An optical navigation system consisted of a scanning telescope and a sextant. With these instruments the astronauts could take star sights and plot the position of their spacecraft.
All guidance and navigation information was transmitted to Earth-based computers that calculated any necessary course or velocity changes.

APOLLO COMMAND MODULE GUIDANCE AND NAVIGATION STATION
This station includes a digital computer that stores data and provides solutions to guidance and navigation problems. The right side of the computer faced into the command module. On it are the eyepieces of the scanning telescope and the sextant and, at the far right, the display and keyboard panel which was used to enter information and display answers. The back of the station connected to the Command Module's systems. Charles Stark Draper Laboratory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts developed the Apollo Command Module Computer.
Diagram of Navigation Station inside Command Module

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Racing to Space
The Moon decision
To reach the moon
Apollo 11
Later Apollo missions
What we learned about the Moon
After the Apollo Program


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Created: 7/99