Skylab-Apollo Contamination Photography

Description

Apollo 16 experiment S226 had two objectives. The first was to map the scattering function of visible light produced by any residual cloud around the spacecraft. The second was to study the dynamics of particles which occur during a dump of liquids and also to determine the decay of background brightness resulting from these dumps. The results were to be used in planning the design and operations of the Skylab astonomical observations. The first objective utilized photographs obtained with a 35-mm Nikon camera, and the second objective employed two 16-mm data acquisition cameras (DAC) and a 70-mm Hasselblad camera. The cameras were positioned to view from various windows on the CSM and were cycled through a sequence of exposures with various spacecraft orientations, camera positions, and exposure times after the liquid dump. The experiment was performed successfully and 108 usable photographs were obtained.