Apollo 7

And the Control Center has relayed word here, we show you Go for orbit. For the first six revolutions around the Earth, it will be a revolution by revolution consideration, but these cut-off parameters were just nearly as perfect as they could be from the looks of our plot boards. 11 minutes, 30 seconds and the crew has been advised that the S-IVB systems have been safed. The electrical circuits are shut down and the booster is considered in a - a quite safe configuration. Some residual liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen remaining aboard, that will be vented as we move through this first revolution.

This is Apollo Control in Houston at 13 minutes into the flight. We are still getting excellent communications from Apollo 7 which is now in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The quality of the voice comm is not that what it was in the first few seconds, but it - the first few minutes - but it is still quite readable.

This is Apollo Control in Houston, 21 minutes into the flight. The ground and the crew finally got to the right antenna with the spacecraft over the Canary Islands and until that point, the comm from approximately mid-Atlantic on into the Canary area was pretty rocky - pretty rough and they went to one of the antennas which apparently was pointed in the proper direction and the comm cleared up markedly as you will be able to observe as we play this voice tape. I've checked with the Flight Director; he tells me that Schirra's heart rate at lift-off was 87 beats per minute - 87 beats per minute at lift-off. And at staging, when the first stage burned out and the second stage ignited, it hit its high point during the entire mission of 100 beats per minute. One hundred beats at staging, 87 at lift-off; which is, I can never recall a lift-off heart rate in the 80s, I can recall some in the 90s and I think they were Wally's.

This is Apollo Control in Houston with 25 minutes into the flight. The crew, after a very brief 20-minute flight across the Atlantic Ocean, is now going across the African Continent. We've lost touch with them as they move across Africa. The official launch time was 15:02:45 Zulu time or Greenwich Mean Time, 15:02:45. Our present orbital parameters are 122 by 151, 122 nautical miles by 151 nautical miles [226 by 280 km]; and we now begin to settle down to look at the business of the Flight Plan and one of the first events after leaving the Canary zone is to close the liquid hydrogen vent and it should be closed very shortly. At Tananarive, the spacecraft will go into it's first sunset. We will be talking to them through Tananarive. The Tananarive station should acquire along about 36 minutes into the flight. We're presently 26 minutes into the flight. This is Apollo Control Houston.

This is Apollo Control in Houston at 36 minutes into the flight. In the last minute or two we have reviewed the g data recorded on this flight and the curve is a very gentle one on the first stage, and it peaked right at about 4 g's, and of course it falls back to zero g for a short time and then it begins a gentle climb again and at the second stage shut down, some 10 minutes and 20 seconds into the flight, it was peaked out on the second stage at about 2½ g's. We heard the crew remark at least once, perhaps several times, about what a gentle ride it was. Glynn Lunney, our Flight Director, has gone around the room console by console. He opened that session with these words. "Okay, everybody, lets - we've got a long way to go. Let's sit down and look at what we've got." He then went through each system and questioned each man about his particular specialty area during the launch phase and he got no surprises. We have tagged up with the crew now over Tananarive. We've put in a call, and at this point we've not heard from them, but Schirra should be installing an alignment sight in his window. This will help him - it is something like a boresight - it will help him do a number of tasks and he will use it to look at all sorts of objects during the flight. Very shortly we should open the liquid hydrogen vent valve and thin out some of the residual fuel in there in the liquid hydrogen tank, and over - that will take place over Carnarvon some 54 minutes into the flight. They say the call went in by the Tananarive station about two minutes ago. We've not heard from the crew. We are getting a rather steady carrier noise on the line. We'll standby and come up with that communication as it develops.

Apollo Control here at 42 minutes into the flight. Tom Stafford, one of our capsule communicators, has been running an HF voice communication check. We heard from Apollo 7 loud and clear, but they apparently can not hear us, and we're going to continue this voice check by HF, which is the hard way, of course, and let's listen now as Stafford tries to contact the spacecraft.

Apollo Control here again. We're still attempting to establish HF communications. We want to emphasize that there is nothing wrong at all with our VHF channel via the other means of communication, but we are exploring just how good the HF system is at this extraordinarily long range. Apparently the communicator at the Tananarive station may be hearing something from the spacecraft we are not. It is just a shake down test of the total communications capability that we have, and we'll leave the carrier up, although it looks like they are moving out of the range of Tananarive. We'll leave it up another minute or two. At 44 minutes into the flight, the crew getting its first look at the Indian Ocean after departing the African continent. This is Apollo Control, Houston.

And this is Apollo Control Houston at 52 minutes into the flight. In a very few seconds, we will put in a call to the crew by the Carnarvon station on the west coast of Australia. I just got a call that Carnarvon had acquired - the acquisition aid had locked up. The discussion over the Australian pass is always an interesting one and here comes the comm now. Tom Stafford from here.

This is Apollo Control Houston. The platform in the guidance component of the spacecraft checked out very nicely. It's within less than a half of a degree in all respects, precisely where it should be. The angles have all been taken into consideration now. As we move across Australia, we would anticipate from the crew that they had begun to remove things, like gloves and their lifevests, and probably their helmets. The Lunar Module Pilot Walt Cunningham, should be finishing up his insertion checklist, his extensive list.

This is Apollo Control Houston. We have lost signal via the Honeysuckle Creek outside of Canberra, Australia. It is a new station to join our network, and we should not hear from the crew again until the ship Huntsville, parked half way between Hawaii and the coast of California, picks them up at 1 hour and 24 minutes into the flight. We are 1 hour and 7 minutes into the flight right now and that was not a particularly communicative pass. We had a little comm in the early part. Apparently the crew going through their initial stowage of such things as the helmets and gloves. They're getting out pieces of equipment and getting squared away for the early revs of the flight. The stowage list called for the Command Pilot to stow various temperature devices, flight data files, install a urine filter, and adjust the couch position. They will be also unstowing and assembling some cameras, and loading them with film as they fly in a northerly direction up across the Atlantic, excuse me, the Pacific. A reminder; we are flying at 32 degrees north and south of the equator on this flight as opposed to the 28 degrees we flew throughout the Gemini program. We flew 32 degrees in Mercury and we are back at that altitude, at that longitude. At 1 hour and 8 minutes into the flight, this is Apollo Control in Houston.