Close-Up of Crater Copernicus November 23, 1966 National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) This photograph was made as part of the Lunar Orbiter program, a series of five unmanned spacecraft launched into orbit around the Moon in 1966 and 1967. Each spacecraft was equipped with a sophisticated imaging system provided by Eastman Kodak, which consisted of a dual-lens camera, film processing and handling units, and a readout scanner for transmitting the images back to Earth. The main purpose of the program was to select lunar landing sites for NASAs manned Apollo Missions. Over the course of one year, the Lunar Orbiters photographed 99 percent of the Moons surface, producing more than 2,000 images of unprecedented clarity and precision. After the film was processed on board the spacecraft, it was scanned in strips and transmitted to Earth via radio. Technicians at Eastman Kodak in Rochester, New York, created the final images by transferring the strips onto sheets of large-for