During the “D/E” Rendezvous Mission Techniques meeting of April 15, we spent a lot of time discussing the data transmitted from the ground to the spacecraft involving the CSI and CDH maneuvers. This discussion, of course, centered on how the data should be used and led to a tentative conclusion regarding the backup of these…
Category: CSM rescue
Descent Aborts and subsequent Rendezvous Mission Techniques
On April 28, 1969 we reviewed the Descent Aborts and subsequent Rendezvous Mission Techniques with the crew and the rest of the world. I think most of this is quite complete and agreeable to everyone concerned, with one major exception. I was shocked and ashamed to find that I had badly misunderstood the situation regarding…
Tweak burns
If you can stand it I would like for you to hear the latest on tweak burns – the trim maneuvers made after LM insertion from a descent abort. I thought we had this settled and on ice a couple of months ago but some things have happened which probably make it logical to revise…
F Rendezvous Mission Techniques
We had our first F Rendezvous Mission Techniques meeting on November 12. We went through the whole thing rather smoothly with very few open items, probably due to all the past work on D and G. Obviously it is a much simpler exercise than the D rendezvous. This memo is to record a few of…
G Rendezvous Mission Techniques
If you can stand it, I would like to announce another change in the G mission lunar rendezvous timeline. In order to provide more tracking which will hopefully improve CSI targeting and to avoid bothersome real time variations of time between CSI and CDH which foul up the plane change scheduling, we propose:…
July 9 and July 24 “G” Rendezvous Mission Techniques meetings
During the July 9 and July 24 “G” Rendezvous Mission Techniques meetings we have developed preliminary intra-vehicular rendezvous navigation sighting schedules. Crew work load estimates currently in use for the “D” mission rendezvous are included. These tracking schedules are very important since they have a predominating influence on almost everything else. For example, from these…
D Rendezvous Mission Techniques
On October 4 we met to review a draft of the D Rendezvous Mission Techniques. Although we spent the entire day we didn’t get past page 3 and so it is obvious we are going to have to beef up our effort in order to get all this cleaned up. In fact, I am going…
Manual Ascent revisited
On July 2 we had another meeting regarding Manual Ascent. As I have pointed out previously, the consensus is that the crew should have an excellent chance of achieving a safe orbit by manually steering the LM from the lunar surface if they have a rate command attitude control system by using the horizon view…
The Apollo rendezvous can be shortened by 2 hours
As you no doubt are aware, there is a movement afoot to shorten the Apollo rendezvous by 2 hours. This would be done by eliminating the CSI and CDH maneuvers and executing TPI about ½ hour after insertion. I thought the reason this was being considered was to reduce the crew’s workday, which has been…
The LM4 RR/LGC interface may be broken, but that’s okay – sorta
This memo is to document the Data Priority position regarding a recent LM4 systems problem. To wit, it is considered acceptable to proceed with the nominal F mission with a questionable or known interface failure between the rendezvous radar (RR) and the LM spacecraft computer (LGC). It should be emphasized that a properly operating rendezvous…