A Brief Color Broadcast Goes Dark
In November 1969, during the Apollo 12 mission, astronaut Alan Bean unintentionally pointed a brand-new color television camera directly at the Sun, damaging its internal vidicon tube and cutting short the live broadcasts from the Moon. According to both The Economic Times and The Times of India, the incident occurred as Bean was setting up the camera on the lunar surface, and it ended live transmissions almost as soon as they began. Viewers on Earth lost their color view of the moonwalk, and Apollo 12 retains very little surviving live television footage as a result.
The camera was a significant step forward in space broadcasting. Apollo 11, which landed in July 1969, had brought back black-and-white images. For Apollo 12, NASA outfitted the mission with a color camera built by Westinghouse, aiming to give audiences a clearer, more vivid look at astronauts Pete Conrad and Bean as they walked on the Moon. As reported by both outlets, the camera was meant to demonstrate a technical and visual improvement over the previous mission's coverage.
The Accident on the Moon
According to the National Air and Space Museum, as cited by The Economic Times and The Times of India, Bean removed the camera from its bracket on the lunar module Intrepid, then moved it away from the spacecraft and placed it on a tripod. In that process, the lens passed across the Sun. The intense sunlight struck the camera's vidicon tube and damaged the target beyond repair, permanently disabling the camera.
The mistake was not an act of carelessness. Bean was positioning the camera so it could capture the lunar module. The exposure to the Sun was a brief but fatal error. At first, Bean suspected a malfunction of the camera's color wheel; he even tapped the equipment to try to restore the picture. That effort proved futile, as the damage had already been done.
A later examination of the television record confirmed the cause. According to The Economic Times, a 1993 review of the video record revealed that Bean had pointed the camera at the Sun as he mounted it on the tripod, exactly as the museum account suggested. That analysis put to rest any doubt about what had occurred.
An Abrupt End and a Permanent Record
Live coverage of the Apollo 12 moonwalks ended almost immediately after it began. As The Times of India notes, the mission produced very little surviving live television footage from the lunar surface, contrasting with the Apollo 11 broadcast that had reached a global audience. However, the loss of live TV did not mean the mission went undocumented. Both sources report that the astronauts took thousands of still photographs on 70mm film, and a 16mm camera mounted on the lunar module captured moving footage of their activities. This remains a primary record of the Apollo 12 moonwalk.
Aftermath and NASA's Response
The incident had a lasting impact on how NASA managed cameras on later missions. According to both The Economic Times and The Times of India, for Apollo 14, NASA added a lens cap to the Westinghouse camera and introduced stricter procedures for its use. Starting with Apollo 15, control of the color television camera was transferred from astronauts to Mission Control, reducing the possibility of similar mistakes by giving ground personnel direct authority over camera positioning. This change marked a shift in how equipment like this was operated.
The 16mm camera from the Apollo 12 lunar module is now part of the Smithsonian's collection, as reported by The Times of India. This ensures that even if the live broadcast failed, the physical equipment and the films it produced remain available to historians and the public.