"David Lesher" wrote in message ...

So the LM had a rendezvous radar & the CSM a transponder. I never
really grokked why.

The LM was under insane weight limits, they were shaving heads off
bolts, etc. Why was the heavy radar on it, and not the CSM?

I know that in theory the LM was supposed to find & dock with a
passive CSM but:

Completely guessing:

It simplifies the search problem. They had a pretty good idea of where the
CSM was, but not necessarily where the LM would be.

And they probably had the electronics perform double-duty with the landing
radar.



a) Why was that ISTR that Plan B has the CSM docking with the LM
if it/its crew was unable to take the lead. The probe was in the
CSM hatch, could be removed by the CSM pilot, etc.

b) Even normally, I'd think that a telemetry scheme so that the LM
got radar data via existing paths would have weighed far less.

c) And with one radar, there'd have been no 1201's.....





--
Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/
CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net