Direct ascent

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Direct ascent is a method of landing a spacecraft on the Moon or another planetary surface directly, without first assembling the vehicle in Earth orbit, or carrying a separate landing vehicle into orbit around the target body. It was proposed as the first method to achieve a crewed lunar landing in the United States Apollo program, but was rejected because it would have required developing a prohibitively large launch vehicle.

Apollo program

Artist's conception of an early Apollo spacecraft that would have used direct ascent

The

Lunar Orbit Rendezvous (LOR), which carried a smaller two-man lunar lander spacecraft for flight between lunar orbit and the surface. LOR was the strategy used successfully in Apollo.[1]

The

UR-700 modular booster for the direct ascent LK-700
ship.

Science fiction movies such as Rocketship X-M and Destination Moon have frequently depicted direct ascent missions, although the first was a two-stage vehicle which accidentally, and successfully landed on Mars, but failed to successfully return to Earth (crashed in Nova Scotia), and the second was a single-stage vehicle which successfully landed on the Moon, and speculatively returned to Earth (return not shown).

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "NASA - Lunar Orbit Rendezvous and the Apollo Program". NASA. April 22, 2008. Archived from the original on April 6, 2013. Retrieved March 27, 2011.