During our discussion at MIT last week, the question came up as to whether it is necessary to have trajectory integration techniques in the LCG for the trans-earth phase of the mission as well as the lunar phase. The argument is that if we are serious about using the LM descent propulsion system to back…
Category: Circumlunar abort
C’ Mission Techniques
Attached are a list of ground rules and working agreements I compiled from my notes taken at the September 13 and 14 Mission Techniques meetings and the September 20 Lunar Abort meeting, all on the C’ mission. This list is far from complete. Basically, these items are only the changes and additions to the material…
Happiness is having plenty of hydrogen
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….
F/G Mission Techniques – except for the lunar orbit phase – are ready to eat
Some of the decisions and open items that came out of our F/G Mission Techniques meetings in late January are listed in this memo. Basically, I would say that all mission phases aside from the lunar orbit activity are very well understood at this time – primarily as a result of the C’ mission -…
Cis-lunar spacecraft navigation for C’
We are still thrashing around trying to figure out what to do with regard to cis-lunar spacecraft navigation for the C’ mission. It is not clear whether a couple of things are really necessary or not. If we could get rid of them, it would simplify things. Unfortunately, we aren’t confident it is safe to…
Use of DPS for lunar mission aborts
The other day Carl Huss and some of the flight Analysis Branch people gave an internal briefing on Apollo aborting procedures for the lunar landing mission starting with the translunar injection (TLI) maneuver. One thing that impressed me was the large number of situations in which dependence is given to using the Descent Propulsion System…
Apollo 12 Mission Techniques
On September 15 and 16 we had the second (and last) Mission Techniques meeting for Apollo 12. It was advertised to be a “catchall” and it was. It all went smoothly enough considering how many people were there – the place was stuffed (even the projection room!) – and the exhaustion and emotion these things…
C’ Spacecraft Navigation Mission Techniques
It appears we have completed basic development of C’ Spacecraft Navigation Mission Techniques both for Cis-Lunar and Lunar Orbit. Documentation of these techniques will be distributed in the near future. No further meetings will be called specifically for their subjects. Whatever open items come up will be handled in our weekly C’ Mission Techniques Reviews,…
F and G mission cis-lunar and abort plan
On January 8 a gang of us FOD types got together to develop a proposal on how we should use the LM for cis-lunar and lunar orbit aborts. In other words, how should the C’ techniques be modified due to having the LM DPS available to backup or use in place of the SPS. A…
Flyby solutions in the RTCC Midcourse program will not be absolutely optimum
This memo is to inform you of a simplification in RTCC program requirements I recently approved. As noted below, the capability we are providing appears to be adequate and the cost of the optimization is incompatible with the benefit to be gained. The rest of this memo is lifted almost verbatim from one Bob Ernull…