NASA Releases Restored Apollo 11 Moonwalk Video

July 16, 2009

Bob Jacobs
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1760


Mark Hess
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
301-286-6255



RELEASE: 09-166

NASA RELEASES RESTORED APOLLO 11 MOONWALK VIDEO

WASHINGTON -- NASA released Thursday newly restored video from the
July 20, 1969, live television broadcast of the Apollo 11 moonwalk.
The release commemorates the 40th anniversary of the first mission to
land astronauts on the moon.

The initial video release, part of a larger Apollo 11 moonwalk
restoration project, features 15 key moments from the historic lunar
excursion of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.

A team of Apollo-era engineers who helped produce the 1969 live
broadcast of the moonwalk acquired the best of the broadcast-format
video from a variety of sources for the restoration effort. These
included a copy of a tape recorded at NASA's Sydney, Australia, video
switching center, where down-linked television from Parkes and
Honeysuckle Creek was received for transmission to the U.S.; original
broadcast tapes from the CBS News Archive recorded via direct
microwave and landline feeds from NASA's Johnson Space Center in
Houston; and kinescopes found in film vaults at Johnson that had not
been viewed for 36 years.

"The restoration is ongoing and may produce even better video," said
Richard Nafzger, an engineer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in
Greenbelt, Md., who oversaw television processing at the ground
tracking sites during Apollo 11. "The restoration project is
scheduled to be completed in September and will provide the public,
future historians, and the National Archives with the highest quality
video of this historic event."

NASA contracted with Lowry Digital of Burbank, Calif., which
specializes in restoring aging Hollywood films and video, to take the
highest quality video available from these recordings, select the
best for digitization, and significantly enhance the video using the
company's proprietary software technology and other restoration
techniques.

Under the initial effort, Lowry restored 15 scenes representing the
most significant moments of the three and a half hours that Armstrong
and Aldrin spent on the lunar surface. NASA released the video
Thursday at a news conference at the Newseum in Washington.

On July 20, 1969, as Armstrong made the short step off the ladder of
the Lunar Excursion Module onto the powdery lunar surface, a global
community of hundreds of millions of people witnessed one of
humankind's most remarkable achievements live on television.

The black and white images of Armstrong and Aldrin bounding around
the
moon were provided by a single small video camera aboard the lunar
module. The camera used a non-standard scan format that commercial
television could not broadcast.

NASA used a scan converter to optically and electronically adapt
these
images to a standard U.S. broadcast TV signal. The tracking stations
converted the signals and transmitted them using microwave links,
Intelsat communications satellites, and AT&T analog landlines to
Mission Control in Houston. By the time the images appeared on
international television, they were substantially degraded.

At tracking stations in Australia and the United States, engineers
recorded data beamed to Earth from the lunar module onto one-inch
telemetry tapes. The tapes were recorded as a backup if the live
transmission failed or if the Apollo Project needed the data later.
Each tape contained 14 tracks of data, including bio-medical, voice,
and other information; one channel was reserved for video.

A three-year search for these original telemetry tapes was
unsuccessful. A final report on the investigation is expected to be
completed in the near future and will be publicly released at that
time.

NASA Television will provide an HD video feed of the Apollo footage
hourly from 12 - 7 p.m. on July 16 and 17. Each feed is one hour. For
NASA TV streaming video, downlink and schedule information, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

A copy of the newly restored scenes from the Apollo 11 restoration
effort can be found at:

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/hd/apollo11.html

NASA's Apollo 40th anniversary Web sites provide easy access to
various agency resources and multimedia about the program and the
history of human spaceflight, including a gallery of Apollo
multimedia features. Visit the site at:

http://www.nasa.gov/apollo40th

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