Apollo 13 Imaged Far Side’s Mandel’shtam Crater During Lunar Flyby

Summary: Apollo 13 imaged the far side’s Mandel’shtam Crater during a lunar flyby that coursed behind the moon Wednesday, April 15, 1970.

Oblique, northeast-looking view of lunar far side, photographed April 1970 from the Apollo 13 spacecraft, shows Mandel’shtam Crater (center left) at the horizon, south (left) of Papaelski Crater; satellite craters Mandel’shtam A (crater center) and Mandel’shtam R and T (west-southwest rim) are also discernible; NASA image AS13-62-8918: Generally not subject to copyright in the United States; may use this material for educational or informational purposes, including photo collections, textbooks, public exhibits, computer graphical simulations and Internet Web pages; general permission extends to personal Web pages, via NASA Image and Video Library

Apollo 13 imaged the far side’s Mandel’shtam Crater during a lunar flyby that coursed the spacecraft behind the moon Wednesday, April 15, 1970.

The Apollo 13 mission launched Saturday, April 11, 1970, at 19:13 Greenwich Mean Time (2:13 p.m. Eastern Standard Time) as the Apollo space program’s seventh manned and third lunar landing mission. Key goals aimed for lunar landing in and exploration of the lunar highlands northeast of Mare Cognitum (Sea That Has Become Known), around Fra Mauro Crater.

A catastrophic cryogenic oxygen tank problem in the spacecraft's Service Module, however, impelled Command Module Odyssey Pilot John “Jack” Leonard Swigert Jr. (Aug. 30, 1931-Dec. 27, 1982) to report Tuesday, April 14, at 03:08:20 GMT (Monday, April 13, at 10:08 p.m. EST) that ". . . we've had a problem here.” Swigert’s report occurred at 055:55:20 Ground Elapsed Time (GET). Ground Elapsed Time sets to zero at “the last integral second before liftoff,” according to freelance space writer Richard W. Orloff in his Apollo by the Numbers, first published by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 2001. GET counts forward in hours, minutes and seconds (hhh:mm:ss) from Range Zero.

Command Module Odyssey’s devastating problems deprived Commander James Arthur Lovell Jr. (born March 25, 1928) and Lunar Module Aquarius Pilot Fred Wallace Haise Jr. (born Nov. 14, 1933) of their lunar landing. The mission switched into a rescue operation, with NASA’s urgent focus on safely and timely returning Commander Lovell, LMP Haise and Command Module Pilot John “Jack” leonard Swigert Jr. (Aug. 30, 1931-Dec. 27, 1982) to Earth.

The free-return trajectory to Earth required a continued course to the moon and a circumlunar trajectory to achieve a trans-Earth trajectory into Earth’s sphere of influence. The spacecraft’s lunar flyby entailed a communications blackouts during the traversal of the moon’s far side.

Entrance into lunar occultation began Wednesday, April 15, at 00:21:35 GMT (7:21 p.m. EST; 077:08:35 GET) with the Apollo 13 spacecraft’s reach of the moon’s far side. Lunar occultation and radio silence ended 24 minutes 45 seconds later, at 00:46:10 GMT (7:46 p.m. EST; 077:33:10 GET), with the spacecraft’s emergence from the far side.

Mandel’shtam Crater is one of the features in the lunar far side’s northern hemisphere that was photographed during the Apollo 13 spacecraft’s flyby. Black-and-white, 50-year-old images reveal the crater at the horizon in oblique views looking northeast from the spacecraft.

The battered crater is centered at 5.7 degrees north latitude and 162.39 degrees east longitude, according to the International Astronomical Union’s (IAU) Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature. As a northern hemisphere crater, its northernmost and southernmost latitudes reach 8.7 degrees north and 2.7 north degrees, respectively. As an eastern hemisphere crater, its easternmost and westernmost longitudes extend to 165.4 degrees east and 159.37 degrees east, respectively. Its diameter spans 181.89 kilometers.

Mandel’shtam Crater parents eight named satellites. The largest satellite, Mandel’shtam A, with a diameter of 61.94 kilometers, claims the central portion of the interior floor. The interior also shelters Mandel’shtam N. With a diameter of 25.28 kilometers, Mandel’shtam N is found along the south-southwestern inner edge. Mandel’shtam R, with a diameter of 54.02 kilometers, breaches its parent’s rim to the west-southwest. Mandel’shtam T, with a diameter of 36.22 kilometers, lies in the parent crater’s interior and hugs Mandel’shtam R’s northeastern edge.

Mandel’shtam Q emerges to the southwest of its parent crater. Its diameter measures 19.68 kilometers.

Mandel’shtam Y anchors at its parent’s northern edge. Its diameter measures 32.48 kilometers.

Small, rayed Mandel’shtam F, with a diameter of 15.39 kilometers, lies to its parent’s east. With a diameter of 28.56 kilometers, Mandel’shtam G clings to Mandel’shtam F’s southern edge.

Mandel’shtam Crater honors Belarusian-Jewish Soviet physicist Leonid Isaakovich Mandel’shtam (May 4, 1879-Nov. 27, 1944). The crater’s name received official approval in 1970. The IAU officially approved the letter designations for eight Mandel'shtam satellites in 2006.

The takeaway for Apollo 13’s imaging of Mandel’shtam Crater during the spacecraft’s flight over the moon’s far side is that the mission’s 50-year-old, black-and-white photographs clearly reveal the distinctive crater and some of its satellites along the oblique view’s horizon.

Mandel’shtam Crater (green) nearly attaches to its northeastern neighbor, Papaleksi Crater (upper center right), and parents eight officially named satellites; labels added: via USGS/IAU Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Oblique, northeast-looking view of lunar far side, photographed April 1970 from the Apollo 13 spacecraft, shows Mandel’shtam Crater (center left) at the horizon, south (left) of Papaelski Crater; satellite craters Mandel’shtam A (crater center) and Mandel’shtam R and T (west-southwest rim) are also discernible; NASA image AS13-62-8918: Generally not subject to copyright in the United States; may use this material for educational or informational purposes, including photo collections, textbooks, public exhibits, computer graphical simulations and Internet Web pages; general permission extends to personal Web pages, via NASA Image and Video Library @ https://images.nasa.gov/details-as13-62-8918; NASA Johnson, CC BY-NC 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasa2explore/; Courtesy NASA, Public Domain, via DVIDS Defense Visual Information Distribution Service @ https://www.dvidshub.net/image/752548/apollo-13-mission-image-view-sea-muscovy-mare-moscovienseand-craters-papaleksi-and-spencer-jones

Mandel’shtam Crater (green) nearly attaches to its northeastern neighbor, Papaleksi Crater (upper center right), and parents eight officially named satellites; labels added: via USGS/IAU Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature @ https://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/Feature/3625

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