Apollo 9

Spacecraft Communicator Ron Evans was reading up consumables update to the crew of Apollo 9 as they went over the hill at Mercury. Likely he will pick this up where the break occurred as we come up over Antigua. Antigua acquisition will be 19 minutes past the hour. Also scheduled during the Antigua Vanguard, Canary Island and Madrid pass will be block updates of contingency landing area information. And the crew just prior to this time will have begun their breakfast period. At 66 hours 58 minutes ground elapse time this is Apollo Control.

This is Apollo Control 67 hours 20 minutes GET. We are in acquisition at Antigua overlapping with Vanguard tracking ship and on into Canary Islands and Madrid. For approximately 14 minutes total time. As you were, 24 minutes total time. We are waiting now for spacecraft communicator, Ron Evans, to put in a call to the crew and pick up where he left off as Apollo 9 went over the hill at Mercury toward the end of the last revolution. Spacecraft has just begun the 43rd revolution as it crossed the parallel or meridian and longitude of Cape Kennedy. Still no call. Continue to stand by until spacecraft communicator resumes his conversation with Apollo 9. Here goes the call now.

This is Apollo Control. Apparently, we have had loss of signal in Madrid. The last several minutes of attempting to reach the crew through Madrid have been unsuccessful. Spacecraft Communicator, Ron Evans, was reading up some checklist changes to Dave Scott. These changes, likely, will be picked up and continued at Carnarvon at 7 minutes past the hour as the spacecraft comes over the hill at the Carnarvon station; and a continuous pass over Carnarvon and Honeysuckle. Well, they're not quite continuous. Actually, there's about a three minute drop-out between Carnarvon loss of signal and Honeysuckle acquisition of signal. At 67 hours, 41 minutes ground elapsed time, this is Apollo Control."

This is Apollo Control. 68 hours 7 minutes ground elapse time. Coming on through the Carnarvon tracking station, there goes a call lets listen in.

This is Apollo Control. We've apparently had loss of signal at Carnarvon. There is about a three minute drop out between Carnarvon and Honeysuckle until the orbital track comes down farther into these stations. Meanwhile we have a forecast from the spaceflight meteorology group here in mission control on the various landing zones for Apollo 9. We'll rejoin the conversation between spacecraft communicator Ron Evans and the crew of Apollo 9 as they are acquired at Honeysuckle. The weather forecast indicates that all landing zones will have satisfactory conditions today. In the primary landing zone in the west Atlantic, centered about 800 miles east of Jacksonville. Partly cloudy skies are expected with northwesterly winds about 20 knots and seas 5 to 7 feet. Temperature near 60 1/4. In the mid Pacific landing zone centered about 600 miles northwest of Honolulu, skies will be partly cloudy and winds southwesterly 12 to 16 knots. Seas 3 to 4 feet and temperatures 65 to 70 degrees are forecasted. In the west Pacific landing zone centered about 400 miles Southeast of Tokyo partly cloudy skies and northwesterly winds at 15 knots are expected. Seas will be about 4 feet and temperature 52 degrees. In the east Atlantic landing zone, centered about 500 miles southwest of the Canary Islands partly cloudy skies are forecast. Southerly winds at 12 to 15 knots are expected with seas 3 to 4 feet and temperatures near 70 degrees. We should have acquired at Honeysuckle. We'll come back up with the circuit and monitor for any conversation.

This is Apollo Control. We have had loss of signal of Honeysuckle, we're 5 minutes out of the tracking ship Mercury. At that time, we'll bring the circuit back up and monitor that pass. At 68 hours 21 minutes ground elapsed time, this is Apollo Control."

This is Apollo Control 68 hours 26 minutes GET. We're coming up on acquisition of tracking ship Mercury for a 5-minute 42-second pass. 5-degree elevation angle to the south. We'll stand by for the continuing conversation between spacecraft communicator Ron Evans and the crew of Apollo 9.

Apollo 9 is calling Houston. Let's listen in."

This is Apollo Control. Apparently, we have had LOS at the Mercury tracking station. At 52 minutes past the hour some 20 minutes from now, we will come up over the Antigua tracking station overlapping Bermuda, Vanguard, Canary Island and Madrid for a total time of some - oh it looks like 23 minutes. At 68 hours 33 minutes GET, this is Apollo Control."

This is Apollo Control at 68 hours 52 minutes ground elapsed time. We're just a few seconds away from acquisition at the Antigua tracking station of the Eastern Test Range and a continuous pass over Vanguard tracking ship, Canary Islands tracking station and Madrid. We're estimating the Change of Shift Press Conference for 7:30 Central Standard Time; participant will be Orange Team flight director Pete Frank. We are standing by now for spacecraft communicator Stu Roosa to put in a call to the crew of Apollo 9 through Antigua. Generally they wait a few seconds after actual acquisition for all of the antennas to lock on and data flow to start into the Mission Control Center before they begin the conversation. Here we go.

This is Apollo Control at 69 hours 13 minutes into the mission. Madrid has LOS. The crew discussed during this pass and we are considering here on the ground the possibility of remaining in drifting flight throughout the day, since we will not be doing the EVA proper. Staying in drifting flight and in case attitude control is needed going to the SCS stabilization control system, the secondary control system on the spacecraft. This would save the necessities of powering up the inertial measurement unit, aligning the platform, and would be a propellant saving device, the SPS system uses body mounted attitude gyros instead of the inertial measurement unit - those are known in the trade as BMAGS and there was a reference to that in the conversation. The DFI reference is to Development Flight Instrumentation. This is a last-time instrumentation on this spacecraft - special instrumentation for engineering data and analysis on the LM will not be flown operationally, but strictly for the engineering test flight of this vehicle. Apollo 9 misses the Tananarive station in this 44th revolution. Next station will be Carnarvon at 69 hours, 39 minutes, the white team has come onboard with the exception of its flight director Gene Kranz, because of the complexity of this mission, the flight directors have specialized in several areas, the EVA day specialist is Gerry Griffin, flight director of the gold team, so he is directing the white team today. Gene Kranz will be back leading the white team tomorrow; flight director Charles, Cliff Charlesworth will fill in for Gerry Griffin on the gold team shift tonight and then Gerry will go back on his regular team tomorrow. At 69 hours, 16 minutes, this is Mission Control, Houston."

This is Apollo Control at 69 hours 55 minutes. Apollo 9 just passed out of range of the Honeysuckle station. Acquired at Carnarvon just after the change of shift news conference started, practically no conversation during this entire Australian pass. Jim McDivitt came up right at the start of Carnarvon, reported the crew was running late and was scrambling to get caught up. He and Rusty Schweickart have not yet transferred into the Lunar Module. We have about 40, 45 seconds worth of tape on this entire Australian pass. Next station to acquire will be Mercury in about 3 and a half minutes. We'll play the tape for you now."

This is Apollo Control at 69 hours, 59 minutes. Apollo 9 tagging up at the Mercury. We'll standby.

This is Apollo Control. We've had LOS at the Mercury. Went through this pass without any conversation with the crew as we didn't want to disturb them. They are behind time lines - they are trying to catch up and are very busy. Next station to acquire will be Texas at 70 hours and 22 minutes. This is Mission Control Houston."

This is Apollo Control 70 hours 22 minutes, and Apollo 9 is being acquired by the Texas station."

We have LM data which indicates at least one of the pilots, Rusty Schweickart, is in the LM."

Apollo Control. Cabin pressure in Spider holding 5 pounds per square inch, temperature 69 degrees F. Gumdrop showing 4.9 pounds per square inch and 67 degrees."

Jim McDivitt just Joined Rusty Schweickart in Spider now."

This is Apollo Control. Madrid has lost the signal and Gumdrop and Spider are moving down across the continent of Africa. Jim McDivitt reported crew is experiencing difficulty into sticking to the time lines in the preparatory work leading up to clearing the tunnel. This morning they ran 50 minutes late getting the tunnel cleared. They said in the future it looked like they'll have to get up a little earlier and do more configuring before going to bed the night before. The flight planners are working on this problem here on the ground and to give the crew a little help in this task tomorrow for the rendezvous day. We have a little more information on the scheduled TV pass. Goldstone will acquire the spacecraft at 74 hours and 57 minutes and 25 seconds. There will be LOS at Goldstone at 75 hours, 5 minutes, 13 seconds. Mila will acquire at 75 hours, 5 minutes, 22 seconds and LOS at Mila - 75 hours, 13 minutes, 10 seconds. So there will be approximately 9 seconds, 9-10 second dropout between Goldstone and Mila. Coverage does not overlap there. But Goldstone acquisition will be 12:57:25 Central Standard Time. Carnarvon will acquire Gumdrop and Spider at 71 hours, 13 minutes. We'll come back up then. This is Mission Control Houston."

This is Apollo Control at 71 hours 13 minutes into the Mission. And Apollo 9 is within range of the Carnarvon station. We will monitor through the Australian pass.

This is Apollo Control. Gumdrop and Spider are beyond the range of the Honeysuckle station. During this pass, we got a readout on the extravehicular batteries. We passed on the information to Dave Scott in Gumdrop that we wanted to configure the service module reaction control system the same way we had planned to for the regular EVA. Today he is using the secondary guidance system, SCS, stabilization and control system, for attitude control rather than the primary guidance and navigation system. We are able to save a considerable amount of propellant this way. In the configuration, he will be essentially drifting, using the SCS for gross attitude hold. He will have two quads completely turned off, quads A and B. The roll thruster in the D quad will be turned off, but he will have roll control through the C quad. Along toward the end of this pass, the guidance and navigation control officer, Neil Hutchinson, reported to Flight Director Jerry Griffin that the SCS was powered up. Mercury will acquire the spacecraft in about 3 and 1/2 minutes. We will be back up then. This is Mission Control Houston."

This is Apollo Control at 71 hours 33 minutes, and the Mercury is about to acquire. We'll stand by.

This is Apollo Control. Rusty Schweickart has reference to the PLSS, the Portable Life Support System when he talks about donning, he's putting that on now."

This is Apollo Control. Mercury has LOS and the Redstone will be the next station to acquire at 71 hours 49 and a half minutes. This is Mission Control Houston."

This is Apollo Control at 71 hours, 49 minutes. The Redstone has acquired. Very low elevation pass and the duration less than a minute.

And Redstone has LOS already, but we will be at Guaymas in - very shortly - less than a minute we'll have acquisition at Guaymas.

This is Apollo Control. The GO/NO-GO decision for 63 revolutions will be made during this pass. We are in the 45th revolution now. We'll continue to stand by."

This is Apollo Control. The crew is planning one daylight pass out on the LM porch.

Gumdrop and Spider are about a minute away from LOS at the Vanguard, the the Canaries have overlapping coverage."

And the GO/NO-GO decision -"

The GO/NO-GO -"

Spider and Gumdrop still talking to each other as they go over the hill at Canaries. Both spacecraft received a GO for depressurization over the Canary station. Spider scheduled to depress the spacecraft over the Carnarvon station about 72 hours and 53 or 4 minutes, with Gumdrop depressing the spacecraft over Honeysuckle shortly after 73 hours. You heard the crew discussing a decision that Rusty will get out onto the LM porch for one daylight pass. We anticipate this will be the first daylight pass, which starts about midway through the Huntsville acquisition, about 73 hours and 8 or 9 minutes. I believe you could - some of the communication was clear, some was not, but I believe you could hear Jim McDivitt discussing with Rusty the fact that he wanted him to get out on the porch, get adjusted, take a look around, see how he felt, and if everything was going well, he would hand a camera out to him so that he could take some pictures. Tananarive will acquire at 72 hours 32 minutes. We may or may not have communication through this station. We will come back up and see. If we do not, the next station will be Carnarvon at 72 hours 48 minutes. This is Mission Control Houston at 72 hours 22 minutes."

This is Apollo Control at 72 hours 32 minutes. Tananarive has LOS. We will stand by here."

This is Apollo Control 72 hours 39 minutes. Gumdrop and Spider are beyond Tananarive now. All that chatter in the latter part of that pass was cross talk, it was not between the spacecraft. Carnarvon will acquire at 72 hours 48 minutes. This is Mission Control Houston."

This is Apollo Control - 72 hours, 48 minutes. We are at Carnarvon. The crew is having a discussion."

The LM cabin pressure reading zero."

Mean heart rates - McDivitt - 90, Scott - 88, and Schweickart is up close to 100.

G&C says propellant consumption, so far, is almost NIL.

Gumdrop pressure down to one and one-half pounds now.

Gumdrop pressure down to one and a half pounds now."

Schweickart's heart rate in the mid 60's now."

They're LOS at Honeysuckle. Huntsville will be coming up in about 1 minute.

Both spacecraft are depressurized, the hatches are open in both Gumdrop and Spider."

We're up at the Huntsville now.

And that's LOS at Huntsville. Rusty Schweickart out in the golden slippers on the front porch of the LM. We copied a few unofficial times here. We'll refine those later, but Jim McDivitt reported at 72:57 that the lunar module had been depressed for 12 minutes. We copied CSM depress at 72:59, we copied the start of the egress, when Rusty started out the hatch as 73:07:37, and he reported being in the slippers at 73:08:08. You may have heard a reference - Rusty reported that he could see the bull's eye very well. Astronaut Dick Gordon, who is in the Control Room right now, says that's a reference to the star called Deborah, which is familiar to navigators. Old friends of old Deborah call it the bulls eye. We'll be back up at the Redstone at 73 hours 19 minutes - 19 and a half minutes. This is Mission Control Houston."

This is Apollo Control, 73 hours, 19 minutes and we'll be at the Redstone within a few seconds. We'll stand by.

Schweickart's heart rate is 77."

We're between the Vanguard and the Canaries, Canary should acquire right now.

At the time Jim McDivitt said, "You'd better start getting in now," Rusty Schweickart had been out for 37 and a half minutes."

This is Apollo Control. LM cabin pressure up over 2 pounds at LOS Canaries, and you heard it here live, first hand, the adventures of Red Rover and his friends, Gumdrop and Spider."

We copied the CSM hatch closed and locked from Dave Scott's report at 73 hours 49 minutes 24 seconds. The LM hatch locked 73 hours 49 minutes 57 seconds. This, we're getting heart rates now from the Flight Surgeon. Red Rover's heart rate varied from 61 to 88 throughout this entire EVA period."

A very good EVA, Dave Scott even poked his head out of the Gumdrop hatch and retrieved the thermal sample there. Red Rover, alias Rusty Schweickart, got the thermal sample from the lunar module, spent most of his time in the golden slippers, but he did get out, evaluated the handrail to some extent, reported he was comfortable in his suit, had the portable life support set for minimum cooling, felt very comfortable."

His hands he said were warm, but not hot. He gave a fair travel log coming over the United States and out over the Bahamas, in that area, saw Jacksonville, Florida."

He reported he had no problem maintaining himself where he wanted to, once he got out of the slippers and started exercising the handrail, and as they passed over the Houston area Jim McDivitt said it looked red, white, and blue over Nassau Bay again, this is a reference to the American flags being flown in that community."

All three of these crewmen live in Nassau Bay, and there are hundred and hundreds of American flags being flown there. This EVA was terminated after 1 daylight pass in the interest of staying on the time lines, letting the crew get some rest so that they will be in good shape for the rendezvous day tomorrow, rendezvous the most important part of this mission."

Tananarive will acquire at 74 hours 5 minutes 41 seconds. We haven't had too good a COMM at Tananarive, but we'll come back up then and see how it goes. At 73 hours 56 minutes, this is Mission Control Houston."

This is Apollo Control at 74 hours, 5 minutes and Apollo 9 is at Tananarive. We'll standby.

This is Apollo Control. Apollo 9 is beyond the range of the Tananarive station now. Carnarvon will acquire at 74 hours, 22 minutes. This is Mission Control Houston."

This is Apollo Control at 74 hours, 22 minutes and Carnarvon has acquired.

This is Apollo Control at 74 hours, 30 minutes. Apollo 9 passing over from Carnarvon acquisition to Honeysuckle acquisition. We don't intend to call the crew during these next couple of passes. They are busy getting squared away after the EVA and getting prepared for this long stateside pass which will include television, so we'll just stand by and await any calls from them. We are at Honeysuckle now.

This is Apollo Control at 74 hours, 33 minutes. Honeysuckle has LOS of signal. The Huntsville will acquire in about 2 and one-half minutes. We'll come back then. This is Mission Control Houston.

This is Apollo Control 74 hours 36 minutes and Huntsville has acquired.

Huntsville has loss of signal. Hawaii will acquire at 74 hour 47-1/2 minutes. This is Mission Control Houston.

This is Apollo Control 74 hours 47 minutes and Hawaii has acquired.

This is Apollo Control. We are about 1/2 minute away from LOS with Hawaii. We already have overlapping coverage from the Redstone, then we will go into the Goldstone station at 74:57:25, for the TV pass.

We do not have a picture yet and we're having voice communications difficulties here. There's a picture coming in now.

Should be getting a picture momentarily.

This is Apollo Control at 75 hours 13 minutes. We're in acquisition at Antigua and will continue on through Vanguard. We will stay up live.

This is Apollo Control, and the Vanguard has loss of signal. During this pass you heard spacecraft commander Jim McDivitt explains why it takes so long to prepare for transfer into the lunar module. When all three pilots are suited, it's very difficult for all of them to move around at the same time, doing what they are supposed to be doing. And as you heard, we will start the rest period today at 77 hours 30 minutes, that's 3:30 central standard time. And we are looking toward awakening the crew perhaps an hour early, an hour earlier than scheduled in the flight plan tomorrow, scheduled was to awaken them at approximately 87 hours elapsed time. We are looking toward getting them up about 86 hours now. The total duration of that television pass was 12 minutes 43 seconds. The station at Ascension Island will acquire Apollo 9 at 75 hours 25 minutes, about 4 minutes from now. This is Mission Control Houston."

This is Apollo Control at 75 hours, 25 minutes and Apollo 9 is tagging up with Ascension; we'll stand by.

This is Apollo Control, Ascension has LOS. Tananarive will acquire in about 10 minutes. This is Mission Control Houston."

This is Apollo Control at 75 hours 41 minutes. And Apollo 9 is coming up on the tracking station at Tananarive. We will stand by.

This is Apollo Control 75 hours 46 minutes. And Gumdrop and Spider have completed the pass at Tananarive. Carnarvon will acquire at 75 hours and 55 minutes. This is Mission Control Houston."

This is Apollo Control at 75 hours 55 minutes. Carnarvon has acquisition.

This is Apollo Control. That dryout refers to the LM sublimator, or waterboiler. They dry it out each time before they power down the LM so it that it won't freeze up."

And Carnarvon has LOS. There is a very low elevation pass at the Huntsville. We miss Honeysuckle this time. We may or may not have air to ground at Huntsville. It is a low elevation pass. Acquisition there at 76 hours 12-1/2 minutes. We will come back up then, in case there is air to ground. This is Mission Control Houston."

This is Apollo Control, at 76 hours, 12 minutes. We are coming within range of the Huntsville now, we'll stand by.

This is Apollo Control, Apollo 9 beyond the range at Huntsville now. Hawaii will acquire at 76 hours, 21 minutes. This is Mission Control Houston."