Clarke Hackler of Guidance and Control Division uncovered a rather alarming situation which we’ve discussed a little at our Descent Abort Mission Techniques meetings. He briefly states the problem quite nicely in the attached memo, which I thought should be brought to your attention….
Category: Lunar surface
Spacecraft computer program – things dealing with lunar descent and aborts from it
I spent an interesting morning at MIT on May 16 with George Cherry, Dan Lickly, Norm Sears, and Craig Schulenberg talking about Luminary how it works and some things that really haven’t been defined yet. It primarily dealt with lunar descent and aborts from lunar descent….
Notice of a catch-all Apollo 12 Mission Techniques meeting
We have scheduled a Mission Techniques meeting on Monday, September 15, 1969, to go over the Apollo 12 flight for the “last” time. Although most of the discussion will probably deal with the landing and rendezvous phases, we would like to clean up all open items regardless of mission phase….
How we will handle the effect of mascons on the LM lunar surface gravity alignments
What do we do if one of those big damn lumps of gold is buried so near the LM that it screws up our gravity alignment on the lunar surface? Without exception, the calculations of all the various far-flung experts predict that mascons should have no significant effect on our lunar surface gravity alignments. In…
Apollo Mission Techniques Documentation Schedule
Here is another Mission Techniques Documentation Schedule, since the last one is three months old and barely reflects real life any more. The Lunar Orbit Activities Document will almost certainly have to be updated to reflect whatever we learn on the F mission. A June 30 release date for that update will be kinda late,…
Determination of relative CSM orbit
Jim, this is just a reminder of conversations with you and Emil about a job I’d like your people to do. In thinking more about this orbit determination task wherein the LEM determines the CSM orbit while sitting on the lunar surface, I wonder if perhaps MIT has lost sight of our primary objectives, thus…
AGS alignments in lunar orbit and operations on the lunar surface
On April 2 we finally got around to establishing how to operate the AGS on the lunar landing mission. The two basic subjects for discussion were how to handle CDU transient problems when aligning the AGS to the PGNCS in lunar orbit and how to operate the AGS in total while on the lunar surface….
RLS Determination
On April 2 we had a Mission Techniques meeting to discuss how we should handle the determination of the LMs position on the lunar surface (RLS). Specifically, we were concerned with how to determine its values and, after improved values are determined, when they should be loaded into the spacecraft computer. One obvious conclusion, if…
Results of the October 8 Apollo Spacecraft Software Configuration Control Board (ASSCCB) meeting
In this memo I will briefly describe some of the highlights of the subject meeting:…
Spacecraft computer program newsletter
I learned some things at MIT last week that seemed interesting enough to justify this note. Of course, it deals primarily with the spacecraft computer programs and their influence on the mission techniques we are developing….