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The Year of Apollo


MID

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I shall begin this by quoting Gene Kranz:

"There have not been many years in American history to rival 1969"

That just about says it all.

As most of you who frequent these threads know, 1968 was a year that featured NASA "coming out of the ashes", as-it-were. It represented a recovery from a year that was tragic and tumultuous, in many ways.

For NASA, 18 months had passed since the fire. Three men had died in the Apollo effort, and a long period of "fixing" took place...straight through 1967, and well into 1968, while the country suffered mightily.

"Out Of the Ashes" came in October of 1968, with the stellar engineering test flight of the block 2 command and service modules on Wally Schirra's Apollo 7. Of course, that flight was plagued by a balky Commander and crew which almost sent Mission Control over the edge...but in the end, it man-rated the Apollo CSM.

And I had previously posted a commemoration of man's first voyage to the Moon in December of 1968, Apollo 8.

The bold step of taking the CSM all the way to lunar orbit and back again had been completed...the race to the Moon was won. But the mission hadn't yet been accomplished.

Christmas was good that year. It felt like we were finally out of the ashes in many ways.

But the mission itself would be left for 1969.

On JAN 3 1969, SA-504 quietly rolled out of the VAB and headed to pad 39A at the Cape Kennedy. It almost went un-noticed by the general public as another behemoth rolled along the gravel covered track to the massive launch pad...

On this day in 1969, this was the scene at 39A:

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The year of Apollo was about to get underway--the most intense year of manned space flight activity ever, and the most dangerous.

The second Saturn V to carry men was on the pad...glowing in the lights of a Florida evening.

As with the prior flights, the year of Apollo featured firsts.

This Saturn V looked like 503, which left that very pad 2 months before. But it was indeed different.

This one wouldn't be going to the Moon, but in the adapter section, beneath the CSM, was stowed a Lunar Module, and this one would be the first flown by men.

On JAN 4 1969, the day after the Apollo 9 vehicle was rolled out, three men had a meeting with Deke Slayton to discuss their crew assignment. Neil Armstrong, Mike Collins, and Buzz Aldrin were informed that their mission, Apollo 11, would possibly be the landing attempt. Their training was underway for such a mission on this day 40 years past. However, that opportunity depended upon the success of the missions preceeding it--first up, the one on that pad on this day, designated Apollo 9.

Every flight was critical. And 1969 was the most critical, exhilarating, and frankly heart stopping year in the history of manned space flight.

That year, we saw 4 Saturn Vs launch from Cape Kennedy. 4 manned spaceflight missions.

Those 4 Saturn Vs carried 12 men into space. Those 12 men spent 40 days of that year in space aboard 8 different spacecraft.

9 of those men went to the Moon.

4 of those men landed on the Moon on 2 of those 4 flights.

By the end of 1969, a year after Apollo 8, almost three years after the fire, those 4 men would've logged 53 hours and 3 minutes on the Moon, would've accomplished 3 lunar EVAs, totalling 10 hours and 22 minutes of lunar surface time; the scientists at the Lunar Receiving Laboratory would have a gold mine that was only a dream in February--123 pounds of lunar soil and Moon rocks to study--and we would be looking at over 920 photos, in both black and white, and color, taken by men standing on the surface of the Moon...

It was a hell of a year.

But as of this day, 40 years past, the "Year of Apollo" was "up in the air".

Everything hinged on that mission poised out at pad 39A. The year, and indeed, the success of the program, hinged on Apollo 9, the most important piece of the pie to date.

______________________________________________________

We're at F minus 7 days...at this time, the prime crew of Apollo 9 was in final preparations for the first mission of the Year of Apollo.

Apollo 9 launched on MAR 3 1969.

My intention is to post information about the missions involved in the year of Apollo as they happened...

I'll be back in a week to continue...

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Edited by MID
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Awesome idea, MID, and a great first post... :tu:

Cz

Thanks, Cz. I appreciate that pal.

I think it's a good time to lay it all out.

That was a hell of a time, 1969...

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Bookmarked. Great idea for a thread. I'm looking forward to reading what follows!

Super, Sky!

I shall endeavor to convey the reality of the situation, and make it interesting!

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As the winter of 1969 passed, I'm not sure how many in America were paying attention to what was going on vis-a-vis NASA. It was a fairly quiet time I would assume as far as the public was concerned. I'm sure folks knew there was an Apollo mission on tap, but Apollo 9 wasn't one of those missions that contained the kind of drama that was inherent in something like Apollo 8. I imagine that many who may have known that Apollo 9 was an Earth orbital mission were wondering why we were doing an Earth orbital mission when we'd just got done going to the Moon a couple months earlier.

A reasonable question, I suppose, from their perspective. I imagine they thought NASA was doing little. Hard to say, but it might help to fill you in on what was actually happening at NASA in late Fenruary 1969.

The fact is, Apollo was going full bore, on all cylinders, and the activity was frantic at all centers. It was all quiet from the public perspective, but a firestorm of activity was about to be unleashed.

From a personnel standpoint, we had these three guys who were about as ready as they could be for their mission. Meet the crew of Apollo 9:

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From left to right, you're looking at CDR James McDivitt, USAF Test Pilot, and Command Pilot of GT-4 in 1965, which featured America's first space walk by Ed White; David Scott, CMP, also an Air Force test pilot, and vetreral of the 1966 GT-8 mission with Neil Armstrong; and Rusty Schweikart, on his first space flight, a former Air Force pilot, and holder of a master's degree in Aeronautics/Astronautics from MIT.

These three fellows were backed up by Pete Conrad, Dick Gordon, and Alan Bean. Both crews had been on the training mill for many months and all six were fully qualified to fly Apollo 9.

Dave Scott would be a heck of a busy astronaut in the next couple years. The Apollo 9 backup crew would, within a couple months of Apollo 9, begin their intense training for Apollo 12 as the prime crew, and Dave Scott would be training with them as backup commander for Apollo 12, with Al Worden and Jim Irwin. He would them return to the training mill as CDR of Apollo 15.

Also involved in intense training were Tom Strafford, John Young, Gene Cernan, Gordon Cooper, Don Eisele and Ed Mitchell, prime and backup crews for the Apollo 10 mission, which was just a couple months away, and at the same time, beginning their training were Neil Armstrong, Mike Collins, Buzz Aldrin, Jim Lovell, Bill Anders, Ken Mattingly (after Anders assdumed a position on the National Aeronautics and Space Council), and Fred Haise...the prime and backup crews of Apollo 11.

All in all, at this point in 1969, 24 astronauts were in one phase or another of training for an Apollo mission.

At the Manned Spacecraft Center, concentrated training was also going on for the various flight control teams that would serve the missions. Gene Kranz' White team, Gerry Griffin's Gold team, and Pete Frank's Orange team were ready to take charge of Apollo 9, and concurrently, in other control rooms, training was intensely going on for the flight controllers under Glynn Lunney's Black team and Milt Windler's Maroon team, who would be working the Apollo 10 mission, scheduled for May(Griffin's Gold and Frank's Orange team would also be working Apollo 10, so they got no rest at all!).

Down at the Cape, the VAB was a crazy place. Inside that huge box, the behemoth rising up from the flats of the space complex contained the entire assemblies of the Apollo 10 and Apollo 11 space vehicles, again, in various states of erection and testing. Hundreds of people worked around the clock in various parts of that building, making ready for a flurry of constant spaceflight activity that would soon begin with Apollo 9. In fact, the Apollo 13 SIV-B would very shortly be enroute to the VAB as well, and would be on hand at the Cape before Apollo 9's mission was over.

Then you had the hundreds of members of the launch control teams, who were also in full preparation for Apollo 9 and in various phases of training for the subsequent missions.

Apollo 9 Launch Control Team...Firing Room 2 during the FEB 23 Countdown Demostration Test...lots of folks!

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And this doesn't account for the activity going on at Marshall, and at North American, and Grumman, and Chrysler, and all the various contractors.

The entire Apollo team was full-up for Apollo 9, because this would be the first test of the entire Apollo lunar package in operational configuration.

All was pretty quiet from a public perspective, but Apollo was going full blast all over the country, and Apollo 9, was IMPORTANT...

Everything hinged on this one going off as planned.

Apollo 9 would be the first all-up test of the complete Apollo configuration, and of course the first manned flight of the lunar module. The testing would involve the CSM and SPS, the LM in all respects, environmental, guidance and navigation, DSP and APS operation, rendezvous and docking...Apollo MSFN support facilities performance, LM crew performance, consumables assessments, nominal and backup lunar orbit rendezvous procedures...the Apollo EMU test, assessment of EVA perfomance, and emergency transfer procedures from the LM to the CM in the docked configuration...

...basically, the entire Apollo lunar mission matrix, save a landing and surface EVA, were about to be tested "all-up" in Earth orbit.

Everything that would happen subsequently in the Apollo program hinged on what was about to occur in Earth orbit...

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Just a quick question MID, if you don't mind. (great read btw :tu: ). Was there a budget limit placed on getting to the moon, or was it a case of "get there, whatever it costs"? Would be kind of hard to place a budget on such a goal I would imagine, particualarly given the technology available at the time!

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Just a quick question MID, if you don't mind. (great read btw :tu: ). Was there a budget limit placed on getting to the moon, or was it a case of "get there, whatever it costs"? Would be kind of hard to place a budget on such a goal I would imagine, particualarly given the technology available at the time!

Thanks, Sky.

No problem with questions!

Yes, there was a budget limit...always, on Apollo activities. It was never, get there no matter the cost. It was: get there, and do it on or under budget.

Apollo operations were budgeted from 1960 through 1973. 1964 was where the Apollo part of the NASA budget became a really significant percentage of the total NASA budget. In 1964 , Apollo was budgeted for 2.3 billion dollars, 57% of the NASA budget (1963 showed Apollo taking 17% of the NASA budget). Apollo budget peaked at 2.97 billion in 1966, and was cut from that point onward. In 1969, it was 2.0 billion, and by 1972, it was 600 million.

Part of any engineering program involves limits. One of those limits is money. You don't just design for fuctionality, reliability, etc... You do all that and do it cost effectively as well. Apollo was no different.

The total Apollo budget was about 20 billion dollars. I believe it came in at around 24 billion when all was said and done. Considering the trouble we had in 1967...and the work required to get things right, I thought that was pretty darn good!

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24 billion total spend? That's considerably less then I imagined. I think that equates to about 130 billion in todays money. I'm surprised (and impressed) they achieved all that on that budget.

Thanks for the info!

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24 billion total spend? That's considerably less then I imagined. I think that equates to about 130 billion in todays money. I'm surprised (and impressed) they achieved all that on that budget.

Thanks for the info!

You bet Sky...

I think your dollars are just about right on.

It was in fact the most impressive engineering accomplishment in human history, and a pretty good bang for the buck (considering especially all that came from it).

I shall concede, however, that the ISS ranks right up there in terms of engineering acomplishment (that is an astounding thing if you know what's actually up there!).

At any rate, we're about to see just how the last run to the finish line of Apollo was completed.

We've proved the CSM. It's a fine spacecraft. We've proved the trajectory to the Moon and back. But there's a long way to go and a full court press to do it all. We've got that LM to play with, and the Saturn V is still a tempermental Godzilla that needs to be tamed. There's also the little matter of landing the LM...which is going to have to be tested by actually doing it! And, the race to land men on the Moon is still being run. We're about to turn on the afterburners.

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and the Saturn V is still a tempermental Godzilla that needs to be tamed.

Just want to say here MID that the Saturn V rocket most certianly was a monster,, I stood by one at the space center and I also seen the the capsule that sat atop that monster (Dwarfed by comparison), It would have taken some real men to climb aboard that thing and sit and wait for the countdown, Real men indeed,, Bless all those men who pioneered our space exploration,

Regards;

TFF

Edited by thefinalfrontier
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Just want to say here MID that the Saturn V rocket most certianly was a monster,, I stood by one at the space center and I also seen the the capsule that sat atop that monster (Dwarfed by comparison), It would have taken some real men to climb aboard that thing and sit and wait for the countdown, Real men indeed,, Bless all those men who pioneered our space exploration,

Regards;

TFF

Frightening, isn't it?

She had some quirks during the early missions, too! It took a few flights to get the POGO out of her...so the crew's eyeballs didn't get shaken out of their heads!

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MAR 3 1969

Sometime before 6:00 am, the crew of Apollo 9 awoke...and at around 8:00 am, this was the scene at crew quarters as they waddled their way to the transfer van for the trip to LC 39.

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A short time later up at the 320 foot level of the tower, ingress took place...

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A nominal countdown had been running, at at 11:00 AM (EST), the awesome sight of a Saturn V lifting off signaled the beginning of the frantic Year of Apollo:

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The birds were slightly excited by a noise that was louder than anything man had produced with the exception of an atomic bomb... ;)

This Saturn V seemed to perform a bit smoother than Apollo 8's, and quieter in the overall...from the crew perspective. They experienced some low grade POGO vibrations during the second stage thrusting, and of course, the noise peaked during the period of maximum aerodynamic pressure on the vehicle at around 1 minute 25 seconds. The first stage was a little low on thrust and altitude at staging, but it was well compensated for, and the S-I/SII staging event itself was, as it would be for anyone who flew in the behemoth, a real bang, as the crew was thrown forward against their straps at engine cut off, and then slammed back into their couches by S-II ignition...

It was a hell of a ride to orbit...especially riding that first stage, which tended to steer all over the place during the early phases of ascent.

An orbit of 102 x 104 miles was attained at S-IVB cutoff, which occurred at 11:11:04 EST. The heaviest payload ever launched, at a bit over 91,200 pounds, had just been launched into Earth orbit.

This mission would rehearse almost all of the operations required for a lunar mission. The Saturn V had launched for the first time with an operational and to-be-manned LM on board, and at 13:41 EST, the CSM separated from the S-IVB. That, of course, had been done before, but now--

The next "first" of the mission would now take place, as Dave Scott took the controls of Gumdrop (the CSM's call-sign for this flight), and began the slow, meticulous process of moving out from the SLA, turning the CSM around, moving back in, and docking with the LM.

At 14:02, there was a little cheer as Gumdrop docked sucessfully with Spider (the LM's call sign). When all was ready, the Apollo spacecraft stack separated from the S-IVB, at 15:08.

Shortly thereafter, the Apollo 9 spacecraft executed an evasive maneuver to clear the S-IVB. A couple of S-IVB re-starts were accomplished that day, testing the re-start capability and performance of the J-2 engine over the course of various periods of idle time, and tests of the CSM's SPS engine were done to assess the behavior and dynamics of the mated spacecraft...something that we had not seen before.

Two S-IVB restarts and one SPS firing were done that day, and the crew began a sleep period at about 20:00 that evening. Quite a busy few days were planned in this docked configuration, and then some!

Some good sleep was advised...

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I want a Copy or place to Go to Get a copy to Blow up For my Shop of the Apollo 1969 on 39A An Outstanding Image to Go thru the Next 30 years at my Shop! Any Ideas Mid! Great Post Great Pics!

P.S My son is going to do a project at school about the Apollo program.

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I want a Copy or place to Go to Get a copy to Blow up For my Shop of the Apollo 1969 on 39A An Outstanding Image to Go thru the Next 30 years at my Shop! Any Ideas Mid! Great Post Great Pics!

P.S My son is going to do a project at school about the Apollo program.

Cool stuff, D.

Thanks much.

Try contacting Maura White at JSC NASA

maura.white-1@nasa.gov

She's the official responsible for the digital image gallery at JSC.

Refer to photo S69-25879, FEB 23 1969.

You could ask about high resolution prints that might be available. This was taken on 4x5 black and white. I'd bet there are some spectacular prints available...!

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Apollo 9 continues...

March 4 featured three SPS (Service Module engine) maneuvers, and alot of nominal housekeeping and spacecraft operations.

The SPS maneuvers were part of an extensive engineering flight test program designed to test the entire Apollo spacecraft. The dynamics and stability of the docked Apollo spacecraft configuration had never been demonstrated, only predicted. Five SPS firings would be performed in this docked configuration, and one DPS (Lunar Module descent engine) firing.

A couple of these SPS firings including "stroking tests", which were simply firings combined with engine gimballing (steering inputs...the SPS swiveled). The configuration behaved beautifully during all of these test firings, and the stability of the docked spacecraft was very good.

These tests also proved the integrity of the docking interface between the LM and CM...also a very good performance.

You may be assured that everything happening on orbit was a first, and the folks in Mission Control, and at North American and Grumman were about as focused on their data as any human beings have ever been.

This stuff didn't have the drama of an Apollo 8, of course...but it had all the drama in the world to the Apollo program.

March 5 featured the donning of pressure suits, McDivitt and Schweikart entering the LM at about 07:00 EST, powering it up, aligning its guidance platform, deploying its landing gear, testing the landing and rendezvous radar systems, calibrating the AGS (Abort Guidance System) and pressurizing the DPS system. That first DPS burn in the docked configuration occurred today, 40 years ago...

All in all, a very busy day which provided alot of good data for analysis...

We were looking at an exhilarating exhibition of a really great spacecraft combination up there.

It was fun.

March 6 featured donning the EMUs again, this time in full EVA configuration...re-entering the LM, powering her up again, and, after a bit of a delay...

One of the less glamorous things about spaceflight is that people occassionally got sick (Apollo 8 featured a grand mess...nasty stuff that no one knew about...but let's not get into that...) Rusty had an episode or two of nausea...one shortly after sealing up his EMU on March 5 (Yea...we're talking about the ultimate mess...blowing breakfast in your suit...). Fortunately, he was able to "retain it" until he got his helmet opened and was able to ...uh...let's say, emit into an appropriate bag.

Once barfing had concluded, things stabilized, and we took it easy and slow for a while. March 6 was EVA day, and everyone wanted to be sure that everything was OK in the GI department before going outside, where vomiting is not an attractive prospect.

Sounds marvelous, doesn't it? :(

The EVA was shortened a bit from its orignal planned time of about 2.25 hours, and actually ran a little less than an hour.

It featured Schweikart exiting the LM's forward hatch, and Dave Scott coming out of the CM's main hatch in a stand-up EVA (He'd be doing another one of those...two and a half years later, in the docking hatch of the LM, while on the surface of the Moon). The test was to assess the mobility and functionality of the lunar surface EVA suit, and the feasibility of the emergency transfer procedures that could possibly be required in case of a docking failure or some hatch malfunction between the two spacecraft after the LM left the lunar surface.

Here's Rusty, on the porch of the LM, taken by Dave Scott...

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And here's Dave, standing, as-it-were, in the CM hatch, taken by Rusty, "standing" on the porch of the LM...

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Here's Rusty, from inside the LM

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The EVA started at about 11:53 and was concluded by 12:49 EST. Around 5 hours later, the LM had been powered down, the crew were all back on board the CM, a TV broadcast had taken place, and the fellows would be bunking down soon.

March 7 was the really big day...the day when the LM would take flight, piloted by men.

On orbit, there was alot of work going on. It was busy, careful...sometimes tense. So too on the ground...but I'll tell you, it was exhilarating. We were doing it, and so far, the year of Apollo was going pretty darn well after about three days.

Let's go flying the LM.

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MAR 7 1969

It was to be a rather long day for Apollo 9, one which started with a wake up call in the wee hours of the morning.

Today, the LM flew for the first time with men at the controls. It was an exhaustive, detailed, and very complex test.

After the normal suit ups, entry into the LM, power up, and platform alignments, McDivitt and Schweikart, aboard Spider, and Dave Scott, aboard Gumdrop, were ready to go.

After a slight delay in capture latch separation, the first manned LM separated from the CSM at around 7:40 am.

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The Spider away, landing gear deployed!

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Point of interest: you may note that there are lunar contact probes on all 4 of Spider's landing pads. The one on the pad with the ladder would be removed for Apollo 11, since it was thought (correctly) that the probe might be bent up on landing and interfere with, and pose a hazard the astronaut attempting to descend the ladder to the lunar surface.

All eyes poured over data for the hours that followed.

What occurred was an extremely complex mathematical space ballet. Discussing the particulars would be rather pointless...and would bore you to tears. ALOT happened. Today, we were putting the LM through its paces...all of the LM, including the complicated rendezvous procedures that would be utilized around the Moon, when the LM ascended from the surface to meet up with the CSM in orbit.

Shortly after 08:00, initial separation was accomplished between the two vehicles. It was as small separation maneuver, resulting in a 5 foot per second rate of separation (initiated by Dave Scott in the CSM). This maneuver gave the crew time to pay attention to the many tasks involved with aligning their inertial measuring units and run systems checks without having to pay attention to the details of formation flying. About 45 minutes later, the LM DPS was fired to perform what was called a phasing maneuver. Basically, this provided a vertical separation between the two spacecraft by placing the LM in a "phasing orbit", from which either the complete "coelliptic flight plan" could be flown, or a terminal phase abort maneuver could be initiated.

Essentially, we went out to the end of the diving board, but didn't jump off yet.

Checking the DPS again, the AGS and rendezvous navigation systems, the LM then jumped...executing the descent propulsion insertion manuever at 10:39 EST.This inserted Spider into a coelliptic orbit with the LM above the CSM and moving away from the CSM.

About 40 minutes later, coelliptic sequence initiation took place. McDivitt and Scweikart were now out on a limb, as-it-were...some 85 statute miles away, horizontally, and roughly 14 miles above Dave Scott in the CSM. They would continue their outward trek, and close the vertical separation now. Ultimately...at around 11:30 EST, they'd be around 115 miles away from the CSM.

Coelliptic sequence essentially is a maneuver which provides horizontal velocity requirements at specific times during the rendezvous sequence in order to allow the LM to be in the desired conditions for transfer to an intercept trajectory (Christ...I'm sure that made a hell of alot of sense, didn't it?!?!)....the two spacecraft are in separate orbits. What we want to do is get them to a point where one will be able to precisely maneuver into that of the other, close in on the other, and arrive at a place where the two craft are in exactly the same orbit, in the same place in space. This involves rocket burns at very specific times, in very specific directions, which allow the orbit they're in, combined with the small adjustments to velocity (in this case, horizontal velocity) to gently and carefully get them where they want to be, when they want them to be there)...It's a mathematical dance, and suffice it to say that the guys in ther MOCR (those in the trench, where the math was being done), the LM computers, and Dave Scott (who was also performing backup computations aboard the CM), were damned busy figuring during this time...

At any rate, somewhere around 11:30 that morning, something which hadn't been done yet happened...the descent stage was jettisoned. Away she flew, and McDivitt and Schweikart were now alone out there in half of their LM. Personally, it seems somehow disconcerting that half of your craft is kicked off. In reality, it didn't matter, of course, since the ascent stage was the crew compartment and contained everything they needed...but a first is a first, and then there's the separation itself....how that's going to behave, the difference in handling, paying close attention to make sure there was no adverse ascent stage reaction, and of course the realization that now, that APS engine had to work...

But the descent stage had performed perfectly, the DPS was a champ, and its job was completed.

The descent stage of Spider would remain in orbit for two weeks, when her orbit would decay and she'd incinerate in the atmosphere...

Now that the descent stage was kicked off, things changed because the LM now had different mass, and calculations would take that into account. The spacecraft would be maneuvered by the flight crew with rather remarkably different handling, and we still had a ways to go...

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Just wanted to say, it's a great read MID, fantastic photos too. Even the wife has bookmarked it on her laptop, as she's finding it fascinating too. :tu:

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Coming home...

The first APS maneuver occurred just before noon on MAR 7.

The maneuver was called Constant Differential Height, or Constant Delta Height (CDH).

Simply put, this maneuver makes the vertical separation (height) constant at the perigee and apogee of the orbit...in the case of Apollo 9, 10 nautical miles.

Around one hour later, at about 13:00 EST, after closing about 75 miles on the CSM, Spider executed Terminal Phase Initiation (TPI), which simply put, placed the LM on an intercept trajectory with the CSM, about 10 miles above her and about 22 miles in front.

Over the hour that followed TPI, Spider would climb toward Gumdrop and a pleasant sight would result...

From Gumdrop, a pleasant sight indeed, compatriots getting back where they belong after 6 and a half hours out there somewhere!

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And from Spider...HOME!

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Getting into station-keeping, checking things out, getting themselves trimmed-up, and moving in resulted in a successful docking between the two spacecraft at 14:02 EST.

By around 16:00, McDivitt and Schweikart had transferred back into the CM, sealed up the hatches, and at 16:22, Spider was jettisoned.

She'd been a hell of a spacecraft, performing admirably (it must've been hell for pilots just to set LM ascent stages loose after what they did!).

Shortly before 17:00 that evening, Spider's APS engine was fired to fuel depletion...

See you later Baby!

...Much later as it turned out. Spider would be inserted into an eccentric orbit around the Earth, at around 145 x 4100 miles, and would remain there for 12 years. She'd be there long after the Apollo program was over, and would see the first Space Shuttle mission fly! Spider's orbit would decay, and she'd burn up on OCT 23 1981...

A few hours later, a happy Apollo 9 crew went to sleep, 5 days into their mission, with the major goals accomplished in stellar fashion. Everything that happened on MAR 7 was going to happen around the Moon. The LM had performed splendidly, the coelliptic sequence maneuvers worked as planned, and the program at that point would proceed as planned.

And...Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins, I would imagine, had a twinge , maybe a little, of excitement, realizing that the plan to have them try the first landing had essentially jumped its first hurdle...

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Just wanted to say, it's a great read MID, fantastic photos too. Even the wife has bookmarked it on her laptop, as she's finding it fascinating too. :tu:

I appreciate that Sky...a hell of alot. It's gratifying to see the interest in this!

It's a great story, really.

I can't write a novel about it in this format, of course...and Apollo 9 was a big, big mission. It's mission report was the largest of the Apollo program at almost 500 pages. Apollo 7's was the second biggest at 400+ pages.

Those missions proved the Apollo spacecraft, Apollo 7, the CSM, and Apollo 9, the whole package, with emphasis, of course, on the LM.

One could say that those two were the proofs of the hardware and procedures of the program. They were important in extremis, even though they didn't carry the drama of an Apollo 8 or Apollo 11.

They were priority one pieces of the Apollo chain, and Apollo 9, in my opinion, was the watershed moment. That mission told us, "We're gonna do this thing..."

I'll try to keep it interesting, without writing a novel, or getting into too much technish!

Thanks again.

:tu:

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I am finding this amazing myself, Having watched all the happenings back when this was happening it truly is amazing the feat of these men,

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I am finding this amazing myself, Having watched all the happenings back when this was happening it truly is amazing the feat of these men,

It was an amazing time, with amazing things happening, no?

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It was an amazing time, with amazing things happening, no?

One could say that those two were the proofs of the hardware and procedures of the program. They were important in extremis, even though they didn't carry the drama of an Apollo 8 or Apollo 11.

They were priority one pieces of the Apollo chain, and Apollo 9, in my opinion, was the watershed moment. That mission told us, "We're gonna do this thing..."

:tu:

I see you also have a Saturn V rocket as your avatar, I have one in my profile pic, I always looked back at a time when that was a symbol of power and feat, Man made his mark in human history and I cant wait until they do it again, Its all been a great time (past and current) but I think the apollo missions were the greatest of all time, I have been following your posts and enjoying them all, This is a good idea to comemorate our time in history,

Edited by thefinalfrontier
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After the LM shakedown was complete (and results were being poured over in full-bore mode on the ground), Apollo 9 remained pretty busy on orbit.

The final days of the mission featured a couple more tests of the SPS, designed to drop the perigee of the orbit, bring it back up again, and test the propellant gaging system. Landmark tracking exercises were also included in the flight plan. The mission was also loaded with photography experiments, operational and scientific, and they carried with them seven modified Hasselblads, four of which were used for what was designated the S065 experiment, which was a multi-spectral terrain photography experiment, and three for general photographic activities.

The S065 experiment was designed to check the feasibility of using visible and infrared band photography for applications in Earth resources studies. Operational photography meant photographs of in-flight operations, which were of course not simply for historical documentation, but were used in engineering analysis of operations.

Meteorological applications also found more value in Apollo 9 photography than in any prior manned orbital mission.

They even took a photo for DONTEATUS when they had a chance!

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Dallas, Texas, taken on MAR 11 1969.... :lol:

Anyway,

Taking care of a spacecraft is a big, continual job, and of course Apollo 9's crew spent alot of time doing so. Changing CO2 filters, stirring cryos, aligning platforms, charging batteries, waste water dumps, power-ups and power-downs, fuel cell maintenance, testing communications antennae, tracking the LM ascent stage with on-board optics, as well as evaluations of the passive thermal control mode were all performed during the flight.

Continually, the spacecraft was being analyzed by engineers on the ground...and alot of other stuff was going on down below as Apollo 9 continued.

I had previously indicated that Apollo was going full bore, and that activity at NASA was at a fever pitch.

On MAR 11 1969, while Apollo 9 was still two days from splashdown, at the Cape this was happening:

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And Apollo 10, with LM-4 on-board, capped off by CSM 106, was rolled-out to Pad 39B, the first use of Pad B.

Things were moving along indeed. The VAB had lost another occupant. But another was still inside, the Apollo 11 launch vehicle, and Apollo 12's vehicle would soon be in the assembly phase as well, it's SIV-B having arrived on MAR 9.

In fact, for the first 6 1/2 months of 1969, there were only 8 days where a Saturn V Apollo launch vehicle was NOT on a launch pad at Complex 39. MAR 4 through 10 consituted seven of those days. The other day was MAY 19, the day after Apollo 10 launched. The next day, MAY 20, Apollo 11 would be on the pad!

No rest for the weary on the launch crews!

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:tu:

I see you also have a Saturn V rocket as your avatar, I have one in my profile pic, I always looked back at a time when that was a symbol of power and feat, Man made his mark in human history and I cant wait until they do it again, Its all been a great time (past and current) but I think the apollo missions were the greatest of all time, I have been following your posts and enjoying them all, This is a good idea to comemorate our time in history,

I couldn't agree with you more, TFF.

"...our time in history", indeed!

It was.

Still, today, the Saturn V stands as the behemoth of all behemoths, a marvel, and a testimony to the capabilities of man. We're all familiar with the Shuttle. She's a maumoo, no doubt about it...a 4,500,000 pound hunk of flying machine that gets pushed aloft by 6,800,000 pounds of thrust.

But above, we see various puctures of the Saturn V. Comparatively speaking, she was frightening.

She stood twice as tall as the shuttle, and her base diameter was 16% larger than the diameter of the Shuttle. She weighed in at 6,700,000 pounds, 70% more than the Shuttle stack weighs.

The Saturn V produced 7,600,000 pounds of thrust, 12% more than the Shuttle. The specific impulse of the Saturn V was 53% higher than the Shuttle's, and she made a noise that was louder than anything humans had ever produced, save an atomic explosion!

Today, it's impressive enough to realize that in order to climb aboard the Shuttle, one must ascend to the 147 foot level of the fixed service structure. For ingress into the Saturn V, you had to ascend to the 320 foot level to climb aboard!

The Saturn V could put 260,000 pounds into LEO. The Shuttle puts 54,000 pounds up there.

Yes, she was it---the rocket of all rockets.

We'll have to wait for ARES V to see something bigger, and bigger she'll be.

She'll stand close to 400 feet tall, will lift 410,000 pounds into LEO, and her 6 / RS-68B engines will provide as much thrust as the Shuttle's entire powerplant does...and you'll have to add the thrust of the two SRMs as well (that thrust level has not yet been finalized).

About 6 years or so down the road, we'll be seeing a heart-stopping behemoth again rolling out of the VAB...ever so slowly, and it'll remind us of the greatness we once knew. Hopefully, it will pave the road to amazing new accomplishments in space, as Apollo did.

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