Lost Apollo - The LEM Optical Rendezvous System

Graham1973

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During the development of the Apollo Spacecraft, one key aspect of the mission was how to ensure the LEM and CSM met up at the end of the period of lunar exploration. Two systems started developing, Radar Rendezvous, which was the system picked. The other system was known as the Optical Rendezvous System and ultimately lost out because the software to support it was deemed to take up too much space in the AGC memory banks. Some of that software was recovered by the Virtual AGC Project as it had been incorporated into 'Aurora rev.88' the LM AGC test software

The hardware was developed by Hughes and the linked report which dates from 1966 covers the prototype hardware, I've not been able to locate any documentation that shows just where the beacon was to be mounted on the CSM.

 

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