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Author
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Topic: Help identifying Apollo command module pin
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The Snork
Member Posts: 12
From: Torrance, CA USA
Registered: Jul 2012
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posted 07-28-2012 05:30 PM
  
I'm a long time patch and pin collector. Currently I have a couple dozen pins that I've been trying to identify. I've seen this one on eBay go for a tidy little sum a few months back so a few people must know what it is. I know I've seen something like it but can't find anything in the post-Apollo proposals. What is it?  |
The Snork
Member Posts: 12
From: Torrance, CA USA
Registered: Jul 2012
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posted 07-28-2012 05:38 PM
Then there's this one. It's unfinished... ready to be plated. Looks like it was going to be an Apollo command module attached to a space station bu not Skylab. What is it?  |
The Snork
Member Posts: 12
From: Torrance, CA USA
Registered: Jul 2012
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posted 07-28-2012 05:45 PM
Here's a trio that have bugged me for a long time. Oldest first. I found all these in lots of satellite pins so I thought that's what this was. Or maybe a strap-on booster like an IUS. However it dawns on me while I was taking pictures of these that what I was taking as a main engine may be a mount at that all 3 of these may be ground based communication arrays. Look familiar to anyone?  
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Philip
Member Posts: 5952
From: Brussels, Belgium
Registered: Jan 2001
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posted 08-03-2012 03:31 PM
The first photo shows the Command and Service Module with two hooks to attach a chain to it. No idea about the other two, maybe satellites? |
The Snork
Member Posts: 12
From: Torrance, CA USA
Registered: Jul 2012
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posted 08-09-2012 05:14 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Philip:
The first photo shows the Command and Service Module with two hooks to attach a chain to it. No idea about the other two, maybe satellites?
First of all thank you for taking the time to reply. I guess the picture is a little confusing. What those are, are antenna dishes and the black background doesn't help. Just today I was sorting some stuff and came across a pile of old prints from North American and what do you think I find?  So apparently that pin is an early 60's version of the command module with the original plan for the steerable s-band antenna. Later replaced by the four dish version we all recognize. |
Jay Chladek
Member Posts: 2272
From: Bellevue, NE, USA
Registered: Aug 2007
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posted 08-09-2012 06:49 PM
Spacecraft Films documentary, "Live from the Moon" on the Apollo TV development flashed up a 3D graphic of that bird. If I remember correctly, it was intended to be a form of lunar orbiting Apollo craft and was designed during the period when direct ascent and EOR were on the table for a lunar landing (so the landing craft would have been an Apollo CSM with a small descent stage ring around the SPS main engine bell.This particular craft I believe was intended to be only a lunar orbiter and I don't know if those big antennas were just intended for high gain or some type of radio telescope experiment. I imagine though that the ship was intended to scout out lunar targets before the first landing flights (something Apollo 8 ended up doing, albeit as a relatively last minute mission change). It is most certainly a block one based CSM since it lacks a docking tunnel up top (some of the block 1 features were holdovers from the Apollo CSM design intended for a lunar landing). |
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