Apollo Program - Recent Observations

Recent Observations

In 2008, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's SELENE probe observed evidence of the halo surrounding the Apollo 15 lunar module blast crater while orbiting above the lunar surface. In 2009, NASA's robotic Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, while orbiting 50 kilometres (31 mi) above the Moon, photographed the remnants of the Apollo program left on the lunar surface, and photographed each site where manned Apollo flights landed. All of the U. S. flags left on the moon during the Apollo missions were found to still be standing, with the exception of the one left during the Apollo 11 mission, which was blown over during that mission's lift-off from the lunar surface and return to the mission command module in lunar orbit; the degree to which these flags retain their original colors remains unknown.

In a November 16, 2009 editorial, The New York Times opined:

here’s something terribly wistful about these photographs of the Apollo landing sites. The detail is such that if Neil Armstrong were walking there now, we could make him out, make out his footsteps even, like the astronaut footpath clearly visible in the photos of the Apollo 14 site. Perhaps the wistfulness is caused by the sense of simple grandeur in those Apollo missions. Perhaps, too, it’s a reminder of the risk we all felt after the Eagle had landed – the possibility that it might be unable to lift off again and the astronauts would be stranded on the Moon. But it may also be that a photograph like this one is as close as we’re able to come to looking directly back into the human past.

In September 2007, the X Prize Foundation and Google announced the Google Lunar X Prize, to be awarded for a robotic lunar landing mission which transmits close-up images of the Apollo Lunar Modules and other artificial objects on the surface.