APOLLO SITE SHORT-LIST

When the Apollo Site Selection Board met on 30 March 1967 the Apollo officials announced that whilst they would seek further Lunar Orbiter data, that from the first three missions satisfied “the minimal requirements of the Apollo program for site survey for the first Apollo landing”. By now nine mare sites in the Apollo zone were deemed to be suitable as ‘prime sites’ for the early Apollo landings: one in Mare Foecunditatis, two in Mare Tranquillitatis, one in Sinus Medii and five in Oceanus Procellarum. These were designated ‘Set B’.4 For each such site, the US Geological Survey produced geological maps at scales of 1:25,000 and 1:100,000 to supplement the 1:1,000,000 regional maps. It was noticed that the sites on the eastern maria had high densities of large but shallow craters, and the sites on the western maria were generally flatter but rougher in detail. The astronomers had long ago noted that there was a difference in spectral hue, with the eastern maria being bluish and the western maria reddish.

On 15 December 1967 the Apollo Site Selection Board convened at the Manned Spacecraft Center to refine the target list for the first Apollo landing. All of the sites of Set B were acceptable in terms of their approach routes. However, as a landing in Mare Foecunditatis would not allow sufficient time after rounding the eastern limb for radio tracking to verify the lander’s trajectory prior to powered descent, this site was discarded. Five sites were short-listed as ‘Set C’. It was decided that three of these must be selected as options for the first landing mission, forming a prime site and two backups spaced in lunar longitude to accommodate successive 2-day delays in launch. It was recognised that the need for the crew to familiarise themselves with three sites would increase their training burden, but there would be no impact on the surface activities because the first landing was not to include a mapped traverse. In east to west sequence, the five sites were II-P-2, II-P-6, II-P-8, III-P-11 and II-P-13. Whilst it was clear that the prime site would be in the eastern hemisphere, the meeting did not specify whether it should be II-P-2 or II-P-6.

On 26 September 1968 the Set C ellipses were ‘stretched’ from 5.3 x 7.9 km to 5.0 x 15.0 km to allow for uncertainties in the Moon’s gravitational field that might cause a lander to come in either ‘short’ or ‘long’ of the designated aim point. On 3 June 1969 the Set C sites were renamed Apollo Landing Site (ALS) 1 through 5 respectively.

They were I-P-1 in Mare Foecunditatis, II-P-2 and II-P-6 in Mare Tranquillitatis, II-P-8 in Sinus Medii, and II-P-11, III-P-9, III-P-11, III-P-12 and II-P-13 in Oceanus Procellarum.