U.S. SPACE PROBE
Surveyor 111 Nears Moon (N.Z.P.A.-tleuter—Copyright) PASADENA, April 19. America’s “moon-shovel” space probe should touch down gently on the lunar surface just after midday today to try to check whether the moon's crust can take the weight of a manned space ship. The 10ft craft, launched from Cape Kennedy on Monday, is designed to dig a hole in the moon’s surface with a mechanical scoop and send to earth pictures of the consistency of the lunar soil and rocks.
After a near-perfect launching requiring only minor midflight adjustment in speed and. direction, Surveyor 111 will settle on its tripod landing gear in the moon’s ocean of Storms—an area chosen for future landings by United States astronauts.
Twenty hours later the electrically-driven scoop, as big as a man’s hand, will be activated by scientists at a tracking station in California. It will dig an IBin trench and lift grains of the lunar soil.
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Bibliographic details
Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31349, 20 April 1967, Page 15
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154U.S. SPACE PROBE Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31349, 20 April 1967, Page 15
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