MSC-07631 08. Activation through separation

Cernan

That's probably one of the most nominal parts of the mission. It really went smooth. We oscillated on the timeline. We'd get a little ahead, and then we'd get a little behind; we'd pick up a few minutes, then we'd loose a few minutes. Basically we worked around the nominal timeline. I certainly wouldn't want to shorten it any, but we came to the milestones on time and met the ground at the right places.

Evans

Prior to LOI, we manually pressurized the SPS, which was no problem. It was because of the oxidizer helium.

In all the sims we never got suited in the spacecraft. We never have all three guys in there trying to get suited and going through the sims. So the sims for the CMP were fat, dumb, and happy. There is all kinds of time in the sim; you could go out and get a cup of coffee and come back and still pick up everything. It's not that way in the real world. You get into the real world out there and you work your tail off trying to keep up and get things going and get suited. When I'm scheduled to do the P52, the CDR and the LMP are down in the LEB getting suited. There was no way I could do the P52 at that time. By the time I had a chance to do the P52 at the sep attitude, the optics were looking down at the Moon, so I'd have to manually roll and do some pitching to get the optics back up in the air, in the daylight, until I could get PICAPAR to work. And when I finally got the P52 on, I had a little bit of a problem getting my suit on that day. There was evidently an "S" or something right in the back part of the crotch. I had a heck of a time getting the zipper across that little S-band thing by myself, which was back there where I couldn't pull it through with the lanyard. I finally backed it off the other way to make sure everything was all clean and cleared out. A little squishing sideways and a contortion here and there, and I finally got the zipper all the way around. I think the rest of it was nominal. I was down in the LEB when you guys lowered your gear, but I could still feel the clunk in the CSM.

Cernan

You could feel it in the CSM?

Evans

Yes.

Cernan

We could feel it in the LM, and we could also see the forward gear and the ladder.

Evans

Once I went back up to the couch, I could see the gear sticking out, too.

Cernan

Which one?

Evans

Whichever one is over there.

Cernan

Did it have the ladder on? Probably not. I think the ladder is on one of the Y-struts.

Evans

I think so.

Cernan

Well, anyway, that's interesting. I didn't know you could feel it over there.

Evans

Yes, I could feel it when you dropped.

Cernan

In the rendezvous radar or the landing radar self tests (the transcript will have it) there were some residual numbers in the registers that I had not seen before during these tests, when I brought up VERB 63. They didn't affect the test. The tests came out very well, and there's only one other slight anomaly in the rendezvous radar and that was during the rendezvous radar test. It was either on this rendezvous radar test or the rendezvous radar test prior to lift-off - I think it was shaft. I did not get the cyclic oscillation in the DSKY on shaft. But the interface was good, and I'm not sure what the particulars of that problem were. At undocking we had P47 running in the LM, and I got zero in all three registers, zero residual velocity as a result of the CSM soft and open total undocking. Systems operation throughout that time was normal. Vehicle performance was as expected, in terms of attitude control.

Lunar landmark recognition - We were able to be in attitude and recognize and look at the landing site on that first pass when we went over. The MSFN relay worked. Generally throughout the flight, I think MSFN relay is more of a pain when you've got good VHF with the other vehicle than it is anything else, because you end up getting a repeat on the voice. I recommend against MSFN relay when you can use direct VHF voice.

Schmitt

Yes, I agree. On the systems, I was surprised that the component lights in the test positions were very dim. But when they are activated by the caution and warning system, they are bright. I guess I never realized that before. Purely academic interest at this stage.

Cernan

The secondary glycol pump start up was, I recall, a somewhat ragged start up, as if the pump was slightly cavitating for about 15 seconds. Then it was smooth. There was no subsequent indication of the problem with the secondary loop because we didn't use it subsequently.

Schmitt

Referring to that radar test, it was the PGNCS turn on self test. I had a 400 in R-2 initially, and I had never seen that before in PGNCS turn on. That's what I was referring to about something different in the registers. It was on the initial PCNGS turn on, and self test.

Cernan

All the alignments went well. One thing that we discovered - the gimbals apparently were mistrimmed on the descent engine prior to lift-off. Someone is going to have to resolve whether that's true or not. The pitch and the yaw gimbal trim in the DAP were reversed as to our checklist. When I inquired about it, I found out that our checklist was correct, which gave me an impression that the gimbals were both mistrimmed. But they were so close to each other that the ground indicated we should press on and we should see no reaction to that mistrim, and to start up. We did and we did not see any indication of the mistrim. If pitch and yaw had been separated quite a bit, I'm sure we probably would have had to go through a retrim of the gimbals during the DPS throttle check.

Schmitt

One clarification comment with respect to the AGS. I mentioned yesterday that I thought it was a Z-gyro that indicated greater than spec calibration. It was the Z-gyro, just slightly greater, about 0.4

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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.