The end of the conspiracy theories: Smart-1 photographed the landing sites of the Apollo spacecraft

A European spacecraft orbiting the moon became a time machine when it managed to photograph landing sites of unmanned Soviet spacecraft and the areas where crews of several Apollo spacecraft landed. Pictures have not yet been published

New images of old Apollo landing sites taken by the Smart 1 spacecraft may disprove once and for all conspiracy theories that American astronauts neither reached the moon nor walked on its surface. NASA landed six manned spacecraft on the moon in the years 1969-1972.
Fringe theories hold that the images of the flag flying on the moon where there is no atmosphere and other details show that NASA never landed on the moon. No serious scientist or historian specializing in space programs doubts the success of the Apollo program.

"We are watching some of the landing sites for calibration and ground tests," said Bernard Foing, chief scientist of the European Space Agency's science program.

Boeing told Space.com that the Smart-1 spacecraft orbiting the moon has already covered the historic Apollo 11 landing site, as well as the landing sites of Apollo 16 and 17 and the unmanned Soviet spacecraft Luna 16 and Luna 20 that crash-landed on the moon. The pictures have not been published yet.

Given Smart-1's initial high orbit, it may still be difficult to observe the details, Poing explains. Using the ion engine, the spacecraft will descend to a lower orbit above the surface of the moon. Boeing says that at all Apollo sites, the jet stream from the lunar modules leaving the surface has changed, and this serves as an excellent target for Smart-1's imaging systems.

"We will look for them and not only in black and white photographs but also in three colors and this will give us a picture about the minerals, the remains of the gases and the disturbances caused by the plumes of the rocket engines." said.

Smart 1 operators are also planning a series of actions that will ensure that the spacecraft's camera focuses on the landing sites every time it passes over them. According to Foyle, along with these and other observations, the spacecraft will also collect data in preparation for future international missions to the moon.
Smart-1's mission was recently extended by a year and will end in August 2006. The extension will allow for stereoscopic photographs of several areas of interest and thus topographic maps of specific areas and planned landing sites will be created.

Why not mourn?

If Smart-1 can view these details, why not use Hubble to photograph the Apollo landing sites? Hubble photographed the moon in 1999? "Nothing left on the moon can be recorded in Hubble's images," said the Space Telescope Institute. "It will appear as a point" they added.