The “D” mission flight crew has developed in detail the technique for aligning the LM platform while docked to the CSM which utilizes our knowledge of the relative alignment of the Nav bases on the CSM and LM. Part of the procedure is to establish the required LM IMU gimbal angles to be input into…
Category: Apollo missions
LM spacecraft assignments
This is just to make sure you all get the word in case it influences your work in some way. As I understand it, Mr. Low has directed that LM-2 be configured for unmanned flight only. It has been established that the first manned LM will be the LM-3 spacecraft. If it’s found unnecessary to…
G mission lunar descent is uphill – all the way
Just in case you didn’t know, I thought I would send you this note about some nominal G mission landing site characteristics which I thought were kind of interesting. First of all, apparently this landing site (2-P-6) is about 9,000 feet lower than the mean lunar radius. The significance of this, of course, is that…
CSI and CDH back into the AGS – maybe
Apparently the TRW AGS people have done a good job of putting the new rendezvous radar navigation filter into that dinky computer. In fact, they now estimate a surplus of some 80 words….
Let’s drop one of the lunar surface RR tests
During our review of the G Mission Lunar Surface Mission Techniques Document on April 10, we came to a conclusion which may interest you. It deals with the need, or really lack of need, for the crew to do some things that are in the current flight plan. Specifically, in the crew LM timeline, we…
Some new ideas on how to use the AGS during Descent
This memo is to fill you in on a couple of late crew procedure changes proposed for the G mission regarding AGS operation during descent. The first is a technique to prepare the AGS for immediate ascent which can be used to quickly reinitialize the AGS LM state vector immediately after touchdown if there is…
Lunar Rendezvous Mission Techniques
On May 28 we finally kicked off the Lunar Rendezvous Mission Techniques business. Because of the imminence of missions “D” and “E”, we started on those first some months ago. Now I wish we hadn’t because they are so darned complicated. I have a feeling the lunar rendezvous can be finished up quicker than they…
F/G Mirror Image Targeting shall use a three-minute delay
As you know, we have established as a standard procedure during Apollo rendezvous having CSM backup LM maneuvers in order to retain the nominal relative motion during this critical mission phase. On the D mission these “mirror image” CSM maneuvers are targeted with TIG delayed one minute after the LM TIG. One minute was chosen…
A new rope module for LM-1 computer
On August 16 General Bolender approved remanufacture of Module III of the LM-1 spacecraft computer program ropes. This was done based on the recommendation of both MIT and MSC technical personnel in order to correct two deficiencies….
Eighth and Ninth “C” Mission Rendezvous Mission Techniques meetings
Most of the March 15 and 22 “C” Mission rendezvous Mission Techniques meetings were devoted to discussion of onboard rendezvous navigation with the sextant. This was brought about by the rather bad experience suffered by the 101 flight crew and a number of the flight controllers on the Kennedy Space Center mission simulator earlier in…