Editing Openai/67c4e193-e008-8008-8d82-c239519e3d5a (section)

==== Apollo 10 – Dress Rehearsal for the Moon Landing ====

Mission Data: Apollo 10 (May 1969) carried a crew to lunar orbit with a Lunar Module (LM) that descended close to the Moon’s surface, performing a “dress rehearsal” for Apollo 11. Telemetry was intensive: two spacecraft worth of systems data, tracking and navigation information, and extensive communications were relayed to Earth. Apollo 10 also carried the first color TV camera on an Apollo spacecraft – the crew transmitted color television from both the Command Module and the LM while in lunar orbit. These broadcasts (e.g. views of the Moon from the LM) were recorded on standard 2-inch videotapes and have been preserved in NASA’s archives. However, the high-fidelity raw data tapes (any that may have recorded the unconverted video or multi-channel telemetry) were handled like previous missions’ tapes and not retained. By the early 1980s, Apollo 10’s original telemetry reels had been pulled from archives and either reused or discarded alongside the othersnasa.gov<ref>{{cite web|title=nasa.gov|url=https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/static/history/alsj/a11/Apollo_11_TV_Tapes_Report.pdf#:~:text=searchers%20never%20found%20what%20they,Apollo%2011%20moon%20landing%20and|publisher=nasa.gov|access-date=2025-12-06}}</ref>. No official Apollo 10 telemetry tapes are cataloged as surviving today.

Onboard Recordings: Apollo 10 also used an onboard DSE tape recorder in both the Command Module and LM to record data and crew voice during periods without real-time contact (such as the far side of the Moon). These recordings were later transmitted to Earth and thus would have been captured on telemetry tapes at stations like Honeysuckle Creek. Like Apollo 8, the Apollo 10 DSE dumps were not archived after the mission beyond producing transcripts. For many years, the only record of Apollo 10’s far-side conversations was the written transcript. In recent years, enthusiasts have searched for any surviving audio. While the original dump tapes haven’t been found publicly, some Apollo 10 audio was preserved informally. At Honeysuckle Creek station, the administrator (Bernard Scrivener) recorded portions of Apollo 10’s communications onto a personal 1/4-inch reel tape, as part of the station’s public affairs recordingshoneysucklecreek.net<ref>{{cite web|title=honeysucklecreek.net|url=https://honeysucklecreek.net/msfn_missions/Apollo_10_mission/a10_hsk_audio.html#:~:text=,speaker%20connected%20to%20the%20112A|publisher=honeysucklecreek.net|access-date=2025-12-06}}</ref>honeysucklecreek.net<ref>{{cite web|title=honeysucklecreek.net|url=https://honeysucklecreek.net/msfn_missions/Apollo_10_mission/a10_hsk_audio.html#:~:text=,In%20the|publisher=honeysucklecreek.net|access-date=2025-12-06}}</ref>. These tapes, containing segments of air-to-ground and likely bits of the DSE audio, were forgotten for decades until being rediscovered in 2018 in the collection of Hamish Lindsay (to whom Scrivener had given them)honeysucklecreek.net<ref>{{cite web|title=honeysucklecreek.net|url=https://honeysucklecreek.net/msfn_missions/Apollo_10_mission/a10_hsk_audio.html#:~:text=,to%20help|publisher=honeysucklecreek.net|access-date=2025-12-06}}</ref>. They were digitized in 2019. The recovered clips (totaling a few hours of Apollo 10 comms) include launch commentary, network calls, and even the first color TV transmission after translunar injectionhoneysucklecreek.net<ref>{{cite web|title=honeysucklecreek.net|url=https://honeysucklecreek.net/msfn_missions/Apollo_10_mission/a10_hsk_audio.html#:~:text=000%3A52%3A42|publisher=honeysucklecreek.net|access-date=2025-12-06}}</ref>honeysucklecreek.net<ref>{{cite web|title=honeysucklecreek.net|url=https://honeysucklecreek.net/msfn_missions/Apollo_10_mission/a10_hsk_audio.html#:~:text=First%20TV%20after%20TLI|publisher=honeysucklecreek.net|access-date=2025-12-06}}</ref>. This is a fortunate example of private preservation, but it is not an official telemetry tape; it’s a secondary recording made from the live audio channels.

Current Status: Formally, no Apollo 10 telemetry data tapes are known to survive in NASA or NARA collections. The broad assessment from NASA is that aside from Apollo 9’s box, all Apollo-era telemetry reels are gonenasa.gov<ref>{{cite web|title=nasa.gov|url=https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/static/history/alsj/a11/Apollo_11_TV_Tapes_Report.pdf#:~:text=searchers%20never%20found%20what%20they,Apollo%2011%20moon%20landing%20and|publisher=nasa.gov|access-date=2025-12-06}}</ref>. Apollo 10’s tapes would have been part of the 2,614-canister Apollo accession that was withdrawn and never returnednasa.gov<ref>{{cite web|title=nasa.gov|url=https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/static/history/alsj/a11/Apollo_11_TV_Tapes_Report.pdf#:~:text=station%20in%201969%2C%20the%20accompanying,They%20found%20nothing%2C%20confirming%209|publisher=nasa.gov|access-date=2025-12-06}}</ref>. Thus, the raw multi-track tape that once held Apollo 10’s slow-scan color video (if any was recorded in data format) and high-rate engineering data is presumed lost. On the other hand, the mission is well-preserved through other media: Apollo 10’s broadcast video and onboard film footage (like the 16mm movies shot by the crew) are intact and available, giving visual documentation. All air-to-ground communications were recorded on analog audio tapes which NASA has kept; these tapes have not yet been fully published like Apollo 11’s, but they exist and some portions (e.g. excerpts on Apollo in Real Time or NASA audio highlights) have been released. Importantly, textual transcripts of Apollo 10 (including onboard dialogue during far-side passes) have been public for decades, ensuring the information content survived even when the tape didn’t. In summary, Apollo 10’s telemetry tapes are considered missing, with none in museums or private hands (barring the small personal audio reels of Honeysuckle, now digitized for historical projects). There have been no known restoration efforts specifically for Apollo 10 data, aside from the general Apollo audio archival work. Researchers rely on Apollo 10’s final report and modern digital releases of audio/film, since the original telemetry streams are not directly accessible.