RESCO and the Apollo 11 Camera

As you may be aware, RESCO Electronics has been around for quite a long time.  In fact, RESCO was founded way back in 1932 as Radio Electric Service Company.  Over its 87 year history, RESCO has been involved with many customers in many different projects.  Perhaps no single project was of the historic significance as was RESCO’s involvement in the Apollo 11 LM camera system.  As our nation celebrates the 50^th anniversary of mankind’s first trip to the moon, the team at RESCO looks back with pride on this accomplishment and its small, yet important, contribution.

In 1964, NASA awarded the Westinghouse Electric Corporation a contract to build a TV camera capable of withstanding the harsh environment of the Moon and broadcasting video images 240,000 miles back to Earth.   Five years later, this camera flew on Apollo 11 and captured one of the most important events in the history of mankind; Neil Armstrong’s decent from the Lunar Module to stand on the Moon’s surface.  The moment captured by the camera not only included Armstrong’s first steps but also his famous quote “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”.  Radio Electric Service Company, now RESCO Electronics, was a supplier of electronic components and an integral contributor to the Westinghouse camera program.

The first picture is of the camera mounted on the Lunar Module.  The second picture is a still image from the famous video that the camera captured of Neil Armstrong stepping onto the lunar surface.

About the Author

David Copenhaver is President of RESCO Electronics, a Baltimore based manufacturer electronic assemblies and value added reseller of auto ID equipment to original equipment manufacturers. Before joining RESCO in 2003, David was the Senior Vice President of Operations and member of the Board of Directors for US Office Products, a publicly traded distributor of office products that is now part of Staples. Beginning in 1989, David co-owned and managed The Smith-Wilson Co., an Orlando based distributor of office products that was sold to US Office Products in 1996.

David has a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and a Masters in Business Administration both from the University of Virginia. He is married and lives in Arlington, Virginia with his wife and three sons.