altitude was 190km, and its speed (with respect to the fixed background stars) was 7.7km/s. It had reached a "parking orbit" around the Earth. After 8 minutes and 11 seconds, its engine stopped firing. The rocket launched at 9:32am, initially going straight up vertically, but then gradually heading east (to be precise, 72 degrees east of north) over the Atlantic as its altitude incresed. Update: There will also be a "From The Earth To The Moon" public lecture on 1st August! To jump to a the main Moonshot! simulation of the figure-eight free return orbit that Apollo 11 used, click here (there is also a stand-alone version). All distances, including the radius of the earth and the moon (but not the size rocket!) are drawn accurately to scale. The following interactive simulations of their flight, made with the free software GeoGebra, commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission. Three days later, Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the moon, a historic moment. At 9:32am on the 16th of July 1969, the Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins launched off in their Saturn V rocket from Cape Canaveral.
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