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View of the LRV's television camera.

Picture 1 of 2.

The TV camera was remotely operated by mission control to allow the science staff in Houston to see what the astronauts were doing and to direct them to any items of scientific interest which may not have been on the flight plan.

On Apollo 17, Ed Fendell was able to use the camera to lunar module lift-off and track it during its ascent. This was no mean feat, as the communications round trip time between the Earth and moon was about 2.5 seconds, so it was not possible to watch the television feed and adjust the camera. Rather, the trajectory was carefully plotted out ahead of time (description near the bottom of the page).