See list belowSEP 11 196767-PA-T-79APA/Chief, Apollo Data Priority CoordinationData Priority Coordination – a plea for help
1. Over the past year considerable thought has been given to how to coordinate mission planning and procedures development involving use of the various guidance and control systems for the lunar land- ing mission. Initially, a four man panel (Cohen, Jenkins, Smith and Kramer) worked for a month or so and assembled a pretty good prelim- inary set of logic flow charts describing spacecraft and ground acti- vity starting in the nominal mission with the LM on the lunar surface and ending with rendezvous. This work, you recall, ended with a rec- ommendation to implement the orbit rate ball in the spacecraft and the panel was disbanded. Subsequently, a task was assigned TRW-Houston to carry on this work for the entire lunar landing mission, first under the direction of Dr. Shea and then Dick Carley. In my new assignment as Chief, Apollo Data Priority Coordination, I have inherited this im- posing task. This memorandum is to request your assistance in two respects. The first is to solicit your opinion on a proposed approach to the overall coordination problem. The second is to request your review of the format and technical content of the attached Apollo Mission Techniques Document prepared by TRW, which, if proper, I would expect will become a prime component of whatever we do.
2. It has been proposed that the techniques to be used on Apollo missions should be thoroughly documented and maintained under configur- ation control. Among other things the intent is to make sure everyone working on Apollo who has interest in this business would know exactly what the officially approved scheme is for all phases of the mission under both nominal and degraded conditions in order that they can insure compatibility of the work they are doing. Of course, a process would have to be established for modifying these schemes as discrepancies or undesirable characteristics are uncovered. That is, some sort of change control is needed here as it is in so many other areas. Consi- derable work has progressed under Dick Carley's guidance to get this method of operation underway. For example, he fostered the attached TRW working paper which covers two of the major mission phases–Ascent and Rendezvous. It is their attempt at developing logic flow diagrams describing the normal G&C functions, identifying decision points in the mission, and establishing the procedures for monitoring the G&C systems required to assess systems performance and govern subsequent action. As far as I can determine, this document reflects the work of a few TRW people with some limited input informally obtained from individuals within MSC.
3. It is evident that in order to have a truly useful working document, close coordination and cooperation of all MSC elements and our contract- ors is required. What I would like to do, after allowing sufficient time for those of you interested in this work to review the attached material, is to have a meeting to discuss the manner in which we will carry out the coordination of this activity. Assuming documentation of the type attached is a necessary part of this activity, as I believe it probably is, we will also review the format and technical content of at least one of the mission phases documented here. Our primary purpose would be to make sure it does the job it needs to do in the best way. Right now I think it would be reasonable to aim for a meeting on the Ascent phase in late September for that dual purpose.
4. Based on the results of that meeting, I would propose to initiate a series of meetings early in the development of the documentation such as this for the rest of the mission phases during which the opinions and inputs of everyone concerned may be discussed and included from the beginning instead of after the work is carried as far as in the attached. The other mission phases are currently broken out as follows: (a) Earth Launch – beginning early in the countdown and ending after TLI, (b) Traj- ectory Maneuvers including MCC, LOI, TEI, (c) Lunar Descent, and (d) Re- entry. As you can see this all applies directly to the lunar landing mission, but obviously it will also have considerable bearing on how we fly the earlier development flights.
I'll be in touch with you again.
- Apr 16, 1968 – “C” Rendezvous Mission Techniques Review (3.2σ)
- Oct 29, 1969 – Spacecraft separation procedures (3.2σ)