Mission Name: SA-1 (1) Pad 34 (1) Saturn-1 (1) Milestones: 06/05/61 - LC-34 dedicatation 08/15/61 - S-1 Stage ondock at KSC 08/15/61 - S-IV (dummy) Stage ondock at KSC 08/15/61 - S-IU ondock at KSC 09/06/61 - Full tank pressurization test 10/27/61 - Launch Payload: Dummy second (S-4) weighing 25,000 lbs and ballasted with 90,000 lbs (11,000 gallons of water), Dummy third stage (S-5) weighing 3,000 lbs and ballasted with 100,000 lbs (12,000 gallons of water). Mission Objectives: Research and Development of the S-1 launch vehicle. Test of the S-1 stage propulsion and verify the structure and aerodynamics of the vehicle. Launch: October 27, 1961 10:06 a.m. Fully fueled and ready to go, the Saturn weighed 925,000 lbs. The first stage was loaded with 600,000 lbs of propellant (kerosene fuel and liquid oxygen). Prelaunch preparation began at 7:00am on 10/26/61. Mechanical Office tasks included inspection of the high pressure gas panel, cable masts, and fuel masts; ordnance installation; and preparation of the holddown arms. The propellant team filled the launch vehicle's tanks to the 10% level, using a slow, manual procedure of approximately 750 liters per minute to check for leaks. A leak in the fuel mast vacuum breaker was detected and easily repaired and at 2:30pm the launch team cleared the pad for the automatic "fast fill" operation. Fuel flowed into the launch vehicle at 7570 liters per minute reaching the 97% level in about 35min. The propellants team then reverted to the "slow fill" procedure until the vehicle was topped off at 103% of the required RP-1. The ten hour countdown began at 11:00pm as LC-34 switched to the Cape's emergency generating plant. Loading of the liquid oxygen started after 3:00am (T-350). The Saturn LOX tanks were 10% filled to check for leaks in the vehicle or in the 229 meter tranfer line, as well as precool the line for the fast flow of super-cold LOX. Two hours from the 9:00am scheduled liftoff, an unfavorable weather report prompted launch officials to call a hold. The count resumed at 7:34am and the launch team rolled the service structure back to its parking area. The propellants team configured the LOX facility for fast fill (9500 liters per min) at T-100 and the blockhouse doors were swung shut at T-65 min. Launch officials, concerned that a patch of clouds over the Cape might obsure tracking cameras, called a second hold at 9:14am. Within half an hour, the countdown resumed. Launch came when the ground launch sequencer ordered the firing of a solid propellant charge. The gases from the ignition accelerated a turbine that in turn drove fuel and LOX pumps. Hydraulic valves opened, allowing RP-1 and LOX into the combustion chambers, along with a hypergolic fluid that ignited the mixture. The engines fired in pairs, developing full thrust in 1.4 seconds. A final rough combustion check was followed by ejection of LOX and RP-1 fill masts from the booster base. The four hold-down arms released the rocket 3.97 seconds after first ignition and SA-1 was airborne. [Moonport - A History of Launch Facilities and Operations. Charles D. Benson and William B. Faherty. NASA SP-4204 page 62]. Orbit: Altitude: 137km Inclination: xxx degrees Orbits: (suborbital) Duration: Days, hours, min, seconds Distance: 344km downrange Landing: 10/27/61. Impact in the Atlantic ocean 344km downrange Mission Highlights: The only major difficulty that turned up with SA-1 was an unanticipated degree of sloshing of propellants in the vehicle's tanks. Beginning with vehicle SA-3, additional antislosh baffels were installed. SA-1 was heavily instrumented with nearly 400 of SA-1's 510 telemetered readings concerned with propulsion, temperature or pressure. Other measurements included strain, vibration, flight mechanics, steering control, stabilized platform, guidance, RF, voltage and current. Mission Name: SA-2 (2) Pad 34 (2) Saturn-1 (2) Milestones: 02/27/62 - S-1 Stage ondock at KSC 02/27/62 - S-IV (dummy) Stage ondock at KSC 02/27/62 - S-IU ondock at KSC 04/25/62 - Launch Payload: Water (95 tons), Dummy 2nd stage, Jupiter nose cone Mission Objectives: Launch: April 25, 1962 09:00:34 a.m. EST. Orbit: Altitude: Inclination: xxx degrees Orbits: (suborbital) Duration: Days, hours, min, seconds Distance: Landing: 04/25/62 Mission Highlights: The first payload carried on SA-2 and SA-3 was called Project Highwater, authorized by NASA's Office of Space Sciences. The inert S-IV and S-V stages for these launches carried 109,000 liters (30,000 gallons) of ballast water for release in the upper atmosphere. This was used to study the effects on radio transmission and changes in local weather conditions. At an altitude of 150km, explosive devices ruptured the S-IV and S-V tanks and in just five seconds, ground observers saw the formation of a hugh ice cloud estimated to be several kilometers in diameter. Mission Name: SA-3 (3) Pad 34 (3) Saturn-1 (3) Milestones: 09/19/62 - S-1 Stage ondock at KSC 09/19/62 - S-IV (dummy) Stage ondock at KSC 09/19/62 - S-IU ondock at KSC 11/16/62 - Launch Payload: Water (95 tons), Dummy 2nd stage, Jupiter nose cone Mission Objectives: Launch: 11/16/62 - Launch Orbit: Altitude: Inclination: xxx degrees Orbits: (suborbital) Duration: Days, hours, min, seconds Distance: Landing: 11/16/62. Impact in the Atlantic ocean Mission Highlights: Mission Name: SA-4 (4) Pad 34 (4) Saturn-1 (4) Milestones: 02/02/63 - S-1 Stage ondock at KSC 02/02/63 - S-IV Stage ondock at KSC 02/02/63 - S-IU ondock at KSC 03/28/63 - Launch Payload: Dummy second stage, Jupiter nose cone Mission Objectives: The Saturn-1 booster S-1 stage consisted of a cluster of 8 H-1 engines. One of the appealing features of this configuration was the added safety of providing for an "engine-out capability" where other engines could burn longer than planned if an engine cutoff early. On the SA-4 mission, a premature single engine cutoff of one engine was programmed 100 seconds into the flight. This experiment was successful. (NASA SP-4206 page 324). Launch: March 28, 1963. 03:11:55 p.m. EST. Orbit: Altitude: Inclination: xxx degrees Orbits: (suborbital) Duration: Days, hours, min, seconds Distance: Landing: 03/28/63. Impact in the Atlantic ocean Mission Highlights: Mission Name: Pad-Abort-Test-1 (6) WSMR Area #3 () Little Joe II Milestones: 11/7/63 - Launch Payload: Boilerplate #6 Mission Objectives: Launch: Mission Highlights: Mission Name: SA-5 (6) Pad 37B (1) Saturn-1 (5) Milestones: 08/21/63 - S-1 Stage ondock at KSC 09/21/63 - S-IV Stage ondock at KSC 08/21/63 - S-IU ondock at KSC 01/29/64 - Launch Payload: Live second stage, Instrument unit, ballasted Jupiter nose cone Mission Objectives: Launch: January 29, 1964, 11:25:01 a.m. EST. Launch on 01/27/64 scrubbed due to test flange left in S-1 stage liquid-oxygen (LOX) replenshment line, preventing flow of LOX to vehicle; 73-minute hold on 01/29/64 due to interference in C-band radar and command destruct frequencies. Orbit: Altitude: 785km Apogee, 262km Perigee Inclination: xxx degrees Orbits: (orbital) Duration: Days, hours, min, seconds Distance: Landing: 01/29/64. Mission Highlights: Mission Name: A-001 (7) WSMR () Little Joe II Milestones: 05/13/64 - Launch Payload: Mission Objectives: Launch: Mission Highlights: Mission Name: SA-6 (8) Pad 37B (2) Saturn-1 (6) A-101 () Milestones: 02/18/64 - S-1 Stage ondock at KSC 02/22/64 - S-IV Stage ondock at KSC 02/18/64 - S-IU ondock at KSC 05/28/64 - Launch Payload: Boilerplate 13 CSM, production LES, service module/launch vehicle adapter Mission Objectives: Launch: 05/28/64 - Launch Orbit: Altitude: 227km Apogee, 182km Perigee Inclination: xxx degrees Orbits: Duration: Days, hours, min, seconds Distance: Landing: 05/28/64 Mission Highlights: Mission Name: SA-7 (9) Pad 37B (3) Saturn-1 (7) A-102 () Milestones: 06/07/64 - S-1 Stage ondock at KSC 06/12/64 - S-IV Stage ondock at KSC 06/07/64 - S-IU ondock at KSC 09/18/64 - Launch Payload: Mission Objectives: Launch: 09/18/64 - Launch Orbit: Altitude: Inclination: xxx degrees Orbits: Duration: Days, hours, min, seconds Distance: Landing: Mission Highlights: Mission Name: A-002 (10) WSMR () Little Joe II Milestones: 12/08/64 - Launch Payload: Mission Objectives: Launch: Mission Highlights: Mission Name: SA-9 (11) Pad 37B (4) Saturn-1 (9) A-103 () Milestones: 10/30/64 - S-1 Stage ondock at KSC 10/22/64 - S-IV Stage ondock at KSC 10/30/64 - S-IU ondock at KSC 02/16/65 - Launch Payload: Mission Objectives: Launch: 02/16/65 - Launch Orbit: Altitude: Inclination: xxx degrees Orbits: Duration: Days, hours, min, seconds Distance: Landing: Mission Highlights: Mission Name: A-003 (12) WSMR () Little Joe II Milestones: 05/19/65 - Launch Payload: Mission Objectives: Launch: Mission Highlights: Mission Name: SA-8 (13) Pad 37B (5) Saturn-1 (8) A-104 () Milestones: 02/25/65 - S-IV Stage ondock at KSC 02/28/65 - S-1 Stage ondock at KSC 03/08/65 - S-IU ondock at KSC 05/25/65 - Launch Payload: Mission Objectives: Launch: 05/25/65 - Launch Orbit: Altitude: Inclination: xxx degrees Orbits: Duration: Days, hours, min, seconds Distance: Landing: Mission Highlights: Mission Name: Pad-Abort-Test-2 (14) WSMR () Little Joe II Milestones: 06/29/65 - Launch Payload: Mission Objectives: Launch: Mission Highlights: Mission Name: SA-10 (15) Pad 37B () Saturn-1 (10) A-105 () Milestones: 06/01/65 - S-1 Stage ondock at KSC 05/08/65 - S-IV Stage ondock at KSC 06/01/65 - S-IU ondock at KSC 07/30/65 - Launch Payload: Mission Objectives: Launch: 07/30/65 - Launch Orbit: Altitude: Inclination: xxx degrees Orbits: Duration: Days, hours, min, seconds Distance: Landing: Mission Highlights: Mission Name: A-004 (16) Little Joe II WSMR () Milestones: 01/20/66 - Launch Payload: Block I production model 002 Mission Objectives: Abort Qualification Program Launch: NASA had hoped to finish the Little Joe II abort qualification program by the end of 1965, but on 17 December the Flight Readiness Board refused to accept the booster and canceled a launch set for the next day. A month later, at 8:15 am on 1/20/66, the last Little Joe II headed toward an altitude of 24 kilometers and a downrange distance of 14 kilometers. Then, as designed, the launch vehicle started to tumble; the launch escape system sensed trouble and fired its abort rocket, carrying the command module away from impending disaster. Orbit: Altitude: 24km Inclination: x Orbits: (suborbital) Distance: 14km Mission Highlights: All went well, the launch, the test conditions, the telemetry, the spacecraft and postflight analysis. The spacecraft windows picked up too much soot from the tower jettison motor, but the structure remained intact. Little Joe II was honorably retired, its basic purpose - making sure the launch escape and earth landing systems could protect the astronauts in either emergency or normal operations -- accomplished. Mission Name: AS-201 (17) Pad 34 (5) Saturn-1B (1) AS-201 () Milestones: 08/14/65 - S-1 Stage ondock at KSC 08/14/65 - S-1B Stage ondock at KSC 09/18/65 - S-IVB ondock at KSC 10/22/65 - S-IU ondock at KSC 10/25/65 - Launch Vehicle on Pad 12/26/65 - Spacecraft on Pad 02/09/66 - Countdown demonstration test 02/20/66 - Countdown begins 02/26/66 - Launch Payload: CSM-009 Mission Objectives: Demonstrate structural integrity and compatibility of launch vehicle and confirm launch loads (Achieved). Demonstrate separation of first and second stages of Saturn, LES and boost protective cover from CSM, CSM from instrument unit/spacecraft/lunar module (LM) adapter, and CM from SM (Achieved). Verify operations of Saturn propulsion, guidance and control, and electrical subsystems (Achieved). Verify operation of spacecraft subsystems and adequacy of heatshield for reentry from low earth orbit (Partially Achieved). Evaluate emergency detection system in open-loop configuration (Achieved). Evaluate heatshield ablator at high reentry rates (Not Achieved due to loss of data during maximum heating). Demonstrate operation of mission support facilities (Achieved). Launch: February 26, 1966; 11:12:01 a.m EST. Launch Complex 34, Eastern Test Range (EST), Cape Canaveral FL. Hold for 3 days due to bad weather conditions and for a break in subcable to downrange station. Hold for 30 minutes on February 26, 1966 to catch up on LOX loading. Hold for 30 min to complete liquid-hydrogen loading, which had been delayed by work on a GSE helium regulator problem. Hold for 78 minutes to complete closeout of spacecraft. Hold for 66 minutes because of cutoff caused by failure of helium pressure switch in Saturn 1B ready circuit. Hold for 30 minutes (during which flight was canceled and then re-instated) for further information on helium pressure problem. Launch Weight: xxx,xxx lbs. Orbit: Altitude: 303 miles (488 kilometers) Inclination: xxx degrees Orbits: (suborbital) Duration: 0 Days, 0 hours, 36 min, 59 seconds Distance: 5264 miles (8472 kilometers) Landing: February 26, 1966, 11:49 am EST. Splash down in Atlantic Ocean, 8472 kilometers downrange, Impact point 8.18 deg South, 11.15 deg West. Miss distance 72 kilometers; Recovery by U.S.S. Boxer by 02:20pm EST. Capsule Landing Weight: xxx,xxx lbs. Mission Highlights: Both booster and spacecraft performed adequately. From liftoff to touchdown in the South Atlantic, the mission lasted only 37 minutes. The spacecraft was recovered two and a half hours after splashdown. There were several malfunctions, mostly minor. Three were serious. First, after the service propulsion system fired, it operated correctly for only 80 seconds. Then the pressure fell 30 percent because of helium ingestion into the oxidizer chamber. Second, a fault in the electrical power system caused a loss of steering control, resulting in a rolling reentry. And, third, flight measurements during reentry were distorted because of a short circuit. (NASA SP-4205 - Chariots for Apollo page 193) Mission Name: AS-203 (18) Pad 37-B (7) Saturn-1B (2) Milestones: 04/06/66 - S-IVB ondock at KSC 04/12/66 - S-1 Stage ondock at KSC 04/12/66 - S-1B Stage ondock at KSC 04/14/66 - S-IU ondock at KSC 04/21/66 - Launch vehicle at Pad 07/01/66 - Countdown demonstration Test 07/05/66 - Launch Payload: Nose Cone, LH2 in S-IVB Mission Objectives: Evaluate performance on S-IVB instrument unit stage under orbital conditions and obtain flight information on venting and chill-down systems, fluid dynamics and heat transfer of propellant tanks; attitude and thermal control system, launch vehicle guidance, and checkout in orbit (Achieved). Launch: July 5, 1966, 10:53:17 a.m. EDT. Complex 37B, Eastern Test Range Cape Canaveral, FL. Hold for 4 minutes to examine quality of signal from liquid-hydrogen television cameras; 98-min hold because of loss of signal from camera no. 2 (decision made to fly with one camera); 1 minute hold because of loss of Bermuda radar. Launch Weight: xxx,xxx lbs. Orbit: Altitude: 185km x 189km Inclination: xxx degrees Orbits: 4 Duration: Days, hours, min, seconds Distance: miles Landing: No Recovery Mission Highlights: Mission Name: AS-202 (19) Pad 34 (6) Saturn-1B (3) Milestones: 02/07/66 - S-1 Stage ondock at KSC 02/07/66 - S-1B Stage ondock at KSC 01/29/66 - S-IVB ondock at KSC 02/21/66 - S-IU ondock at KSC 03/11/66 - Launch vehicle at Pad 07/02/66 - Spacecraft at Pad 08/05/66 - Countdown Demonstration Test 08/25/66 - Launch Payload: Spacecraft-011 Mission Objectives: Demonstrate structural integrity and compatibility of launch vehicle and confirm launch loads. Demonstrate separation of first and second stages of Saturn, LES and boost protective cover from CSM, CSM from instrument unit/spacecraft/lunar module (LM) adapter, and CM from SM. Verify operations of Saturn propulsion, guidance and control, and electrical subsystems. Verify operation of spacecraft subsystems and adequacy of heatshield for reentry from low earth orbit. Evaluate emergency detection system in open-loop configuration. Evaluate heatshield ablator at high reentry rates. Demonstrate operation of mission support facilities. All objectives Achieved. Launch: August 25, 1966, 12:15:32 pm EST. Complex 34 Eastern Test Range, Cape Canaveral Fl. Hold for 60 minutes to resolve problem with launch vehicle digital computer during power transfer test; 48-minute hold for recurrence of computer problem; 41-minute hold to attempt to clear up problem with the remote site data processor on the Rose Knot Victor; 5-minute hold to evaluate Saturn 1B low fuel mass quantity indicator. Launch Weight: 56,900 lbs. (spacecraft), 1,312,300 lbs (total vehicle). Orbit: Altitude: 1143 Km Inclination: 105 degrees Orbits: (suborbital) Duration: 0 Days, 1 hours, 33 min, 28 seconds Distance: miles Landing: August 25, 1966, 1:49pm EST. Atlantic Ocean 16 deg 7min North by 168 deg 54min East. Miss distance 370 kilometers. Recovered by U.S.S. Hornet at 11:17pm EDT 08/25/66. Mission Highlights: Mission Name: Apollo-1 (20) Pad 34 (7) Saturn-1B AS-204 (4) CSM-012 () Apollo Pad Fire Crew: Virgil I. Grissom Edward H. White II Roger B. Chaffee Backup Crew: Walter M. Schirra, Jr Donn F. Eisele Walter Cunningham Payload: Spacecraft-012 Mission Objectives: January 27, 1967. Tragedy struck on the launch pad during a preflight test for Apollo 204 (AS-204), which was scheduled to be the first Apollo manned mission, and would have been launched on February 21, 1967. Astronauts Virgil Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee lost their lives when a fire swept through the Command Module (CM). The exhaustive investigation of the fire and extensive reworking of the CMs postponed any manned launch until NASA officials cleared the CM for manned flight. Saturn 1B schedules were suspended for nearly a year, and the launch vehicle that finally bore the designation AS-204 carried a Lunar Module (LM) as the payload, not the Apollo CM. The missions of AS-201 and AS-202 with Apollo spacecraft aboard had been unofficially known as Apollo 1 and Apollo 2 missions (AS-203 carried only the aerodynamic nose cone). In the spring of 1967, NASA's Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight, Dr. George E. Mueller, announced that the mission originally scheduled for Grissom, White and Chaffee would be known as Apollo 1, and said that the first Saturn V launch, scheduled for November 1967, would be known as Apollo 4. The eventual launch of AS-204 became known as the Apollo 5 mission (no missions or flights were ever designated Apollo 2 and 3). The second launch of a Saturn V took place on schedule in the early morning of April 4, 1968. Known as AS-502, or Apollo 6, the flight was a success, though two first stage engines shut down prematurely, and the third stage engine failed to re-ignite after reaching orbit. Mission Name: Apollo-4 (20) Pad 39-A (1) Saturn-V AS-501 (1) 1st Saturn V launch 1st Launch from Launch Complex 39-A Firing Room 1 (1) Milestones: 06/19/67 - Launch vehicle at Pad 06/20/67 - Spacecraft at Pad 11/09/67 - Launch Payload: Spacecraft-017 Mission Objectives: Demonstrate structural and thermal integrity and compatibility of launch vehicle and spacecraft; confirm launch loads and dynamic characteristics. Verify operation of command module heatshield (adequacy of Block II design for reentry at lunar return conditions), service propulsion system (SPS; including no ullage start), and selective subsystems. Evaluate performance of emergency detection system in open-loop configuration. Demonstrate mission support facilities and operations needed for launch, mission conduct, and CM recovery. All mission objectives achieved. Launch: November 9, 1967; 07:00:01 a.m. EST. Launch Complex 39-A Eastern Test Range, Cape Canaveral FL. No Delays during countdown. Launch Weight: xxx,xxx lbs. Orbit: Altitude: 187km x 183km Inclination: xxx degrees Orbits: Duration: 0 Days, 8 hours, 36 min, 59 seconds Distance: miles Landing: November 9, 1967, 03:37 pm EST. Landing in Atlantic Ocean at 30deg 06min North and 172 deg 32min West. Missed pland impact point by only 16km. Landing Weight: xxx,xxx lbs. Mission Highlights: During third orbit and after SPS engine burn, spacecraft coasted to a simulated translunar trajectory, reaching an altitude of 18,079 kilometers. The AS-501 launch marked the initial flight testing of the S-IC and S-II stages. The first stage S-IC performed accurately with the center F-1 engine cutting off at 135.5 seconds and the outboard engines cutting off at LOX depletion at 150.8 seconds when the vehicle was traveling at 9660km/h at an altitude of 61.6km. Stage seperation occured only 1.2 seconds off the predicted time. Cutoff of the S-II occured at 519.8 seconds. Mission Name: Apollo-5 (21) Pad 37-B (8) Saturn-1B AS-204 (4) 1st Lunar Module Launch Milestones: 08/15/66 - S-1 Stage ondock at KSC 08/15/66 - S-1B Stage ondock at KSC 08/06/66 - S-IVB ondock at KSC 08/16/66 - S-IU ondock at KSC 04/11/67 - Launch Vehicle at Pad 11/19/67 - Spacecraft at Pad 01/19/68 - Countdown demonstration Test 01/22/68 - Launch Payload: LM-1 and nose cone. Mission Objectives: Verify operation of Lunar Module ascent and descent propulsion systems. Evaluate Lunar Module staging. Evaluate S-IVB instrument unit performance. All mission objects achieved. Launch: January 22, 1968, 05:48:08 pm EST. Launch Complex 37B, Eastern Test Range, Cape Canaveral FL. Hold for 228 minutes when spacecraft water boiler temperature rose higher than planned, caused by problem in GSE freon supply, and a power supply in an output register in the digital data-acquisition system failed. Launch Weight: xxx,xxx lbs. Orbit: Altitude: 961km Inclination: xxx degrees Orbits: 4 Duration: Days, hours, min, seconds Distance: miles Landing: No recovery. Mission Highlights: Apogee was 222 km at insertion, LM/S-IVB seperation, and after first descent engine firing. Apogee was raised to 961 km after first ascent engine firing. Perigee was 163 km at insertion, 167km at separation, 171 after descent engine firing, and 172 km after ascent engine firing. Mission Name: Apollo-6 (22) Pad 39-A (2) Saturn-V AS-502 (2) High Bay 3 MLP 2 Firing Room 2 Milestones: 04/04/68 - Launch Payload: CM-020, SM-014, LTA-2R Mission Objectives: Demonstrate structure and thermal integrity and compatibility of launch vehicle and spacecraft; confirm launch loads and dynamic characteristics (Achieved). Demonstrate separation of launch vehicle stages (Achieved). Evaluate performance of emergency detection system in closed-loop configuration (Achieved). Verify operation of Saturn V propulsion, guidance and control, and electrical systems. (Not Achieved because of early cutoff of two of the S-II stage J-2 engines and failure of S-IVB J-2 engine to restart. Demonstrate performance of mission support facilities (Achieved). Launch: April 4, 1968, 07:00:01 a.m. EST. Launch Complex 39A, Eastern Test Range, Cape Canaveral, FL. Launch Weight: xxx,xxx lbs. Orbit: Altitude: 367km Inclination: xxx degrees Orbits: Duration: 0 Days, 10 hours, 22 min, 59 seconds Distance: miles Landing: April 4, 1968, 05:23pm EST. Exact landing point unknown, first visual sighting at 27deg 40min North and 157deg 59min West. Capsule recovered by U.S.S. Okinawa and on board at 10:55 p.m. EST. Mission Highlights: Apogee, 367 kilometers; perigee, 178 kilometers (nearly circular orbit intended, but early cutoff of S-II engines and overburn of S-IVB engine caused unplanned orbital parameters); after S-IVB engine failed to reignite, a 422-second burn of the SPS engine sent the spacecraft to an altitude of 22, 209 kilometers. Mission Name: Apollo-7 (23) Pad 34 (8) Saturn-1B AS-205 () CSM-101 () 1st Block II CSM 1st Manned CSM mission 1st 3 man American crew 1st Live TV downlink Crew: Walter M. Schirra, Jr., Commander Donn F. Eisele, CSM Pilot R. Walter Cunningham, Lunar Module Pilot Backup Crew: Thomas Stafford, Commander John Young, CSM Pilot Eugene Cernan, Lunar module pilot Milestones: 03/28/68 - S-1 Stage ondock at KSC 03/28/68 - S-1B Stage ondock at KSC 04/07/68 - S-IVB ondock at KSC 04/11/68 - S-IU ondock at KSC 05/11/68 - Launch Vehicle at Pad 08/09/68 - Spacecraft at Pad 09/17/68 - Countdown Demonstration Test 10/11/68 - Launch Payload: CSM-101 Mission Objectives: The primary objectives for the Apollo 7 engineering test flight, were simple: "Demonstrate CSM/crew performance; demonstrate crew/space vehicle/mission support facilities performance during a manned CSM mission; demonstrate CSM rendezvous capability." Launch: October 11, 1968, 11:02:45am EST. October 11 at Cape Kennedy was hot but the heat was tempered by a pleasant breeze when Apollo 7 lifted off in a two-tongued blaze of orange-colored flame. The Saturn IB, in its first trial with men aboard, provided a perfect launch and its first stage dropped off 2 minutes 25 seconds later. The S-IVB second stage took over, giving astronauts their first ride atop a load of liquid hydrogen, and at 5 minutes 54 seconds into the mission, Walter Schirra, the commander, reported, "She is riding like a dream." About five minutes later an elliptical orbit had been achieved, 140 by 183 miles above the Earth. Launch Weight: xxx,xxx lbs. Orbit: Altitude: 140 x 183 miles Inclination: xxx degrees Orbits: 163 Duration: 10 Days, 20 hours, min, seconds Distance: miles Landing: The CSM's service propulsion system, which had to fire the CSM into and out of Moon orbit, worked perfectly during eight burns lasting from half a second to 67.6 seconds. Apollo's flotation bags had their first try-out when the spacecraft, a "lousy boat," splashed down in the Atlantic southeast of Bermuda, less than two kilometers from the planned impact point. Landing location was 27deg 32min North and 64deg 04min West. The module turned upside down; when inflated, the brightly colored bags flipped it aright. The tired, but happy, voyagers were picked up by helicopter and deposited on the deck of the U.S.S. Essex by 08:20am EDT. Spacecraft aboard ship at 09:03am. Mission Highlights: Once Apollo 7 cleared the pad, a three-shift mission control team-led by flight directors Glynn Lunney, Eugene Kranz, and Gerald D. Griffin -- in Houston took over. Schirra, Eisele, and Cunningham inside the command module had listened to the sound of propellants rushing into the firing chambers, had noticed the vehicles swaying slightly, and had felt the vibrations at ignition. Ten and a half minutes after launch, with little bumpiness and low g loads during acceleration, Apollo 7 reached the first stage of its journey, an orbital path 227 by 285 kilometers above the earth. The S-IVB stayed with the CSM for about one and one-half orbits, then separated. Schirra fired the CSM's small rockets to pull 50 feet ahead of the S-IVB, then turned the spacecraft around to simulate docking, as would be necessary to extract an LM for a Moon landing. Next day, when the CSM and the S-IVB were about 80 miles apart, Schirra and his mates sought out the lifeless, tumbling 59-foot craft in a rendezvous simulation and approached within 70 feet. Walter Cunningham reported the spacecraft-lunar module adapter panels had not fully deployed- which naturally reminded Stafford, on the capsule communicator (CapCom) console, of the "angry alligator" target vehicle he had encountered on his Gemini IX mission. This mishap would have been embarrassing on a mission that carried a lunar module. but the panels would be jettisoned explosively on future flights. After this problem, service module engine performance was a joy. This was one area where the crew could not switch to a redundant or backup system; at crucial times during a lunar voyage, the engine simply had to work or they would not get back home. On Apollo 7, there were eight nearly perfect firings out of eight attempts. On the first, the crew had a real surprise. In contrast to the smooth liftoff of the Saturn, the blast from the service module engine jolted the astronauts, causing Schirra to yell "Yabadabadoo" like Fred Flintstone in the contemporary video cartoon. Later, Eisele said, "We didn't quite know what to expect, but we got more than we expected." He added more graphically that it was a real boot in the rear that just plastered them into their seats. But the engine did what it was supposed to do each time it fired. The Apollo vehicle and the CSM performed superbly. Durability was shown for 10.8 days - longer than a journey to the Moon and back. With few exceptions, the other systems in the spacecraft operated as they should. Occasionally, one of the three fuel cells supplying electricity to the craft developed some unwanted high temperatures, but load-sharing hookups among the cells prevented any power shortage. The crew complained about noisy fans in the environmental circuits and turned one of them off. That did not help much, so the men switched off the other. The cabin stayed comfortable, although the coolant lines sweated and water collected in little puddles on the deck, which the crew expected after the Kerwin team's test in the altitude chamber. Schirra's crew vacuumed the excess water out into space with the urine dump hose. A momentary shudder went through Mission Control when both AC buses dropped out of the spacecraft's electrical system, coincident with automatic cycles of the cryogenic oxygen tank fans and heaters; but manual resetting of the AC bus breakers restored normal service. Three of the five spacecraft windows fogged because of improperly cured sealant compound (a condition that could not be fixed until Apollo 9). Visibility from the spacecraft windows ranged from poor to good, during the mission. Shortly after the launch escape tower jettisoned, two of the windows had soot deposits and two others had water condensation. Two days later, however, Cunningham reported that most of the windows were in fairly good shape, although moisture was collecting between the inner panes of one window. On the seventh day, Schirra described essentially the same conditions. Even with these impediments, the windows were adequate. Those used for observations during rendezvous and stationkeeping with the S-IVB remained almost clear. Navigational sighting with a telescope and a sextant on any of the 37 preselected "Apollo" stars was difficult if done too soon after a waste-water dump. Sometimes they had to wait several minutes for the frozen particles to disperse. Eisele reported that unless he could see at least 40 or 50 stars at a time he found it hard to decide what part of the sky he was looking toward. On the whole, however, the windows were satisfactory for general and landmark observations and for out-the-window photography. Most components supported the operations and well-being of the spacecraft and crew as planned, in spite of minor irritations like smudging windows and puddling water. For example, the waste management system for collecting solid body wastes was adequate, though annoying. The defecation bags, containing a germicide to prevent bacteria and gas formation, were easily sealed and stored in empty food containers in the equipment bay. But the bags were certainly not convenient and there were usually unpleasant odors. Each time they were used, it took the crew member from 45 to 60 minutes, causing him to postpone it as long as possible, waiting for a time when there was no work to do. The crew had a total of only 12 defecations over a period of nearly 11 days. Urination was much easier, as the crew did not have to remove clothing. There was a collection service for both the pressure suits and the inflight coveralls. Both devices could be attached to the urine dump hose and emptied into space. They had half expected the hose valve to freeze up in vacuum, but it never did. Chargers for the batteries needed for reentry (after fuel cells departed with the SM) returned 50 to 75 percent less energy than expected. Most serious was the overheating of fuel cells, which might have failed when the spacecraft was too far from Earth to return on batteries, even if fully charged. But each of these anomalies was satisfactorily checked out before Apollo 8 flew. Some of the crew's grumpiness during the mission could be attributed to physical discomfort. About 15 hours into the flight, Schirra developed a bad cold, and Cunningham and Eisele soon followed suit. A cold is uncomfortable enough on the ground; in weightless space it presents a different problem. Mucus accumulates, filling the nasal passages, and does not drain from the head. The only relief is to blow hard, which is painful to the ear drums. So the crewmen of Apollo 7 whirled through space suffering from stopped up ears and noses. They took aspirin and decongestant tablets and discussed their symptoms with the doctors. Several days before the mission ended, they began to worry about wearing their suit helmets during reentry. which would prevent them from blowing their noses. The buildup of pressure might burst their eardrums. Slayton, in mission control, tried to persuade them to wear the helmets, anyway, but Schirra was adamant. They each took a decongestant pill about an hour before reentry and made it through the acceleration zone without any problems with their ears. Apollo 7 accomplished what it set out to do- qualifying the command and service module and clearing the way for the proposed lunar-orbit mission to follow. And its activities were of national interest. A special edition of NASA's news clipping collection called "Current News" included front page stories from 32 major newspapers scattered over the length and breadth of the nation. Although the postmission celebrations may not have rivaled those for the first orbital flight of an American, John Glenn in 1962, enthusiasm was high- and this fervor would build to even greater heights each time the lunar landing goal drew one step closer. In retrospect it seems inconceivable, but serious debate ensued in NASA councils on whether television should be broadcast from Apollo missions, and the decision to carry the little 4 1/2- pound camera was not made until just before this October flight. Although these early pictures were crude, I think it was informative for the public to see astronauts floating weightlessly in their roomy spacecraft, snatching floating objects, and eating the first hot food consumed in space. Like the television pictures, the food improved in later missions. Apollo 7's achievement led to a rapid review of Apollo 8's options. The Apollo 7 astronauts went through six days of debriefing for the benefit of Apollo 8, and on October 28 the Manned Space Flight Management Council chaired by Mueller met at MSC, investigating every phase of the forthcoming mission. Next day came a lengthy systems review of Apollo 8's Spacecraft 103. Paine made the go/no-go review of lunar orbit on November 11 at NASA Headquarters in Washington. By this time nearly all the skeptics had become converts. Mission Name: Apollo-8 (24) Pad 39-A (3) Saturn-V AS-503 (3) High Bay 1 MLP 1 Firing Room 1 Crew: Frank Borman, Commander James A. Lovell, Jr. William A. Anders Backup Crew: Milestones: 12/24/67 - S-II Stage ondock at KSC 12/27/67 - S-1C Stage ondock at KSC 12/30/67 - S-IVB ondock at KSC 01/04/68 - S-IU ondock at KSC 08/14/68 - Launch Vehicle at Pad 10/17/68 - Spacecraft at Pad 12/11/68 - Countdown Demonstration Test 12/21/68 - Launch Payload: CSM-103 Mission Objectives: Demonstrate crew/space vehicle/mission support facilities during manned Saturn V/CSM mission. Demonstrate translunar injection, CSM navigation, communications, and midcourse corrections. Assess CSM consumables and passive thermal control. Demonstrate CSM performance in cislunar and lunar orbit environment. Demonstrate communications and tracking at lunar distances. Return high-resolution photographs of proposed Apollo landing sites and locations of scientific interest. All mission objectives were achieved. Launch: December 21, 1968, 07:51:00 a.m. EST. Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39-A. Orbit: Altitude: 190km x 180km Inclination: xxx degrees Orbits: Duration: 6 Days, 3 hours, 0 min, 42 seconds Distance: miles Landing: December 27, 1968; 10:52 am EST; Landing point 8deg 7.5min North and 165deg 1.2min West. Miss distance was 2.5km; Splashdown time, December 27, 1968 at 10:52 a.m. EST; MET: 147:00:42. Crew on board U.S.S Yorktown at 12:20 p.m. EST; Spacecraft aboard ship at 01:20 p.m. Mission Highlights: Apogee, 190 kilometers; perigee 180 kilometers. Translunar injection at 02:56:05.5 MET; maximum distance from earth, 376,745 kilometers; lunar orbit insertion 69:08:20 MET; lunar orbit 312km by 111km; transearth injection, 89:19:17 MET. In lunar orbit 20 hours, with 10 orbits. First manned lunar orbital mission. Support facilities tested. Photographs taken of Earth and Moon. Live TV broadcasts. Mission Name: Apollo-9 (25) Pad 39-A (4) Saturn-V AS-504 (4) High Bay 3 MLP 2 Firing Room 2 Crew: James A. McDivitt David R. Scott Russell L. Schweickart Backup Crew: Milestones: 05/15/68 - S-II Stage ondock at KSC 09/30/68 - S-1C Stage ondock at KSC 09/12/68 - S-IVB ondock at KSC 09/30/68 - S-IU ondock at KSC 01/03/69 - Rollout to pad 02/19/69 - Countdown Demonstration Test 03/03/69 - Launch Payload: CSM-104 (Gumdrop) and LM-3 (Spider) Mission Objectives: Demonstrate crew/space vehicle/mission support facilities during manned Saturn V/CSM/LM mission (Achieved). Demonstrate LM/crew performance (Achieved). Demonstrate selected lunar orbit rendezvous mission activities including transposition, docking withdrawal, intervehicular crew transfer, EVA, SPS and DPS burns, and LM active rendezvous and docking. All achieved except EVA (because of Schweickart's illness, most EVA's were canceled). Assess CSM/LM consumables used. Launch: March 03, 1969; 11:00:00 am EST. Launch Complex 39-A Kennedy Space Center. No delays. Orbit: Altitude: 192km x 190km Inclination: xxx degrees Orbits: Duration: 10 Days, 01 hours, min, seconds Distance: miles Landing: March 13, 1969 at 12:01 p.m. EST; Landing point 23deg 12.5min North and 67deg 56min West (Atlantic Ocean). Miss distance 4.8 kilometers. Crew on board U.S.S Guadalcanal at 12:45pm EST; Spacecraft aboard ship at 02:13pm. Mission Highlights: Apogee, 192 km, perigee, 190km; first manned Apollo docking 03:01:59 MET; first docked SPS burn, 05:59:01 MET; first Apollo EVA, 72:53:00 MET. First manned Apollo undocking, 92:39:36 MET; first manned LM to CSM docking, 99:02:26 MET; First manned flight of all lunar hardware in Earth orbit. Schweickart performed 37 minutes EVA. Human reactions to space and weightlessness tested in 152 orbits. First manned flight of lunar module. Mission Name: Apollo-10 (26) Pad 39-B (1) Saturn-V AS-505 (5) 1st Launch LC-39B High Bay 2 MLP 3 Firing Room 3 Crew: Eugene A. Cernan John W. Young Thomas P. Stafford Backup Crew: Milestones: 12/10/68 - S-II Stage ondock at KSC 11/27/68 - S-1C Stage ondock at KSC 12/03/68 - S-IVB ondock at KSC 12/15/68 - S-IU ondock at KSC 05/18/69 - Launch Payload: CSM-106 (Charlie Brown) and LM-4 (Snoopy) Mission Objectives: Demonstrate performance of LM and CSM in lunar gravitation field. Evaluate CSM and LM docked and undocked lunar navigation. All mission objectives were achieved. Launch: May 18, 1969; 12:49:00 a.m. EDT Kennedy Space Center, FL. No Delays. Orbit: Altitude: 190km x 184km Inclination: xxx degrees Orbits: Duration: 08 Days, 0 hours, 03 min, 23 seconds Distance: miles Landing: May 26, 1969; 12:52am EDT. Landing point 15deg 2min South by 164deg 39min West; Miss distance not available. Crew on board U.S.S. Princeton at 01:31 p.m. EDT; spacecraft aboard ship at 02:28 p.m. Mission Highlights: Apogee, 190 kilometers; perigee, 184km; translunar injection, 02:39:21 MET; maximum distance from Earth, 399,194km; first CSM-LM docking in translunar trajectory, 03:17:37 MET; lunar orbit insertion, 75:55:54 MET; first LM undocking in lunar orbit, 98:11:57 MET; first LM staging in lunar orbit, 102:45:17 MET; first manned LM-CSM docking in lunar orbit, 106:22:02 MET; transearth injection 137:36:29 MET. Dress rehearsal for Moon landing. First manned CSM/LM operations in cislunar and lunar environ- ment; simulation of first lunar landing profile. In lunar orbit 61.6 hours, with 31 orbits. LM taken to within 15,243 m (50,000 ft) of lunar surface. First live color TV from space. LM ascent stage jettisoned in orbit. Mission Name: Apollo-11 (27) Pad 39-A (5) Saturn-V AS-506 (6) High Bay 1 MLP 1 Firing Room 1 Crew: Neil A. Armstrong (2), Commander Edwin E. Aldrin (2), Jr., Lunar Module Pilot Michael Collins (2), Command Module Pilot Backup Crew: James Lovell (3), Backup Commander Fred Haise (0), Backup Lunar Module Pilot William A. Anders (1), Backup Command Module Pilot Milestones: 10/21/68 - LM-5 Integration Systems Test complete 12/06/68 - CSM-107 Integrated Systems Test complete 12/13/68 - LM-5 acceptance test complete 01/08/69 - LM-5 Ascent Stage delivered to KSC 01/12/69 - LM-5 Descent stage delivered to KSC 01/18/69 - S-IVB ondock at KSC 01/23/69 - CSM ondock at KSC 01/29/69 - Command and Service Module Mated 02/06/69 - S-II Stage ondock at KSC 02/20/69 - S-1C Stage ondock at KSC 02/17/69 - Combined CSM-107 system tests complete 02/27/69 - S-IU ondock at KSC 03/24/69 - CSM-107 Altitude testing complete 04/14/69 - Rollover of CSM from O&C to VAB 04/22/69 - Integrated system test complete 05/05/69 - CSM electrical mate to Saturn V 05/20/69 - Rollout to Pad LC-39A 06/01/69 - Flight Readiness Test 06/26/69 - Countdown Demonstration Test 07/16/69 - Launch Payload: CSM-107 (Columbia) and LM-5 (Eagle) Mission Objectives: Perform manned lunar landing and return mission safely. (Achieved). Launch: July 16, 1969; 09:32:00 am EDT. Launch Complex 39-A Kennedy Space Center, FL. No launch delays. The splashdown May 26, 1969, of Apollo 10 cleared the way for the first formal attempt at a manned lunar landing. Six days before, the Apollo 11 launch vehicle and spacecraft half crawled from the VAB and trundled at 0.9 mph to Pad 39-A. A successful countdown test ending on July 3 showed the readiness of machines, systems, and people. The next launch window (established by lighting conditions at the landing site on Mare Tranquillitatis) opened at 9:32 AM EDT on July 16, 1969. The crew for Apollo 11, all of whom had already flown in space during Gemini, had been intensively training as a team for many months. The following mission account makes use of crew members' own words, from books written by two of them, supplemented by space-to-ground and press-conference transcripts. ALDRIN: At breakfast early on the morning of the launch. Dr. Thomas Paine, the Administrator of NASA, told us that concern for our own safety must govern all our actions, and if anything looked wrong we were to abort the mission. He then made a most surprising and unprecedented statement: if we were forced to abort, we would be immediately recycled and assigned to the next landing attempt. What he said and how he said it was very reassuring. We were up early, ate, and began to suit up- a rather laborious and detailed procedure involving many people, which we would repeat once again, alone, before entering the LM for our lunar landing. While Mike and Neil were going through the complicated business of being strapped in and connected to the spacecraft's life-support system, I waited near the elevator on the floor below. I waited alone for fifteen minutes in a sort of serene limbo. As far as I could see there were people and cars lining the beaches and highways. The surf was just beginning to rise out of an azure-blue ocean. I could see the massiveness of the Saturn V rocket below and the magnificent precision of Apollo above. I savored the wait and marked the minutes in my mind as something I would always want to remember. COLLINS: I am everlastingly thankful that I have flown before, and that this period of waiting atop a rocket is nothing new. I am just as tense this time, but the tenseness comes mostly from an appreciation of the enormity of our undertaking rather than from the unfamiliarity of the situation. I am far from certain that we will be able to fly the mission as planned. I think we will escape with our skins, or at least I will escape with mine, but I wouldn't give better than even odds on a successful landing and return. There arc just too many things that can go wrong. Fred Haise [the backup astronaut who had checked command-module switch positions] has run through a checklist 417 steps long. and I have merely a half dozen minor chores to take care of- nickel and dime stuff. In between switch throws I have plenty of time to think, if not daydream. Here I am, a white male, age thirty-eight, height 5 feet 11 inches, weight 165 pounds, salary $17,000 per annum, resident of a Texas suburb, with black spot on my roses, state of mind unsettled, about to be shot off to the Moon. Yes, to the Moon. At the moment, the most important control is over on Neil's side, just outboard of his left knee. It is the abort handle, and now it has power to it, so if Neil rotates it 30 counterclockwise, three solid rockets above us will fire and yank the CM free of the service module and everything below it. It is only to be used in extremes. A large bulky pocket has been added to Neil's left suit leg, and it looks as though if he moves his leg slightly, it's going to snag on the abort handle. I quickly point this out to Neil, and he grabs the pocket and pulls it as far over to the inside of his thigh as he can, but it still doesn't look secure to either one of us. Jesus, I can see the headlines now: "MOONSHOT FALLS INTO OCEAN." Mistake by crew, program officials intimate. Last transmission from Armstrong prior to leaving the pad reportedly was `Oops.'" ARMSTRONG: The flight started promptly, and I think that was characteristic of all events of the flight. The Saturn gave us one magnificent ride, both in Earth orbit and on a trajectory to the Moon. Our memory of that differs little from the reports you have heard from the previous Saturn V flights. ALDRIN: For the thousands of people watching along the beaches of Florida and the millions who watched on television, our lift-off was ear shattering. For us there was a slight increase in the amount of background noise, not at all unlike the sort one notices taking off in a commercial airliner, and in less than a minute we were traveling ahead of the speed of sound. COLLINS: This beast is best felt. Shake, rattle, and roll' We are thrown left and right against our straps in spasmodic little jerks. It is steering like crazy, like a nervous lady driving a wide car down a narrow alley, and I just hope it knows where it's going, because for the first ten seconds we are perilously close to that umbilical tower. ALDRIN: A busy eleven minutes later we were in Earth orbit. The Earth didn't look much different from the way it had during my first flight, and yet I kept looking at it. From space it has an almost benign quality. Intellectually one could realize there were wars underway, but emotionally it was impossible to understand such things. The thought reoccurred that wars are generally fought for territory or are disputes over borders; from space the arbitrary borders established on Earth cannot be seen. After one and a half orbits a preprogrammed sequence fired the Saturn to send us out of Earth orbit and on our way to the Moon. ( Apollo Expeditions to the Moon, edited by Edgar M. Cortright, NASA SP; 350, Washington, DC, 1975 ) Orbit: Altitude: 186km x 183km Earth Orbits: Lunar Orbits: Duration: 08 Days, 03 hours, 18 min, 35 seconds Distance: miles Lunar Location: Sea of Tranquility Lunar Coords: .71 degrees North, 23.63 degrees East Landing: July 24, 1969; 12:50 p.m. EDT. Splashdown area 13deg 19min North and 169deg 9 min West; Splashdown at 195:18:35 MET. Crew on board U.S.S Hornet at 01:53 p.m. EDT; spacecraft aboard ship at 03:50pm. Mission Highlights: Apogee, 186km; perigee 183km; Translunar injection 02:44:26 MET; maximum distance from Earth 389,645km; lunar orbit insertion, 75:50:00 MET; lunar landing, 102:45:39 MET (20 July at 04:17 p.m. EDT). First step on moon, 10:56:15 p.m. EDT; end of EVA, 111:39:13 MET (01:09 a.m. EDT); liftoff from moon, 124:22:00.8 MET (1:54 p.m. EDT); LM-CSM docking, 128:03:00 MET; transearth injection, 135:23:52.3 MET; First manned lunar landing mission and lunar surface EVA. "HOUSTON, TRANQUILITY BASE HERE.THE EAGLE HAS LANDED." July 20, Sea of Tranquility. 1 EVA of 02 hours, 31 minutes. Flag and instruments deployed; unveiled plaque on the LM descent stage with inscription: "Here Men From Planet Earth First Set Foot Upon the Moon. July 1969 A.D. We Came In Peace For All Mankind." Lunar surface stay time 21.6 hours;59.5 hours in lunar orbit, with 30 orbits. LM ascent stage left in lunar orbit. 20kg (44 lbs) of material gathered. ARMSTRONG: Hey Houston, Apollo 11. This Saturn gave us a magnificent ride. We have no complaints with any of the three stages on that ride. It was beautiful. COLLINS: We started the burn at 100 miles altitude, and had reached only 180 at cutoff, but we are climbing like a dingbat. In nine hours, when we are scheduled to make our first midcourse correction, we will be 57,000 miles out. At the instant of shutdown, Buzz recorded our velocity as 35,579 feet per second, more than enough to escape from the Earth's gravitational field. As we proceed outbound, this number will get smaller and smaller until the tug of the Moon's gravity exceeds that of the Earth's and then we will start speeding up again. It's hard to believe that we are on our way to the Moon, at 1200 miles altitude now, less than three hours after liftoff, and I'll bet the launch-day crowd down at the Cape is still bumper to bumper, straggling back to the motels and bars. ALDRIN: Mike's next major task, with Neil and me assisting, was to separate our command module Columbia from the Saturn third stage, turn around and connect with the lunar module Eagle, which was stored in the third stage. Eagle, by now, was exposed; its four enclosing panels had automatically come off and were drifting away. This of course was a critical maneuver in the flight plan. If the separation and docking did not work, we would return to Earth. There was also the possibility of an in-space collision and the subsequent decompression of our cabin, so we were still in our spacesuits as Mike separated us from the Saturn third stage. Critical as the maneuver is, I felt no apprehension about it, and if there was the slightest inkling of concern it disappeared quickly as the entire separation and docking proceeded perfectly to completion. The nose of Columbia was now connected to the top of the Eagle and heading for the Moon as we watched the Saturn third stage venting, a propulsive maneuver causing it to move slowly away from us. Fourteen hours after liftoff, at 10:30 PM by Houston time, the three astronauts fasten covers over the windows of the slowly rotating command module and go to sleep. Days 2 and 3 are devoted to housekeeping chores, a small midcourse velocity correction, and TV transmissions back to Earth. In one news digest from Houston, the astronauts are amused to hear that Pravda has referred to Armstrong as "the czar of the ship." ALDRIN: In our preliminary flight plan I wasn't scheduled to go to the LM until the next day in lunar orbit. but I had lobbied successfully to go earlier. My strongest argument was that I'd have ample time to make sure that the frail LM and its equipment had suffered no damage during the launch and long trip. By that time neither Neil nor I had been in the LM for about two weeks. The Most Awesome Sphere COLLINS: Day 4 has a decidedly different feel to it. Instead of nine hours' sleep, I get seven -- and fitful ones at that. Despite our concentrated effort to conserve our energy on the way to the Moon, the pressure is overtaking us (or me at least), and I feel that all of us are aware that the honeymoon is over and we are about to lay our little pink bodies on the line. Our first shock comes as we stop our spinning motion and swing ourselves around so as to bring the Moon into view. We have not been able to see the Moon for nearly a day now, and the change is electrifying. The Moon I have known all my life, that two- dimensional small yellow disk in the sky, has gone away somewhere, to be replaced by the most awesome sphere I have ever seen. To begin with it is huge, completely filling our window. Second, it is three-dimensional. The belly of it bulges out toward us in such a pronounced fashion that I almost feel I can reach out and touch it. To add to the dramatic effect, we can see the stars again. We are in the shadow of the Moon now, and the elusive stars have reappeared. As we ease around on the left side of the Moon, I marvel again at the precision of our path. We have missed hitting the Moon by a paltry 300 nautical miles, at a distance of nearly a quarter of a million miles from Earth, and don't forget that the Moon is a moving target and that we are racing through the sky just ahead of its leading edge. When we launched the other day the Moon was nowhere near where it is now; it was some 40 degrees of arc, or nearly 200,000 miles, behind where it is now, and yet those big computers in the basement in Houston didn't even whimper but belched out super-accurate predictions. As we pass behind the Moon, we have just over eight minutes to go before the burn. We are super-careful now, checking and rechecking each step several times. When the moment finally arrives, the big engine instantly springs into action and reassuringly plasters us back in our seats. The acceleration is only a fraction of one G but it feels good nonetheless. For six minutes we sit there peering intent as hawks at our instrument panel, scanning the important dials and gauges, making sure that the proper thing is being done to us. When the engine shuts down, we discuss the matter with our computer and I read out the results: "Minus one, plus one, plus one." The accuracy of the overall system is phenomenal: out of a total of nearly three thousand feet per second, we have velocity errors in our body axis coordinate system of only a tenth of one foot per second in each of the three directions. That is one accurate burn, and even Neil acknowledges the fact. ALDRIN: The second burn to place us in closer circular orbit of the Moon, the orbit from which Neil and I would separate from the Columbia and continue on to the Moon, was critically important. It had to be made in exactly the right place and for exactly the correct length of time. If we overburned for as little as two seconds we'd be on an impact course for the other side of the Moon. Through a complicated and detailed system of checks and balances, both in Houston and in lunar orbit, plus star checks and detailed platform alignments, two hours after our first lunar orbit we made our second burn, in an atmosphere of nervous and intense concentration. It, too, worked perfectly. - Michael Collins and Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin, Jr. ( Apollo Expeditions to the Moon, edited by Edgar M. Cortright, NASA SP; 350, Washington, DC, 1975 ) Asleep in Lunar Orbit We began preparing the LM. It was scheduled to take three hours, but because I had already started the checkout, we were completed a half hour ahead of schedule. Reluctantly we returned to the Columbia as planned. Our fourth night we were to sleep in lunar orbit. Although it was not in the flight plan, before covering the windows and dousing the lights, Neil and I carefully prepared all the equipment and clothing we would need in the morning, and mentally ran through the many procedures we would follow. COLLINS: "Apollo 11, Apollo 11, good morning from the Black Team." Could they be talking to me? It takes me twenty seconds to fumble for the microphone button and answer groggily, I guess I have only been asleep five hours or so; I had a tough time getting to sleep, and now I'm having trouble waking up. Neil, Buzz, and I all putter about fixing breakfast and getting various items ready for transfer into the LM. [Later] I stuff Neil and Buzz into the LM along with an armload of equipment. Now I have to do the tunnel bit again, closing hatches, installing drogue and probe, and disconnecting the electrical umbilical. I am on the radio constantly now, running through an elaborate series of joint checks with Eagle. I check progress with Buzz: "I have five minutes and fifteen seconds since we started. Attitude is holding very well." "Roger, Mike, just hold it a little bit longer." "No sweat, I can hold it all day. Take your sweet time. How's the czar over there? He's so quiet." Neil chimes in, "Just hanging on- and punching." Punching those computer buttons, I guess he means. "All I can say is, beware the revolution," and then, getting no answer, I formally bid them goodbye. "You cats take it easy on the lunar surface...." "O.K., Mike," Buzz answers cheerily, and I throw the switch which releases them. With my nose against the window and the movie camera churning away, I watch them go. When they are safely clear of me, I inform Neil, and he begins a slow pirouette in place, allowing me a look at his outlandish machine and its four extended legs. "The Eagle has wings'" Neil exults. It doesn't look like any eagle I have ever seen. It is the weirdest-looking contraption ever to invade the sky, floating there with its legs awkwardly jutting out above a body which has neither symmetry nor grace. I make sure all four landing gears are down and locked, report that fact, and then lie a little, "I think you've got a fine-looking flying machine there. Eagle, despite the fact you're upside down." "Somebody's upside down," Neil retorts. "O.K., Eagle. One minute . . . you guys take care." Neil answers, "See you later." I hope so. When the one minute is up, I fire my thrusters precisely as planned and we begin to separate, checking distances and velocities as we go. This burn is a very small one, just to give Eagle some breathing room. From now on it's up to them, and they will make two separate burns in reaching the lunar surface. The first one will serve to drop Eagle's perilune to fifty thousand feet. Then, when they reach this spot over the eastern edge of the Sea of Tranquility, Eagle's descent engine will be fired up for the second and last time, and Eagle will lazily arc over into a 12-minute computer- controlled descent to some point at which Neil will take over for a manual landing. ALDRIN: We were still 60 miles above the surface when we began our first burn. Neil and I were harnessed into the LM in a standing position. [Later] at precisely the right moment the engine ignited to begin the 12-minute powered descent. Strapped in by the system of belts and cables not unlike shock absorbers, neither of us felt the initial motion. We looked quickly at the computer to make sure we were actually functioning as planned. After 26 seconds the engine went to full throttle and the motion became noticeable. Neil watched his instruments while I looked at our primary computer and compared it with our second computer, which was part of our abort guidance system. I then began a computer read-out sequence to Neil which was also being transmitted to Houston. I had helped develop it. It sounded as though I was chattering like a magpie. It also sounded as though I was doing all the work. During training we had discussed the possibility of making the communication only between Neil and myself, but Mission Control liked the idea of hearing our communications with each other. Neil had referred to it once as "that damned open mike of yours," and I tried to make as little an issue of it as possible. - Michael Collins and Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin, Jr. ( Apollo Expeditions to the Moon, edited by Edgar M. Cortright, NASA SP; 350, Washington, DC, 1975 ) A Yellow Caution Light At six thousand feet above the lunar surface a yellow caution light came on and we encountered one of the few potentially serious problems in the entire flight, a problem which might have caused us to abort, had it not been for a man on the ground who really knew his job. COLLINS: At five minutes into the burn, when I am nearly directly overhead, Eagle voices its first concern. "Program Alarm," barks Neil, "It's a 1202." What the hell is that? I don't have the alarm numbers memorized for my own computer, much less for the LM's. I jerk out my own checklist and start thumbing through it, but before I can find 1202, Houston says, "Roger, we're GO on that alarm." No problem, in other words. My checklist says 1202 is an "executive overflow," meaning simply that the computer has been called upon to do too many things at once and is forced to postpone some of them. A little farther along, at just three thousand feet above the surface, the computer flashes 1201, another overflow condition, and again the ground is superquick to respond with reassurances. ALDRIN: Back in Houston, not to mention on board the Eagle, hearts shot up into throats while we waited to learn what would happen. We had received two of the caution lights when Steve Bales the flight controller responsible for LM computer activity, told us to proceed, through Charlie Duke, the capsule communicator. We received three or four more warnings but kept on going. When Mike, Neil, and I were presented with Medals of Freedom by President Nixon, Steve also received one. He certainly deserved it, because without him we might not have landed. ARMSTRONG: In the final phases of the descent after a number of program alarms, we looked at the landing area and found a very large crater. This is the area we decided we would not go into; we extended the range downrange. The exhaust dust was kicked up by the engine and this caused some concern in that it degraded our ability to determine not only our altitude in the final phases but also our translational velocities over the ground. It's quite important not to stub your toe during the final phases of touchdown. From the space-to-ground tapes: EAGLE: 540 feet, down at 30 [feet per second] . . . down at 15 . . . 400 feet down at 9 . . . forward . . . 350 feet, down at 4 . . . 300 feet, down 3 1/2 . . . 47 forward . . . 1 1/2 down . . . 13 forward . . . 11 forward? coming down nicely . . . 200 feet, 4 1/2 down . . . 5 1/2 down . . . 5 percent . . . 75 feet . . . 6 forward . . . lights on . . . down 2 1/2 . . . 40 feet? down 2 1/2, kicking up some dust . . . 30 feet, 2 1/2 down . . . faint shadow . . . 4 forward . . . 4 forward . . . drifting to right a little . . . O.K. . . . HOUSTON: 30 seconds [fuel remaining]. EAGLE: Contact light! O.K., engine stop . . . descent engine command override off . . . HOUSTON: We copy you down, Eagle. EAGLE: Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed! HOUSTON: Roger, Tranquility. We copy you on the ground. You've got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again. Thanks a lot. TRANQUILITY: Thank you . . . That may have seemed like a very long final phase. The auto targeting was taking us right into a football-field-sized crater, with a large number of big boulders and rocks for about one or two crater-diameters around it, and it required flying manually over the rock field to find a reasonably good area. HOUSTON: Roger, we copy. It was beautiful from here, Tranquility. Over. TRANQUILITY: We'll get to the details of what's around here, but it looks like a collection of just about every variety of shape, angularity, granularity, about every variety of rock you could find. HOUSTON: Roger, Tranquility. Be advised there's lots of smiling faces in this room, and all over the world. TRANQUILITY: There are two of them up here. COLUMBIA: And don't forget one in the command module. ARMSTRONG: Once [we] settled on the surface, the dust settled immediately and we had an excellent view of the area surrounding the LM. We saw a crater surface, pockmarked with craters up to 15, 20, 30 feet, and many smaller craters down to a diameter of 1 foot and, of course, the surface was very fine- grained. There were a surprising number of rocks of all sizes. A number of experts had, prior to the flight, predicted that a good bit of difficulty might be encountered by people due to the variety of strange atmospheric and gravitational characteristics. This didn't prove to be the case and after landing we felt very comfortable in the lunar gravity. It was, in fact, in our view preferable both to weightlessness and to the Earth's gravity. When we actually descended the ladder it was found to be very much like the lunar-gravity simulations we had performed here on Earth. No difficulty was encountered in descending the ladder. The last step was about 31/2 feet from the surface, and we were somewhat concerned that we might have difficulty in reentering the LM at the end of our activity period. So we practiced that before bringing the camera down. ALDRIN: We opened the hatch and Neil, with me as his navigator, began backing out of the tiny opening. It seemed like a small eternity before I heard Neil say, "That's one small step for man . . . one giant leap for mankind." In less than fifteen minutes I was backing awkwardly out of the hatch and onto the surface to join Neil, who, in the tradition of all tourists, had his camera ready to photograph my arrival. I felt buoyant and full of goose pimples when I stepped down on the surface. I immediately looked down at my feet and became intrigued with the peculiar properties of the lunar dust. If one kicks sand on a beach, it scatters in numerous directions with some grains traveling farther than others. On the Moon the dust travels exactly and precisely as it goes in various directions, and every grain of it lands nearly the same distance away. - Michael Collins and Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin, Jr. ( Apollo Expeditions to the Moon, edited by Edgar M. Cortright, NASA SP; 350, Washington, DC, 1975 ) The Boy in the Candy Store ARMSTRONG: There were a lot of things to do, and we had a hard time getting, them finished. We had very little trouble, much less trouble than expected, on the surface. It was a pleasant operation. Temperatures weren't high. They were very comfortable. The little EMU, the combination of spacesuit and backpack that sustained our life on the surface, operated magnificently. The primary difficulty was just far too little time to do the variety of things we would have liked. We had the problem of the five-year-old boy in a candy store. ALDRIN: I took off jogging to test my maneuverability. The exercise gave me an odd sensation and looked even more odd when I later saw the films of it. With bulky suits on, we seemed to be moving in slow motion. I noticed immediately that my inertia seemed much greater. Earth-bound, I would have stopped my run in just one step, but I had to use three of four steps to sort of wind down. My Earth weight, with the big backpack and heavy suit, was 360 pounds. On the Moon I weighed only 60 pounds. At one point I remarked that the surface was "Beautiful, beautiful. Magnificent desolation." I was struck by the contrast between the starkness of the shadows and the desert-like barrenness of the rest of the surface. It ranged from dusty gray to light tan and was unchanging except for one startling sight: our LM sitting there with its black, silver, and bright yellow- orange thermal coating shining brightly in the otherwise colorless landscape. I had seen Neil in his suit thousands of times before, but on the Moon the unnatural whiteness of it seemed unusually brilliant. We could also look around and see the Earth, which, though much larger than the Moon the Earth was seeing, seemed small -- a beckoning oasis shining far away in the sky. As the sequence of lunar operations evolved, Neil had the camera most of the time, and the majority of pictures taken on the Moon that include an astronaut are of me. It wasn't until we were back on Earth and in the Lunar Receiving Laboratory looking over the pictures that we realized there were few pictures of Neil. My fault perhaps, but we had never simulated this in our training. - Michael Collins and Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin, Jr. ( Apollo Expeditions to the Moon, edited by Edgar M. Cortright, NASA SP; 350, Washington, DC, 1975 ) Coaxing the Flag to Stand During a pause in experiments, Neil suggested we proceed with the flag. It took both of us to set it up and it was nearly a disaster. Public Relations obviously needs practice just as everything else does. A small telescoping arm was attached to the flagpole to keep the flag extended and perpendicular. As hard as we tried, the telescope wouldn't fully extend. Thus the flags which should have been flat, had its own unique permanent wave. Then to our dismay the staff of the pole wouldn't go far enough into the lunar surface to support itself in an upright position. After much struggling we finally coaxed it to remain upright, but in a most precarious position. I dreaded the possibility of the American flag collapsing into the lunar dust in front of the television camera. COLLINS: [On his fourth orbital pass above] "How's it going?" "The EVA is progressing beautifully. I believe they're setting up the flag now." Just let things keep going that way, and no surprises, please. Neil and Buzz sound good, with no huffing and puffing to indicate they are overexerting themselves. But one surprise at least is in store. Houston comes on the air, not the slightest bit ruffled, and announces that the President of the United States would like to talk to Neil and Buzz. "That would be an honor," says Neil, with characteristic dignity. The President's voice smoothly fills the air waves with the unaccustomed cadence of the speechmaker, trained to convey inspiration, or at least emotion, instead of our usual diet of numbers and reminders. "Neil and Buzz, I am talking to you by telephone from the Oval Office at the White House, and this certainly has to be the most historic telephone call ever made . . . Because of what you have done, the heavens have become a part of man's world. As you talk to us from the Sea of Tranquility, it inspires us to redouble our efforts to bring peace and tranquility to Earth . . ." My God, I never thought of all this bringing peace and tranquility to anyone. As far as I am concerned, this voyage is fraught with hazards for the three of us- and especially two of us- and that is about as far as I have gotten in my thinking. Neil, however, pauses long enough to give as well as he receives. "It's a great honor and privilege for us to be here, representing not only the United States but men of peace of all nations, and with interest and a curiosity and a vision for the future." [Later] Houston cuts off the White House and returns to business as usual, with a long string of numbers for me to copy for future use. My God, the juxtaposition of the incongruous- roll, pitch, and yaw; prayers, peace, and tranquility. What will it be like if we really carry this off and return to Earth in one piece, with our boxes full of rocks and our heads full of new perspectives for the planet? I have a little time to ponder this as I zing off out of sight of the White House and the Earth. ALDRIN: We had a pulley system to load on the boxes of rocks. We found the process more time-consuming and dust- scattering than anticipated. After the gear and both of us were inside, our first chore was to pressure the LM cabin and begin stowing the rock boxes, film magazines, and anything else we wouldn't need until we were connected once again with the Columbia. We removed our boots and the big backpacks, opened the LM hatch, and threw these items onto the lunar surface, along with a bagful of empty food packages and the LM urine bags. The exact moment we tossed every thing out was measured back on Earth- the seismometer we had put out was even more sensitive than we had expected. Before beginning liftoff procedures [we] settled down for our fitful rest. We didn't sleep much at all. Among other things we were elated- and also cold. Liftoff from the Moon, after a stay totaling twenty-one hours, was exactly on schedule and fairly uneventful. The ascent stage of the LM separated, sending out a shower of brilliant insulation particles which had been ripped off from the thrust of the ascent engine. There was no lime to sightsee. I was concentrating on the computers, and Neil was studying the attitude indicator, but I looked up long enough to see the flag fall over . . . Three hours and ten minutes later we were connected once again with the Columbia. COLLINS: I can look out through my docking reticle and see that they are steady as a rock as they drive down the center line of that final approach path. I give them some numbers. "I have 0.7 mile and I got you at 31 feet per second." We really are going to carry this off' For the first time since I was assigned to this incredible flight, I feel that it is going to happen. Granted, we are a long way from home, but from here on it should be all downhill. Within a few seconds Houston joins the conversation, with a tentative little call. "Eagle and Columbia, Houston standing by." They want to know what the hell is going on, but they don't want to interrupt us if we are in a crucial spot in our final maneuvering. Good heads! However, they needn't worry, and Neil lets them know it. "Roger, we're stationkeeping." ( Apollo Expeditions to the Moon, edited by Edgar M. Cortright, NASA SP; 350, Washington, DC, 1975 ) All Smiles and Giggles [After docking] it's time to hustle down into the tunnel and remove hatch, probe, and drogue, so Neil and Buzz can get through. Thank God, all the claptrap works beautifully in this its final workout. The probe and drogue will stay with the LM and be abandoned with it, for we will have no further need of them and don't want them cluttering up the command module. The first one through is Buzz, with a big smile on his face. I grab his head, a hand on each temple, and am about to give him a smooch on the forehead, as a parent might greet an errant child; but then, embarrassed, I think better of it and grab his hand, and then Neil's. We cavort about a little bit, all smiles and giggles over our success, and then it's back to work as usual. Excerpts from a TV program broadcast by the Apollo 11 astronauts on the last evening of the flight the day before splashdown in the Pacific: COLLINS: ". . . The Saturn V rocket which put us in orbit is an incredibly complicated piece of machinery, every piece of which worked flawlessly. This computer above my head has a 38,000-word vocabulary, each word of which has been carefully chosen to be of the utmost value to us. The SPS engine, our large rocket engine on the aft end of our service module, must have performed flawlessly or we would have been stranded in lunar orbit. The parachutes up above my head must work perfectly tomorrow or we will plummet into the ocean. We have always had confidence that this equipment will work properly. All this is possible only through the blood, sweat, and tears of a number of people. First, the American workmen who put these pieces of machinery together in the factory. Second, the painstaking work done by various test teams during the assembly and retest after assembly. And finally, the people at the Manned Spacecraft Center, both in management, in mission planning, in flight control, and last but not least, in crew training. This operation is somewhat like the periscope of a submarine. All you see is the three of us, but beneath the surface are thousands and thousands of others, and to all of those, I would like to say, 'Thank you very much.'" ALDRIN: ". . . This has been far more than three men on a mission to the Moon; more, still, than the efforts of a government and industry team; more, even, than the efforts of one nation. We feel that this stands as a symbol of the insatiable curiosity of all mankind to explore the unknown. Today I feel we're really fully capable of accepting expanded roles in the exploration of space. In retrospect, we have all been particularly pleased with the call signs that we very laboriously chose for our spacecraft, Columbia and Eagle. We've been pleased with the emblem of our flight, the eagle carrying an olive branch, bringing the universal symbol of peace from the planet Earth to the Moon. Personally, in reflecting on the events of the past several days, a verse from Psalms comes to mind. 'When I consider the heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the Moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained; What is man that Thou art mindful of him?'" ARMSTRONG: "The responsibility for this flight lies first with history and with the giants of science who have preceded this effort; next with the American people, who have, through their will, indicated their desire; next with four administrations and their Congresses, for implementing that will; and then, with the agency and industry teams that built our spacecraft, the Saturn, the Columbia, the Eagle, and the little EMU, the spacesuit and backpack that was our small spacecraft out on the lunar surface. We would like to give special thanks to all those Americans who built the spacecraft; who did the construction, design, the tests, and put their hearts and all their abilities into those craft. To those people tonight, we give a special thank you, and to all the other people that are listening and watching tonight, God bless you. Good night from Apollo 11." ( Apollo Expeditions to the Moon, edited by Edgar M. Cortright, NASA SP; 350, Washington, DC, 1975 ) Mission Name: Apollo-12 (28) Pad 39-A (6) Saturn-V AS-507 () High Bay 3 MLP 2 Firing Room 2 Crew: Charles Conrad, Jr. Richard F. Gordon, Jr. Alan L. Bean Backup Crew: Milestones: 03/09/69 - S-IVB ondock at KSC 04/21/69 - S-II Stage ondock at KSC 05/03/69 - S-1C Stage ondock at KSC 05/08/69 - S-IU ondock at KSC 11/14/69 - Launch Payload: Yankee Clipper (CM-108) and Intrepid (LM-6) Mission Objectives: Launch: November 14, 1969. Orbit: Altitude: xxx miles Inclination: xxx degrees Orbits: Duration: 10 Days, 04 hours, 36 min, seconds Distance: miles Lunar Location: Ocean of Storms Lunar Coords: 3.04 degrees South, 23.42 degrees West Landing: November 24, 1969 Mission Highlights: Landing site: Ocean of Storms. Retrieved parts of the unmanned Surveyor 3, which had landed on the Moon in April 1967. Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP) deployed. Lunar surface stay-time, 31.5 hours; in lunar orbit 89 hours, with 45 orbits. LM descent stage impacted on Moon. 34kg (75 lbs) of material gathered. Mission Name: Apollo-13 (29) Pad 39-A (7) Saturn-V AS-508 () High Bay 1 MLP 3 Firing Room 1 Crew: James A. Lovell, Jr. John L. Swigert, Jr. Fred W. Haise, Jr. Backup Crew: Milestones: 06/13/69 - S-IVB ondock at KSC 06/29/69 - S-II Stage ondock at KSC 06/16/69 - S-1C Stage ondock at KSC 07/07/69 - S-IU ondock at KSC 04/11/70 - Launch Payload: Odyssey (CM-109) and Aquarius (LM-7) Mission Objectives: Apollo 13 was supposed to land in the Fra Mauro area. An explosion on board forced Apollo 13 to circle the moon without landing. The Fra Mauro site was reassigned to Apollo 14. Launch: Saturday, April 11, 1970 at 13:13 CST. At five and a half minutes after liftoff, Swigert, Haise, and Lovell felt a little vibration. Then the center engine of the S-II stage shut down two minutes early. This caused the remaining four engines to burn 34 seconds longer than planned, and the S-IVB third stage had to burn nine seconds longer to put Apollo 13 in orbit. Days before the mission, backup LM pilot Charlie Duke inadvertently exposed the crew to German measles. Command module pilot, Ken Mattingly, turned out to have no immunity to measles and was replaced by backup command module pilot Jack Swigert. Ground tests before launch, indicated the possibility of a poorly insulated supercritical helium tank in the LM's descent stage so the flight plan was modified to enter the LM three hours early in order to obtain an onboard readout of helium tank pressure. The No. 2 oxygen tank, serial number 10024X-TA0009 had been previously installed in the service module of Apollo 10, but was removed for modification (and was damaged in the process of removal). The tank was fixed, tested at the factory, installed in the Apollo 13 service module. and tested again during the Countdown Demonstration Test (CDT) at the Kennedy Space Center beginning March 16, 1970. The tanks normally are emptied to about half full, and No. 1 behaved all right. But No. 2 dropped to only 92 percent of capacity. Gaseous oxygen at 80 psi was applied through the vent line to expel the liquid oxygen, but to no avail. An interim discrepancy report was written, and on March 27, two weeks before launch, detanking operations were resumed. No. 1 again emptied normally, but No. 2 did not. After a conference with contractor and NASA personnel, the test director decided to "boil off" the remaining oxygen in No. 2 by using the electrical heater within the tank. The technique worked, but it took eight hours of 65-volt DC power from the ground-support equipment to dissipate the oxygen. Due to an oversight in replacing an underrated component during a design modification, this turned out to severely damage the internal heating elements of the tank. Orbit: Altitude: xxx miles Inclination: xxx degrees Orbits: Duration: 05 Days, 22 hours, 54 min, seconds Distance: miles Lunar Location: None Lunar Coords: None Landing: April 17, 1970 Mission Highlights: Third lunar landing attempt. Mission was aborted after rupture of service module oxygen tank. Classed as "successful failure" because of experience in rescuing crew. Spent upper stage successfully impacted on the Moon. The first two days the crew ran into a couple of minor surprises, but generally Apollo 13 was looking like the smoothest flight of the program. At 46 hours 43 minutes Joe Kerwin, the CapCom on duty, said, "The spacecraft is in real good shape as far as we are concerned. We're bored to tears down here." It was the last time anyone would mention boredom for a long time. At 55 hours 46 minutes, as the crew finished a 49-minute TV broadcast showing how comfortably they lived and worked in weightlessness, Lovell stated: "This is the crew of Apollo 13 wishing everybody there a nice evening, and we're just about ready to close out our inspection of Aquarius (the LM) and get back for a pleasant evening in Odyssey (the CM). Good night." Nine minutes later, Oxygen tank No. 2 blew up, causing No. 1 tank also to fail. The Apollo 13 command modules normal supply of electricity, light, and water was lost, and they were about 200,000 miles from Earth. The message came in the form of a sharp bang and vibration. Jack Swigert saw a warning light that accompanied the bang, and said, "Houston, we've had a problem here." Lovell came on and told the ground that it was a main B bus undervolt. The time was 2108 hours on April 13. Next, the warning lights indicated the loss of two of Apollo 13's three fuel cells, which were the spacecrafts prime source of electricity. With warning lights blinking on, One Oxygen tank appeared to be completely empty, and there were indications that the oxygen in the second tank was rapidly being depleted. Thirteen minutes after the explosion, Lovell happened to look out of the left-hand window, and saw the final evidence pointing toward potential catastrophe. "We are venting something out into the- into space," he reported to Houston. Jack Lousma, the CapCom replied, "Roger, we copy you venting." Lovell said, "It's a gas of some sort." It was oxygen gas escaping at a high rate from the second, and last, oxygen tank. (by James A. Lovell, from Apollo Expeditions to the Moon, edited by Edgar M. Cortright, NASA SP; 350, Washington, DC, 1975 ) The first thing the crew did, even before discovering the oxygen leak, was to try to close the hatch between the CM and the LM. They reacted spontaneously, like submarine crews, closing the hatches to limit the amount of flooding. First Jack and then Lovell tried to lock the reluctant hatch, but the stubborn lid wouldn't stay shut. Exasperated, and realizing that there wasn't a cabin leak, they strapped the hatch to the CM couch. The pressure in the No. 1 oxygen tank continued to drift downward; passing 300 psi, now heading toward 200 psi. Months later, after the accident investigation was complete, it was determined that, when No. 2 tank blew up, it either ruptured a line on the No. 1 tank, or caused one of the valves to leak. When the pressure reached 200 psi, the crew and ground controllers knew that they would lose all oxygen, which meant that the last fuel cell would also die. At 1 hour and 29 seconds after the bang, Jack Lousma, then CapCom, said after instructions from Flight Director Glynn Lunney: "It is slowly going to zero, and we are starting to think about the LM lifeboat." Swigert replied, "That's what we have been thinking about too." Ground controllers in Houston faced a formidable task. Completely new procedures had to be written and tested in the simulator before being passed up to the crew. The navigation problem had to be solved; essentially how, when, and in what attitude to burn the LM descent engine to provide a quick return home. With only 15 minutes of power left in the CM, CapCom told the crew to make their way into the LM. Fred and Jim Lovell quickly floated through the tunnel, leaving Jack to perform the last chores in the Command Module. The first concern was to determine if there were enough consumables to get home? The LM was built for only a 45-hour lifetime, and it needed to be stretch to 90. Oxygen wasn't a problem. The full LM descent tank alone would suffice, and in addition, there were two ascent-engine oxygen tanks, and two backpacks whose oxygen supply would never be used on the lunar surface. Two emergency bottles on top of those packs had six or seven pounds each in them. (At LM jettison, just before reentry, 28.5 pounds of oxygen remained, more than half of what was available after the explosion). Power was also a concern. There were 2181 ampere hours in the LM batteries, Ground controllers carefully worked out a procedure where the CM batteries were charged with LM power. All non-critical systems were turned off and energy consumption was reduced to a fifth of normal, which resulted in having 20 percent of our LM electrical power left when Aquarius was jettisoned. There was one electrical close call during the mission. One of the CM batteries vented with such force that it momentarily dropped off the line. Had the battery failed, there would be insufficient power to return the ship to Earth. Water was the main consumable concern. It was estimated that the crew would run out of water about five hours before Earth reentry, which was calculated at around 151 hours. However, data from Apollo 11 (which had not sent its LM ascent stage crashing into the Moon as in subsequent missions) showed that its mechanisms could survive seven or eight hours in space without water cooling. The crew conserved water. They cut down to six ounces each per day, a fifth of normal intake, and used fruit juices; they ate hot dogs and other wet-pack foods when they ate at all. The crew became dehydrated throughout the flight and set a record that stood up throughout Apollo: Lovell lost fourteen pounds, and the crew lost a total of 31.5 pounds, nearly 50 percent more than any other crew. Those stringent measures resulted in the crew finishing with 28.2 pounds of water, about 9 percent of the total. Removal of Carbon Dioxide was also a concern. There were enough lithium hydroxide canisters, which remove carbon dioxide from the spacecraft, but the square canisters from the Command Module were not compatible with the round openings in the Lunar Module environmental system. There were four cartridge from the LM, and four from the backpacks, counting backups. However, the LM was designed to support two men for two days and was being asked to care for three men nearly four days. After a day and a half in the LM a warning light showed that the carbon dioxide had built up to a dangerous level. Mission Control devised a way to attach the CM canisters to the LM system by using plastic bags, cardboard, and tape- all materials carried on board. One of the big questions was, "How to get back safely to Earth?" The LM navigation system wasn't designed to help us in this situation. Before the explosion, at 30 hours and 40 minutes, Apollo 13 had made the normal midcourse correction, which would take it out of a free-return-to-Earth trajectory and put it on a lunar landing course. Now the task was to get back on a free-return course. The ground computed a 35-second burn and fired it 5 hours after the explosion. As they approached the Moon, another burn was computed; this time a long 5-minute burn to speed up the return home. It took place 2 hours after rounding the far side of the Moon, The Command Module navigational platform alignment was transferred to the LM but verifying alignment was difficult. Ordinarily the alignment procedure uses an onboard sextant device, called the Alignment Optical Telescope, to find a suitable navigation star. Then with the help of the onboard computer verify the guidance platform's alignment. However, due to the explosion, a swarm of debris from the ruptured service module made it impossible to sight real stars. An alternate procedure was developed to use the sun as an alignment star. Lovell rotated the spacecraft to the attitude Houston had requested and when he looked through the AOT, the Sun was just where it was expected. The alignment with the Sun proved to be less than a half a degree off. The ground and crew then knew they could do the 5-minute P.C. + 2 burn with assurance, and that would cut the total time of our voyage to about 142 hours. At 73:46 hours the air-to-ground transcript describes the event: Lovell: O.K. We got it. I think we got it. What diameter was it? Haise: Yes. It's coming back in. Just a second. Lovell: Yes, yaw's coming back in. Just about it. Haise: Yaw is in.... Lovell: What have you got? Haise: Upper right corner of the Sun.... Lovell: We've got it! If we raised our voices, I submit it was justified. "I'm told the cheer of the year went up in Mission Control. Flight Director Gerald Griffin, a man not easily shaken, recalls: "Some years later I went back to the log and looked up that mission. My writing was almost illegible I was so damned nervous. And I remember the exhilaration running through me: My God, that's kinds the last hurdle -- if we can do that, I know we can make it. It was funny, because only the people involved knew how important it was to have that platform properly aligned." Yet Gerry Griffin barely mentioned the alignment in his change-of-shift briefing -- "That check turned out real well" is all he said an hour after his penmanship failed him. James A. Lovell ( Apollo Expeditions to the Moon, edited by Edgar M. Cortright, NASA SP; 350, Washington, DC, 1975 ) The trip was marked by discomfort beyond the lack of food and water. Sleep was almost impossible because of the cold. When the electrical systems were turned off, the spacecraft lost and important source of heat. The temperature dropped to 38 F and condensation formed on all the walls. A most remarkable achievement of Mission Control was quickly developing procedures for powering up the CM after its long cold sleep. Flight controllers wrote the documents for this innovation in three days, instead of the usual three months. The Command Module was cold and clammy at the start of power up. The walls, ceiling, floor, wire harnesses, and panels were all covered with droplets of water. It was suspected conditions were the same behind the panels. The chances of short circuits caused apprehension, but thanks to the safeguards built into the command module after the disastrous Apollo-1 fire in January 1967, no arcing took place. The droplets furnished one sensation as we decelerated in the atmosphere: it rained inside the CM. Four hours before landing, the crew shed the service module; Mission Control had insisted on retaining it until then because everyone feared what the cold of space might do to the unsheltered CM heat shield. Photos of the Service Module showed one whole panel missing, and wreckage hanging out, it was a sorry mess as it drifted away. Three hours later the crew left the Lunar Module Aquarius and then splashed down gently in the Pacific Ocean near Samoa, After an intensive investigation, the Apollo 13 Accident Review Board identified the cause of the explosion. In 1965 the CM had undergone many improvements, which included raising the permissible voltage to the heaters in the oxygen tanks from 28 to 65 volts DC. Unfortunately, the thermostatic switches on these heaters weren't modified to suit the change. During one final test on the launch pad, the heaters were on for a long period of time. "This subjected the wiring in the vicinity of the heaters to very high temperatures (1000 F), which have been subsequently shown to severely degrade teflon insulation. The thermostatic switches started to open while powered by 65 volts DC and were probably welded shut." Furthermore, other warning signs during testing went unheeded and the tank, damaged from 8 hours overheating, was a potential bomb the next time it was filled with oxygen. That bomb exploded on April 13, 1970 -- 200,000 miles from Earth. Mission Name: Apollo-14 (30) Pad 39-A (8) Saturn-V AS-509 () High Bay 3 MLP 2 Firing Room 2 Crew: Alan B. Shepard, Jr. Stuart A. Roosa Edgar D. Mitchell Backup Crew: Milestones: 01/21/70 - S-IVB ondock at KSC 01/21/70 - S-II Stage ondock at KSC 01/12/70 - S-1C Stage ondock at KSC 05/06/70 - S-IU ondock at KSC 01/31/71 - Launch Payload: Apollo 14 Kitty Hawk (CM-110) and Antares (LM-8) Mission Objectives: Launch: January 31, 1971 Orbit: Altitude: xxx miles Inclination: xxx degrees Orbits: Duration: 09 Days, hours, min, seconds Distance: miles Lunar Location: Fra Mauro Lunar Coords: 3.65 degrees South, 17.48 degrees West Landing: February 09, 1971 Mission Highlights: Landing site: Fra Mauro. ALSEP and other instruments deployed. Lunar surface stay-time, 33.5 hours; 67 hours in lunar orbit, with 34 orbits. 2 EVAs of 09 hours, 25 minutes. Third stage impacted on Moon. 42 kg (94 lbs) of materials gathered, using hand cart for first time to transport rocks. Mission Name: Apollo-15 (31) Pad 39 (9) Saturn-V AS-510 () High Bay 3 MLP 3 Firing Room 1 Crew: David R. Scott James B. Irwin Alfred M. Worden Backup Crew: Milestones: 07/26/71 - Launch Payload: Apollo 15 Endeavor (CM-112) and Falcon (LM-10) Mission Objectives: Launch: July 26, 1971 Orbit: Altitude: xxx miles Inclination: xxx degrees Orbits: Duration: 12 Days, 17 hours, 12 min, seconds Distance: miles Lunar Location: Hadley-Apennine Lunar Coords: 26.08 degrees North, 3.66 degrees East Landing: August 07, 1971 Mission Highlights: Landing site: Hadley-Apennine region near Apennine Mountains. 3 EVAs of 10 hours, 36 minutes. Worden performed 38 minutes EVA on way back to Earth. First to carry orbital sensors in service module of CSM. ALSEP de- ployed. Scientific payload landed on Moon doubled. Improved spacesuits gave increased mobility and stay-time. Lunar surface stay- time, 66.9 hours. Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV), electric-powered, 4-wheel drive car, traversed total 27.9 km (17 mi). In lunar orbit 145 hours, with 74 orbits. Small sub-satellite left in lunar orbit for first time. 6.6 kgs (169 lbs) of material gathered. Mission Name: Apollo-16 (32) Pad 39-A (10) Saturn-V AS-511 () High Bay 3 MLP 3 Firing Room 1 Crew: John W. Young Thomas K. Mattingly II Charles M. Duke, Jr. Backup Crew: Milestones: 07/01/70 - S-IVB ondock at KSC 09/17/71 - S-1C Stage ondock at KSC 09/29/70 - S-IU ondock at KSC 09/30/70 - S-II Stage ondock at KSC 04/16/72 - Launch Payload: Apollo 16 Casper (CM-113) and Orion (LM-11) Mission Objectives: Launch: April 16, 1972 Orbit: Altitude: xxx miles Inclination: xxx degrees Orbits: Duration: 11 Days, 01 hours, 51 min, seconds Distance: miles Lunar Location: Descartes Highlands Lunar Coords: 8.97 degrees South, 15.51 degrees East Landing: April 27, 1972 Mission Highlights: Landing site: Descartes Highlands. First study of highlands area. Selected surface experiments deployed, ultraviolet camera/spectrograph used for first time on Moon, and LRV used for second time. Lunar surface stay-time, 71 hours; in lunar orbit 126 hours, with 64 orbits. Mattingly performed 01 hour in-flight EVA. 95.8 kg (213 lbs) of lunar samples collected. Mission Name: Apollo-17 (33) Pad 39 (11) Saturn-V AS-512 () High Bay 3 MLP 3 Firing Room 1 Crew: Eugene A. Cernan, Commander Ronald E. Evans Command Module Pilot Harrison H. Schmitt, Lunar Module Pilot Backup Crew: Milestones: 12/21/70 - S-IVB ondock at KSC 05/11/72 - S-1C Stage ondock at KSC 06/20/72 - S-IU ondock at KSC 10/27/70 - S-II Stage ondock at KSC 12/07/72 - Launch Payload: Apollo 17 America (CM-114) and Challenger (LM-12) Mission Objectives: The lunar landing site was the Taurus-Littrow highlands and valley area. This site was picked for Apollo 17 as a location where rocks both older and younger than those previously returned from other Apollo missions and from the Luna 16 and 20 missions might be found. The mission was the final in a series of three J-type missions planned for the Apollo program. These J-type missions can be distinguished from previous G and H-series missions by extended hardware capability, larger scientific payload capacity and by the use of the battery powered Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV). Scientific objectives of the Apollo 17 mission included geological surveying and sampling of materials and surface features in a preselected area of the Taurus-Littrow region, deploying and activating surface experiments, and conducting inflight experiments and photographic tasks during lunar orbit and transearth coast (TEC). These objectives included: Deployed experimetns such as the Apollo lunar surface experiment package (ALSEP) with a Heat Flow experiment, Lunar seismic profiling (LSP), Lunar surface gravimeter (LSG), Lunar atmospheric composition experiment (LACE) and Lunar ejecta and meteorites (LEAM). The mission also included Lunar Sampling and Lunar orbital experiments. Biomedical experiments included the Biostack II Experiment and the BIOCORE experiment. Launch: December 07, 1972, 12:33:00 a.m. EST from Kennedy Space Center The CSM, LM and SIVB booster stage were inserted 11 min 53 sec after launch into an Earth parking orbit of 91.2 by 92.5 n.mi. After two revolutions, at 08:45:37 GMT, Apollo 17 was inserted into translunar coast. Orbit: Altitude: xxx miles Inclination: xxx degrees Orbits: Duration: 12 Days, 13 hours, 52 min, seconds Surface-Time: 75hr Distance: miles Lunar Location: Taurus-Littrow Lunar Coords: 20.16 degrees North, 30.77 degrees East Landing: December 19, 1972 Mission Highlights: At 09:15:29 GMT on 12/7/72, the CSM was separated from the SIVB. Approximately 15 min later, the CSM docked with the LM. After CSM/LM extraction from the SIVB, the SIVB was targeted for lunar impact, which occured on December 10 at 20:32:43 GMT. The impact location was approximately 84nm northwest of the planned target point and the event was recorded by the passive seismic experiments deployed on the Apollo-12, Apollo-14, Apollo-15 and Apollo-16 missions. Only one of the four planned midcourse corrections was required during translunar coast. A mid-course correction made at 17:03:00 GMT on 12/8/72 was a 1.6 sec service propulsion system burn resulting in a 10>:5 ft/sec velocity change. Lunar orbit insertion was accomplished at 19:47:23 GMT on 12/10/72 placing the spacecraft into a lunar orbitof 170nm by 52.6 nm. Approximately 4hr 20 min later, the orbit was reduced to 59 by 15nm. The spacecraft remained in this low orbit for more than 18 hr, during which time the CSM/LM undocking and separation were performed. The CSM circularization maneuver was performed at 18:50:29 GMT on 12/11/72 which placed the CSM into an orbit of 70.3 by 54.3 nm. AT 14:35:00 GMT on 12/11/72, the Commander and Lunar Module Pilot entered the LM to prepare for descent to the lunar surface. At 18:55:42 GMT on 12/11/72, the LM was placed into an orbit with a perilune altitude of 6.2 nm. Approximately 47 min later, the powered descent to the lunar surface began. Landing occured at 19:54:57 GMT on 12/11/72 at lunar latitude 20 degrees 10min North and longitude 30 degrees 46min East. Apollo 17 was the last lunar landing mission. 3 EVAs of 22 hours, 04 minutes on the lunar surface. EVA #1 began at 23:54:49 GMT on 12/11/72 with Cernan egressing at 00:01:00 GMT on 12/12/72. The 1st EVA was 7 hr 12 min long and was completed at 07:06:42 GMT on 12/12/72. The second EVA was begun at 23:28:06 GMT on 12/12/72. It lasted 7hr 37min and ended at 07:05:02 GMT on 12/13/72. The final EVA began at 22:25:48 GMT on 12/13/72 and ended at 05:40:56 GMT on 12/14/72. The LM ascent stage lifted off the moon at 22:54:37 GMT on 12/14/72. After a vernier adjustment maneuver, the ascent stage was inserted into a 48.5nm by 9.4nm orbit. The LM terminal phase initiation burn was made at 23:48:58 GMT on 12/14/72. This 3.2 sec maneuver raised the ascent stage orbit to 64.7 by 48.5 nm. The CSM and LM docked at 01:10:15 GMT. The LM ascent stage was jettisoned at 04:51:31 GMT on 12/15/72. Deorbit firing of the ascent stage was initiated at 06:31:14 GMT on 12/15/72 and lunar impact occurred 19 min 7 sec later approximately 0.7 nm from the planned target at latitude 19deg 56min North and longitude 30 degrees 32min East. The ascent stage impact was recorded by the four Apollo 17 geophones and by each ALSEP at Apollo-12, Apollo-14, Apollo-15 and Apollo-16 landing sites. Evans performed a trans-Earth EVA at 20:27:40 GMT on 12/17/72 lasting 01 hour 06 minutes during which time the CMP retrieved the lunar sounder film and the panoramic and mapping camera film cassettes. Apollo-17 hosted the first scientist-astronaut to land on Moon, Schmitt. Sixth automated research station was set up. LRV traverse total 30.5 km. Lunar surface stay-time, 75 hours. In lunar orbit 17 hours. 110.4 kg (243 lbs) of material gathered.