LM Testing

ACE Room

This was the room that most of us on the test teams lived in for months at a time...
the ACE (Automatic Checkout Equipment) room!

This is the only picture that I found with Test Team people in the ACE room.
It came from the Grumman Plane News.

This was the ACE computer room, a 160G Control Data Computer...
today's Pentium computers are thousands of times faster.

Clean Room

Clean Room Plant 5 - year 1965. Final assembly, subsystem and
integrated testing were performed in this modified hanger.

Work Stands

This LM 5 in its work stand . The LM was both assembled and electrically tested in the stands.

Here we see LM Test Article 8 (LTA 8) in test and the LM 1 , LM2 descent stages being assembled

LM 3 Ascent Stage

LM 2 which still can be seen at the National Air and Space Museum Washington D.C.

Plant 25 196?

This is where LM engineering was originally headquartered...
The last I heard the building still shakes!
S/CAT was moved from here to trailers, and then to plant 39 across the street.

Operation Checkout Procedures (OCPs)

Here is the Cover page for an OCP (Operational Checkout Procedure) written for LM3 FEAT (Formal Engineering Acceptance Test) Number 61015, Dated March 30, 1968. The OCP was signed by Howard Wright (S/CAT Deputy) and Red Hafter ( LM 3 Test Team Manager). It was written by me (using the full resources of LM3 Test Team). The OCP was broken up into four volumes and was more than one foot high in size. This was the first time the OCP was run, and took more than 10 days to complete. When testing was completed, there were over one hundred TDR's (Test Discrepancy Reports) written - most of which were procedural errors.

What is an OCP?

The LM Subsystems and Integrated systems were tested as the vehicle was being assembled in work stands in plant 5. The LM sampled measurements, (i.e., 5x per sec., 100x per sec. . . . etc.) were transmitted in a Pulse Coded Modulation (PCM) mode, were down linked , were coupled with plugs in "carry on" measurements, were signal conditioned and then sent to the ACE (Acceptance Checkout Equipment) station. The ACE station displayed hundreds of measurements per second to test engineers manning positions in the ACE room. These measurements were "real time" displayed on "paged" CRT's, bush recorders, and event lights.
The LM was basically tested in a pseudo flight configuration mode. The persons in the LM cabin (LMP and CDR) performed actions under the direction of the "Test Conductor". Personnel in the ACE room then verified the correctness of the resulting measurements coming down from the LM. Each second, hundreds of measurements would be sampled from the LM subsystems.

OCP's were written in a script like manner, with the Test Conductor (TC) reading to the appropriate support personnel.

Here is a typical page from an OCP:

Some of the Test Badges that I found in my "sock drawer":