Taking the Eagle’s view

Images of humankind’s first step on the Moon travelled more than 384,000km almost instantly to be seen live across the Earth.

INFOGRAPHIC ANTHONY CALVERT

Tranquility Base The downlink from Tranquility Base (the mission’s landing site in the Sea of Tranquility) to Goldstone is in white, to Honeysuckle in red, and to Parkes in green. The fourth downlink, coloured yellow, is transmitting signals from the Command and Service Module in orbit around the Moon, to Tidbinbilla. AS NEIL ARMSTRONG climbed down the Lunar Module’s ladder, he activated a remote TV camera that transmitted live pictures of the scene to the Apollo tracking stations at Goldstone in California and Honeysuckle Creek outside Canberra. At that time, both stations had the Lunar Module in view and both sent their TV signals on to Mission Control in Houston, Texas. The first TV images seen by the record worldwide audience came from Goldstone. But due to technical difficulties, Houston switched to…

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Australian Geographic (Digital) - 1 Issue, July/August 2019

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