MSC-07631 13. Lunar module jettison through TEI

Cernan

Postdocking Check and Pressurization - The general comment I want to make about the postdocking operations is that both pilots in the LM took their helmets off to keep the dust off, primarily. The commander took off his gloves almost immediately after insertion, and flew the entire rendezvous that way. Jack took his off some time later.

Schmitt

I kept mine on for some time. I can't remember exactly when I took them off. I did most of my preinsertion work with the gloves on, because I didn't want to take the time. I wanted to get that initial AGS solution. I could get that fairly rapidly with the gloves. I didn't take the gloves off until maybe 10 or 15 minutes after insertion. I kept the helmet on all the way through most of the transfer, just to avoid breathing the dust. I had the sinus irritation on the surface.

Cernan

The commander kept his helmet on throughout the rendezvous and docking. I took my gloves off after insertion and left them off. As soon as we were hard docked, the commander took off his helmet. As I look back at that, because of the dust debris in the LM spacecraft, I'm sorry I did. I could have left the helmet on, and I would have had a lot less eye and mouth type of irritation. You knew you were in a very heavily infiltrated atmosphere in the LM because of the lunar dust. I don't know how much lunar dust previous flights had, but I think we saved a great deal of grief by sweeping all the dust we could find on the floor into the holes and putting our tape covers over those holes. I think that had to help a great deal. There was an awful lot of dust on the floor that we didn't see.

The commander had his helmet and gloves off all throughout the entire transfer. We handled the transfer the way we'd planned. The LM pilot did most of the preparation of the gear in the LM, and the commander stayed in the tunnel and passed things on. The inventory was going on in the command module side and on the LM side, both. We vacuumed each other's suits the best we could and everything else that got supposedly transferred, unbagged, or uncovered.

Schmitt

In spite of the CMP's comments to the contrary, I think we got things remarkably clean. There wasn't an awful lot of dirt in the command module coming back.

Evans

That's true.

Schmitt

In contrast, he may have thought it was dirty, but I was surprised we were able to keep the level of contamination in the command module down.

Cernan

After I took my helmet off, I could go halfway through the tunnel and stick my head up in the command module, and it was a totally refreshed, unpolluted atmosphere up there. It never did get polluted.

Schmitt

I think having that vacuum cleaner running in the LM had a lot to do with keeping the flow in the other direction, filtering out the air.

Evans

We never did vacuum in the command module because it just wasn't necessary.

Schmitt

The suits were noticeably cleaned by the vacuum cleaner. You could tell you were pulling stuff off them, although they were still dirty. Every subsequent time we handled them, we got our hands dirty. I think most of the free dust was taken care of.

Cernan

We effectively stayed on the transfer list. I say effectively, throughout the transfer. However, some things got transferred out of order and temporarily stowed in the command module. We effectively used the transfer list not as a cookbook recipe type of thing, but as an inventory list. We inventoried it several times from both ends and were satisfied we had everything transferred. We then pressed on with the LM closeout.

The LM closeout went nominal. We got back into the command module, and the LMP closed out the LM. For convenience, the commander went back and closed out the LM hatch and put in the command module hatch. Because of the slow tunnel vent, or the long duration of tunnel vent, the commander stayed in the tunnel, the LMP in his seat, and the CMP in the left seat. We suited up and prepared for our integrity check. As soon as the LM tunnel vent was complete and we were satisfied with the integrity of the hatch, we went into the suit integrity check.

Evans

I bet it must take at least three or four times longer than the simulator did for the tunnel vent.

Cernan

I think that's going to be applicable to Skylab. They're going to have to vent before they undock, I think.

The tunnel closeout was easy. We had no drogue and probe which were stored in the LM for LM jett. We just followed the checklist, and it all seemed to happen just as advertised.

Evans

We got a little bit intrigued with the LM jettison. It was great. It just sailed out there nice and pretty, and we got a lot of good pictures of it. We should have been maneuvering. We ended up getting into P41 after jettison for sep burn, a little bit late. That was no problem either, because we just trimmed the residuals for P41 and got a good sep burn.

Cernan

Cleaning control in the command module was excellent, considering all the dust and dirt that just seemed to adhere to everything in the 1M. When we got back in the command module, with the exception of the suits, and LMP and CDR, everything was clean. Everything was clean because everything was bagged before we brought it over - bagged and zipped. We never did open anything once we got it zipped up. So the command module stayed exceptionally clean throughout the remainder of the flight.

Schmitt

In the bagging of the decontamination bags, I made a special effort, after requests prelaunch, to pull those zippers as tight as I could. They should be pretty tight.

Evans

High gain always worked good; omnis and S-band were good. Photography went as advertised. We had lots of targets of opportunity. SIM bay operations have been mentioned before.

TEI updates, normal. Sextant star checks were good for TEI.

Cernan

Every one all through the flight was good, which made me feel real good. I made sure I got it on those last few. I wasn't going to change any mode of operation. I made sure I got it on TEI. Just to make you guys feel at home. I figured you'd think I didn't do it right, if I didn't get the master alarm.

Schmitt

The TEI, at 1/2g, or whatever we were pulling there, seemed like more than that.

Evans

It sure did; it seemed like it was really pushing you back in the seat.

Schmitt

Ron and I both started out holding our heads up and eventually relaxed them back on the couch.

Cernan

I guess we must have had the spacecraft pretty well stowed, or tied down. I briefed the CMP and LMP, and, as I recall, those kind of burns back on Apollo 10, lots of things start moving through the spacecraft and find their way to the aft end of the spacecraft because of the g-load. Much to my surprise, all we had was an initial thud as we moved away from the station, and we didn't have any gear flying through the spacecraft.

Schmitt

I found a white tag, wetwipe.

Cernan

Other than maybe one or two of those things, in looking back, I would have expected more gear to come from somewhere, but we prepared for those burns pretty well.

Evans

That reminds me of all this water condensing on the ECU unit, the pipes, and what have you. When we put our suits on for the EVA the next day, your suits were noticeably wet. When I pulled the PGA bag up, it was damp down underneath the PGA bag. As a normal procedure, we should have, either after the burn, probably before the burn, made sure we wiped up the water in the LEB.

Cernan

Our suits were damp when we put them on, but I could not find any real water down there.

Evans

There's always water down there in the ECS. I just assumed that's where all of it came from. There's not a puddle of water. Like I said, it's just damp.

Cernan

It's almost as if it was colder down in the LEB, and water was condensing all over the suits. It wasn't as if they were in a puddle.

Evans

The simulator is set up such that in roll dead band, it goes over to one side of roll dead band and just kind of stays there. During the TEI burn, it was bouncing back and forth from one side of the dead band clear over to the other side of the dead band. When it's bouncing back and forth, the roll rate is up around, oh, 0.4" per second, arcing back and forth across the roll dead band.

I'd like to mention chlorination at this point.

Cernan

Without fail, almost every chlorination leaked. Sometimes large quantities of water, other times just small quantities of water.

Evans

Water or chlorine?

Cernan

A combination. Where it leaked appeared to be around the bag. It was the cylindrical chlorine dispenser that was continually wet. It was not where the dispenser fit into the needle or where the needle adaptor fit into the spacecraft. It was within the chlorine dispenser itself. Chlorination was a case of always cleaning your hands with chlorine because you always had it available down there within that dispenser. In some cases, you had a larger quantity of water that had to be wiped up with a tissue. That plagued us throughout the whole mission. It turned out not to be a serious problem because we learned how to handle it. That was one system anomaly that hadn't really been brought up.

Evans

In two cases, I'm almost positive, it did not puncture the ampule. The reason I believe that's correct is that, when you started to crank the outside of the cassette down to push the chlorine into the water system - it was very hard to turn. If you tried to force it, you could force it on down there, and I'm sure that's a good way to break an ampule on the thing. In two cases, we took the bayonet fitting loose again and put it back on there, and in both cases, then you'd start to squeeze the chlorine out of the ampule into the system, and it would turn easier.

Cernan

We got the chlorination done. We didn't miss any injections of chlorine, and we didn't miss any of the buffer samples. I guess we got the job done; it was just a little bit messy. The chlorine was evident because the CDR eventually peeled all the outer skin off his right hand. I'm convinced it was due to the chlorine, and had nothing to do with the EVA.

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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.