Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project

Earth taken from Lunar Orbiter 1 in 1966. Image as originally shown to the public displays extensive flaws and striping.
Earth taken from Lunar Orbiter 1 in 1966. This image shows the improvement in picture quality after capture and reprocessing by LOIRP.

The Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP) was a project to digitize the original analog data tapes from the five Lunar Orbiter spacecraft that were sent to the Moon in 1966 and 1967; it was funded by NASA, SkyCorp, SpaceRef Interactive, and private individuals.[1]

The first image to be successfully recovered by the project was released in November 2008. It was the first photograph of the Earth from the Moon, taken in August 1966. On February 20, 2014, the project announced it had completed the primary tape capture portion of the project.[2] One medium resolution image, most of one high resolution image and parts of three others are missing, apparently due to lapses at the time they were being recorded.[3] The rest of the Lunar Orbiter images have been successfully recovered[2] and have been published in NASA's Planetary Data System.[4]

  1. ^ "The Moon View". The New York Times. November 19, 2008. Archived from the original on November 20, 2008. Retrieved November 20, 2008.
  2. ^ a b Wingo, Dennis (February 20, 2014). "Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP) Status 20 February 2014". MoonViews. Archived from the original on December 5, 2018. Retrieved September 23, 2014.
  3. ^ Wingo, Dennis (February 24, 2014). "Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP) Status 24 February 2014". MoonViews. Archived from the original on December 5, 2018. Retrieved September 23, 2014.
  4. ^ Cowing, Keith (February 10, 2018). "LOIRP Imagery and Data Available on NASA Planetary Data System". Moon Views. Archived from the original on February 11, 2018. Retrieved February 10, 2018.