THE LUNAR ORBITER 5 MISSION

Mission Description

Launch:  1 August 1967
Imaged Moon:  6-18 August 1967
Lunar mapping and high-resolution survey mission

Mission 5, the last of the Lunar Orbiter missions, was basically similar to the first three missions but with two important differences. These were a highly inclined (85°) orbit (as was used for mission 4) and an increase in the number of individual photographic sites. The number of frames used for farside photography was also increased. A total of 174 exposures were taken in 50 sequences during 69 orbits. With the exception of the addition of the Earth photo site and some relocations of photo sites during the mission, the photo mission was accomplished according to premission plans. Lunar Orbiter 5 significantly increased the photographic data available on the lunar surface. Photography at least an order of magnitude improvement in resolution over mission 4 was obtained for numerous areas of particular interest on the nearside, and farside photography provided coverage of essentially all areas not covered during the preceding four missions.

Selection of the Target Sites

To expedite planning, initial selection of mission 5 sites was made prior to the availability of mission 4 photographic data. When this data became available for additional evaluation of the initial site selections, a few sites were deleted and the location of others were modified to obtain more significant data. Photo sites included candidate Apollo landing sites, Apollo applications program sites, Surveyor landing sites, and scientifically interesting sites. In all, 69 photo sites were selected, 45 on the nearside, and 24 on the farside.