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…
Category: Transearth injection
Transearth Spacecraft Navigation
During Jim McPherson’s Transearth Spacecraft Navigation Mission Techniques meeting of October 8 and 15, a potpourri of ground rules, working agreements and constraints was established. I may be duplicating other reports with this memo but figure better too many reports than not enough. All of the following apply specifically to the first batch of sextant…
Data Priority meetings schedule
In order to get a little bit more orderly in our conduct of the Trajectory Control Data Priority business, it’s evident that we must schedule meetings on a pre-established, periodic basis. Accordingly, the Ascent and Descent meetings will take place on alternate Tuesday afternoons; Rendezvous meetings will be held of Wednesdays, one mission in the…
C’ Earth Orbit and TLI Mission Techniques Open Items
It appears we have the Earth Orbit and TLI Mission Techniques for the C’ pretty well under control. The only two significant open items that I know of deal with the optics check and the crew procedures for protecting against an SIVB engine cutoff failure during TLI….
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…
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 -…
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…
All about F APS burn to depletion and landmark tracking
On February 14 we had a Mission Techniques meeting to pin down F lunar orbital operations between the end of rendezvous and TEI. Aside from a rest period, this consists of two exercises – the APS burn to propellant depletion and landmark tracking with the optics. I think we have a good understanding of how…
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…
Some more C’ Lunar Orbit Mission Techniques
At our October 14 C’ Lunar Orbit Mission Techniques meeting we settled on a few things I would like to tell you about. Along with the TEI block data to be sent up each revolution in lunar orbit, we are also going to update the spacecraft state vector in the CMC every revolution. This will…