As I understand it, there has been a desire or requirement to have the capability of surviving a cryo-tank failure at any time in the lunar mission. After C’, it was decided to keep the IMU powered up throughout all lunar missions even though it might be at the cost of having the backup cryos….
Category: Apollo missions
DPS low level propellant light
During our final review of the Descent Mission Techniques on May 28, GAEC presented a comprehensive review of the low level DPS propellant light – its operation and accuracy. The most significant piece of information coming from this was that we are assured of about 98 seconds more DPS operation at the hover thrust level…
Spacecraft separation procedures
I blundered into something the other day which is probably none of my business but is interesting, so I thought I would bring your attention to it. Some time before Apollo 10 the trajectory flight controllers assembled a “Cookbook” of spacecraft separation recipes condensed from the myriad of proposals and recommendations that have been floating…
LM IMU drift checks prior to descent for Apollo 13 and up
We are making some fairly substantial changes to the way we are aligning and checking the drift of the LM IMU before descent on the Apollo 13 mission. Just for the record I would like to document what it is we are doing and why….
C’ Abort Maneuver Overburn Monitoring
In response to a C’ Mission Techniques action item, Rick Nobles informs me that they have established the burn monitoring procedure to guard against overburn during any non-nominal C’ maneuver. As a standard procedure the crew should manually shut down the SPS as soon as the duration of the burn exceeds the nominal value by…
We don’t have to change LUMINARY much for point landing but there’s gold in them hills!
On September 12 we had a spacecraft computer program requirements meeting for Apollo 13. We called it because there were a lot of proposals floating around which had been advertised as “needed for point landing.” On the other hand, these programs must be released for rope manufacture on about November 15 and so there obviously…
Let’s move the recovery force a little
Jerry, I’ve done a lot of joking about the spacecraft hitting the aircraft carrier, but the more I think about it the less I feel it is a joke. There are reports that the C Prime command module came down right over the aircraft carrier and drifted on its chutes to land 5,000 yards away….
Apollo Spacecraft Computer Program Schedule
Since last week I promised to start quoting some delivery dates, here goes. We are currently planning release of the flight programs for rope manufacture as follows:…
Ascent with busted guidance and control systems
On June 11 we had a Mission Techniques meeting to discuss manual ascent from the lunar surface. The term manual ascent, though, is somewhat misleading since most of our discussion had to do with how the guidance systems should be operated if certain of its components failed prior to ascent. In summary, I think everyone…
No real time landing site data processing is planned on C Prime
In a meeting with Flight Software Branch and Flight Control Division personnel, we concluded that we would not process landing site observations obtained in lunar orbit on the C’ in real time in the RTCC unless directed otherwise….