Lunar orbit rendezvous (LOR) is a process for landing humans on the Moon and returning them to Earth. It was utilized for the Apollo program missions in the 1960s and 1970s. In a LOR mission, a main spacecraft and a smaller lunar lander travel to lunar orbit. The lunar lander then independently descends to the surface of the Moon, while the main spacecraft remains in lunar orbit. After completion of the mission there, the lander returns to lunar orbit to rendezvous and re-dock with the main spacecraft, then is discarded after transfer of crew and payload. Only the main spacecraft returns to Earth.[1]
Lunar orbit rendezvous was first proposed in 1919 by Ukrainian engineer Yuri Kondratyuk,[2] as the most economical way of sending a human on a round-trip journey to the Moon.[3]
The most famous example involved Project Apollo's command and service module (CSM) and lunar module (LM), where they were both sent to a translunar flight in a single rocket stack. However, variants where the landers and main spacecraft travel separately, such as the lunar landing plans proposed for Shuttle-Derived Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle, Golden Spike and the 2029/2030 Chinese crewed effort, are also considered to be lunar orbit rendezvous.
^"Lunar Orbit Rendezvous" – 1968 – NASA Mission Planning and Analysis Division on YouTube
^Harvey (2007), pp. 6–7.
^Wilford (1969), pp. 41–48.
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Lunarorbitrendezvous (LOR) is a process for landing humans on the Moon and returning them to Earth. It was utilized for the Apollo program missions in...
translunar vehicle in low Earth orbit. It was considered and ultimately rejected in favor of lunarorbitrendezvous (LOR) for NASA's Apollo program of...
rendezvous (/ˈrɒndeɪvuː/) is a set of orbital maneuvers during which two spacecraft, one of which is often a space station, arrive at the same orbit and...
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Lunar Module (LM /ˈlɛm/), originally designated the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM), was the lunar lander spacecraft that was flown between lunarorbit and...
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The Rendezvous That Was Almost Missed:LunarOrbitRendezvous and the Apollo Program, December 1992 NASA, The Apollo Flight Journal, LunarOrbit Rendezvous...
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decision was choosing lunarorbitrendezvous over both direct ascent and Earth orbitrendezvous. A space rendezvous is an orbital maneuver in which two...
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Program thus combined the LunarOrbitRendezvous method adopted by the Apollo program's lunar missions with the Earth OrbitRendezvous method which had also...
Apollo program, helping to lead NASA to the decision in favor of lunarorbitrendezvous and supporting "all up" testing of the Saturn V rocket. While sometimes...
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and moved that LunarOrbitRendezvous (LOR) was the best option for landing a crew on the Moon, the method eventually used on Apollo lunar landing missions...
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Multi exposure of Rendezvous Docking Simulator in use Simulator controls Simulating docking the lunar and command modules in lunarorbit in 1967 List of...
1961, it was still assumed the lunar landing would be achieved by direct ascent rather than by lunarorbitrendezvous. Therefore, design proceeded without...
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