During our C’ Data Select Mission Techniques meeting a question came up which must be understood and answered prior to the flight. It involves the requirement for being able to obtain MSFN range information during the cis-lunar phase of the mission. It has been said unofficially that ranging is essential to do a decent job…
Category: Reentry
“C” Mission Retrofire and Reentry Mission Techniques meeting
On Friday morning, July 19, we had a “C” Mission Retrofire and Reentry Mission Techniques meeting to clean up some open items. It is evident that a distribution of correction pages to our previously distributed Mission Techniques document will be inadequate and it is our current plan to republish the whole book. Some of the…
C’ Transearth Midcourse Correction (MCC) and Entry Mission Techniques
On September 13, we conducted a review of the Transearth MCC and Entry Mission Techniques for a lunar mission. Although, originally developed for an F or G type mission, the discussion was almost completely devoted to C’. Participation included all interested MSC organizations (including the C’ flight crew) as well as representatives from North American,…
Lunar Reentry Mission Techniques meeting – March 7
On March 7 we had a Data Priority Mission Techniques meeting on lunar reentry. This was the first on this mission phase with contractor participation. Our objective was to understand the current status of the business and to begin pinning down the operational procedures to be used onboard the spacecraft and on the ground. We…
Reentry from lunar missions
On January 12 a group of Flight Crew, Flight Control and Mission Planning guys got together to talk about the lunar reentry and some rather interesting things came out which I am recording here for my records and your amusement….
EMS software verification doesn’t exist
I am pretty sure the verification of the Entry Monitoring System (EMS) scrolls is screwed up and I am sorry to say that, even though I suspected it for quite a while, I have not gotten around to doing much of anything. As soon as Bob Gardiner gets back from the Cape, Claude Graves and…
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 -…
Operations required for communication loss on F and G are sure better than on C’
I think we have pretty well established how to handle a communication loss situation on the F and G missions. In effect, we have defined which Block data must be sent and what onboard cis-lunar navigation needs to be carried out. In both cases, of course, it is possible to cut back substantially from the…
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….
Greater dispersion at entry on AS-501 with the new IMU
You have expressed concern about the somewhat poorer performance of the new platform in Spacecraft 017. While at MIT last week Dan Lickly and I spoke to John Miller about this. John says the component which contributes the most to dispersion in flight path angle at the entry interface is the Y gyro, as you…