Apollo Moon Landing
Missing Apollo 14 Film Magazine 80
Recovered By AwE130
On March 17, 2015, AwE130 made a significant contribution by uploading the entire Apollo 14 film magazine 80 to the internet. Prior to this date, neither NASA nor the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal (ALSJ) had ever shared this particular film magazine online. As a result, the AwE130 website became the first and only platform to provide access to all 207 photographs contained on magazine 80. It is astonishing that, even after more than 47 years, these images were still absent in 2015 from the public Apollo historical archive online. It is important to note that the source for our finding is NASA itself.
The Apollo 14 Magazine 80 photographs where made by the Hycon camera designed to capture Lunar orbital stereoscopic photographs. The primary objective was to capture images of landing sites and other points of interest. This camera was ingeniously designed to be mounted in the crew hatch window of the Command Service Module (CSM).
A camera malfunction partway into the mission caused the shutter to operate continually. This resulted from a transistor failure caused by a sliver of aluminum that became lodged and shorted the system on the shutter pulse switching circuit. Also, the lack of a continuous pulse, which activated the focal plane shutter, caused an intervalometer anomaly resulting in multiple exposure of the same scene. More information about the camera can be found here.
On December 3, 2018, a Dutch researcher shared an article that showcased some impressive work related to magazine 80. This work may have led to the release of the complete Apollo 14 magazine 80 and 79. The images were provided by the National Space Science Data Center (NSSDCA) in the form of a continuous film roll.
Interestingly, despite the AwE130 release in 2015 and more recently the higher resolution images by NSSDCA in 2018, the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal (ALSJ) on the NASA website appears to ignore the discoveries. Not surprisingly, as of December 2024, they continue to reference the incomplete and very poor quality scans from Arizona State University as the only source of information, concerning Apollo 14 film magazine 80. It is quite baffling that the ALSJ has not acknowledged the availability of these new uploads.
Quote on NASA website 2025:
"Magazine 80/W (B & W) Frames 10436-10642 This magazine was used in the Hycon Lunar Topographic Camera for stereo strip photography along the CSM ground track. HLTC cameras were flown on Apollo 13 and 14 and were designed to be mounted in the crew access hatch window. Details can be found on pages 5-6 in Part I of the Apollo 14 Photo Index. As discussed on page 117 in Part II of the Apollo 14 Photo Index, planned coverage was to be taken on Rev 4 from 30 E to 9.5 E along the approach to the Apollo 16 landing site. Good data was obtained from 28.1 E to 17.4 E, but a camera malfunction prevented further coverage.
The only online source for Mag 80 images is currently the Arizona State University website. This is evidently a copy of a NASA document. The quality is poor."
Could it be that these photographs have been captured by an unmanned mission and falsely presented as Apollo 14 lunar orbital photographs? In a forthcoming article, we will delve into the possibility of their authenticity and shed light on this matter.
Here are the images AwE130 uploaded in 2015.
