MSC-07631 06. Translunar coast

Evans

The IMU realignment and optics calibration - We've mentioned the visibility of the stars in talking about the systems in the section on systems. Systems anomalies - We already hit that one. Heat flow demonstration - it worked great. There were no real problems on it. It was a real time operation with ground. Everything is recorded on the down-link.

Schmitt

There was some problem with the orientation of the experiment. As I recall, you reoriented it between the two experiments. I never quite understood why there was that problem. It was a checklist problem or something.

Evans

The problem was something about the orientation of the radial experiment with respect to the X-axis. I pointed the radial experiment along the X-axis. It was supposed to be perpendicular to the X-axis, but it shouldn't have made any difference in the results anyhow.

PTC - We got it started and had no problem.

Cislunar navigation or navigational sightings - It's already mentioned in the systems part.

Schmitt

You mentioned apparently you had a very good Delta-I determination - horizon determination.

Evans

The P23s worked out great. The vehicle is heavy enough that you can control it quite easily with minimum impulse. I used the EMP on P23 so that once you had the star in the field of view and all lined up you could recycle through the program without getting all the maneuver data on the thing. While it was recycling, I could just watch the spacecraft and not let it drift too far out of field of view. When it came back in, I would maintain the star in the middle of the crosshairs of the sextant and maneuver the spacecraft so I could get the substellar point and maintain the substellar point. As it turns out, I guess the resulting Delta-I is within the limits that are recorded in the E-memory.

Midcourse correction - I think that's all recorded on the down-link. There should be nothing anomalous about that.

Photography - Jack, I guess you've taken most of the pictures on the translunar coast.

Schmitt

Most of the photography came to GET within a few minutes. It was almost a continuous effort at the beginning of the day and maybe in the middle and at the end with some irregularities - getting a continuous record of a very nice view of the Earth and the weather patterns. We had about three-quarters to two-thirds Earth through most of the translunar coast period. And that should be in the photographic logs on the ground.

High gain antenna performance - Through the whole mission, not just translunar coast when I was using it, it was perfectly nominal. The ground did most of the calling on it. Between omis and high gain when they didn't call, it was easy enough to get the high gain to peak up. Usually in MANUAL and WIDE and either AUTO or REACQ depending on the occasion, it seemed to work very well. I wasn't aware of any high gain anomalies.

Evans

Daylight IMU realign and star check - Again you can't see the stars through the telescope. Most of the time you can't see the stars through the telescope. However, if you have a good alignment and it shows up in the sextant, there's no problem.

ALFMED experiment - I think that's all recorded on the down-link. The one thing that I might add to that is that prior to this time I hadn't seen a light flash. So I put it on anyhow and sure enough the light flashes are there. And that's all recorded.

Schmitt

In the experiments notebook, where the LMP was taking notes on the ALFMED experiment comments, it was necessary in this translunar coast period because we were on omnis and PTC. It is very difficult with two guys observing to take notes if they both start seeing marks at the same time. Interestingly enough maybe even for the experiment the marks seem to come in batches. There'd be periods of quiescence, then both of us would start seeing marks. So the notes are relatively incomplete and, hopefully, the DSE plus the down-link will fill in all the gaps. It's feasible to take notes but they will be incomplete compared to the verbal description.

Evans

CM/LM Delta-P - Nominal.

Orbital science photos - We really didn't have any on translunar coast.

Schmitt

Nothing was called out. We used about a half a mag on the Earth, maybe more.

Evans: More than that. We used a full mag before we got to the Moon.

LM and tunnel pressure was okay, no problems.

Removal of the probe and drogue - Went as advertised. Worked great.

Odors - Every time I got up in the tunnel after docking or anytime, there was always a musty burned odor or something. It's hard to describe.

Schmitt

Like a powder burn.

Evans

Kind of like a powder burn, I guess. This was there both in lunar orbit docking and transearth docking. This was the second day we were out when we finally went up in the tunnel. Every time I opened up the tunnel, that's what it smelled like.

We didn't mention the SIM door jett. I guess I never did see the door. You guys wouldn't let me up to the window.

Schmitt

Yes, we saw the door. I didn't get it right away. I was supposed to be taking pictures out of the window.

Cernan

I saw it right away out of the hatch window. You should have been taking pictures out of the hatch because it wasn't immediately obvious out the window. It came off just as clean as a whistle, with almost no tumbling until it got 20 or 30 feet away from the spacecraft. Then you could see that there was just a little roll and a little pitch as it drifted on away, but very very little. Not a great deal of debris and garbage as I recall came off with it either. You could probably sum up all the pyro operations by saying there are absolutely no questions. They're just good, solid, hard thuds, including SIM door jett. Just a big solid bang, really not that much different than some of the other big bangs when you separate the spacecraft. They're just all big, hard, solid clunks.

Schmitt

I don't remember what Apollo 16 said about it. Apollo 15 was suited, and they commented they didn't even know it went.

Cernan

I'm surprised at that, even suited. It was a very definite jolt to the spacecraft when the door was jettisoned.

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Edits and errors by Eric Hartwell are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 license. The original NASA material is copyright-free.