Apollo 12

P51 is a computer program for orientation"

P00 is program zero zero, the idleing position for the computer. We've had loss of signal from the tracking ship Vanguard. We'll pick up Apollo 12 at the Canaries very shortly. We're showing an orbit of 102.5 by 100 nautical miles, a good orbit. Showing weight in orbit 300,253 pounds and an orbital period of 1 hour 28 minutes 14 seconds. Canaries have acquired now.

P52 is the realignment for the inertial platform.

REFSMMAT is a reference matrix for the platform. The flight dynamics says the Canary Station confirms a good orbit with its tracking.

This is Apollo Control at 24 minutes into the mission. We have had loss of signals at the Canary Island station now. Next station to acquire will be Carnarvon. Tananarive station is no longer in the network. Carnarvon is due to acquire at 52:15 seconds. During this launch, Apollo 12 lost its electrical distribution system, that's AC Bus 1 and 2, - speculated due to lightning. We don't have a reason - a definite reason, however, right now. That loss - loss of that threw the fuel cells off the line and this system also powers the inertial measuring unit, the platform. That was lost. We still had the backup guidance system, the stablization control system, which is powered by batteries and not by the fuel cells. The electrical distribution system is now back in operation. The fuel cells are back on the line and on the dark side of this orbit the crew will realign the platform, using the sextant to take star measurement and get the platform back in the proper shape as a reference point.

This is Apollo Control at 26 minutes, 31 seconds. We have a voice operated relay recording of the lift-off air to ground. It will not be in real time, but we will play that for you now.

This is Apollo Control at 33 minutes, 59 seconds. That's the end of the tape on the liftoff. We'll stand by now on this line for remarks from President Nixon, who is in the firing room at the Kennedy Space Center [garble].

This is Apollo Launch Control. We're here in firing room 2. The President of the United States and Mrs. Nixon have arrived in the firing room. The President has come right down the middle line, basically right in the middle of firing room 2 mostly at the consoles where the first and second stage personnel are located. The President is walking slowly across the main isle of the firing room shaking hands with all the console operators as he comes by. He has now covered the course of firing room 2. As expected shortly, he'll come up to the rear of the firing room where a microphone is waiting. Accompanying the President and Mrs. Nixon is the Administrator of NASA Thomas Paine. Miss Julie Nixon is in the firing room watching from an observation area to the rear. The President now coming up the steps going to the rear of the firing room. We expect he will be back up on the back row here shortly. We have most of the pilots for the Apollo 13 and 14 missions here. The commanders of those two flights, the Apollo 13 Astronaut Jim Lovell, and Apollo 14 Astronaut Alan Shepard are here in the firing room. The President now coming back up to the rear on management row with Dr. Paine. We expect shortly he will be coming up to the mike. We'll stand by here in the control center. The President is now up on the back row and meeting some of the project officials here. This is Launch Control.

This is Mission Control, Houston at 51 minutes, 5 seconds. We're just about to acquire at Garnarvon. Acquisition there at 52 minutes, 15 seconds. We'll stand by for conversation through that site. And data is coming through on Apollo 12 from Carnarvon now. No voice contact yet, but we are getting telemetry data Jerry Carr getting ready to put in a call now.

This is Apollo Control at 58 minutes, Carnarvon has had LOS. The Honeysuckle Station in Australia will acquire within a couple of minutes. During the Carnarvon pass, Apollo 12 did dump their Erasable Memory in the computer to the ground; it will be checked here and verified, and we should know by the time Apollo 12 is in acquisition at the Guaymas, Mexico station whether that computer memory is good or not. Over Honeysuckle we will pass them up a new state vector: their position and velocity. We should be picking up at Honeysuckle within a few seconds now. We'll continue to stand by.

The Honeysuckle has acquired Apollo12."

This is Apollo Control at 1 hour, 5 minutes into the mission. Apollo 12 has moved out of range of the Honeysuckle station now, passing out over the Pacific Ocean. Next station to acquire will be Guaymas, Mexico at an elapsed time of 1 hour, 28 minutes, 21 seconds. Here in the Mission Control Center flight controllers are planning extra checks of the Electrical system on Apollo 12. We'll be conducting those over the United States to make sure there has been no damage to the electrical system. We have also examining the erasable memory of the computer. Should have word on that for the crew by the time they get to the States. The Apollo 12 orbit changing slightly now as the third stage of the booster, the S-IVB, vents and as the auxiliary propulsion system of that stage provides attitude control. Showing an orbit now of 106 by 102 nautical miles, an orbital period of 1 hour, 28 minutes, 22 seconds, and our weight in orbit is down to 298,999 pounds. At 1 hour, 7 minutes, this is Mission Control Houston.

This is Apollo Control at 1 hour 10 minutes. We have the crew's heart rates now from Dr. Charles Berry. At lift-off all three crewmen had heart rates of 120. Prior to liftoff they had been running between 80 and 90. Peak heart rates during the powered phase of the flight occurred during that high period of activity and ran between 130 and 140 for all three crewmen. This is Mission Control Houston.

This is Apollo Control at 1 hour, 27 minutes. We're about 30 seconds away from acquisition at the Guaymas, Mexico station. Preliminary review of data indicates that problem occurred about 45 seconds after lift-off. Two of the Apollo 11 astronauts were in the Mission Control Center viewing room during lift-off, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. We'll stand by now. We have data on the booster coming in from Guaymas. We'll stand by for a call.

That was Al Bean with that read-back.

And that's Dick Gordon.

Apollo 12 now checking the thrust vector control, the system for steering during engine burns. They have also done a self check on the Command Module computer, and have hot fired the service module reaction control systems.

The erasable memory in the Command Module computer has been verified and it is good.

The TLI plus 90 minutes pad ...

This is Apollo Control at 1 hour, 49 minutes. Vanguard has had loss of signal. Canary will acquire within a minute or so. The TLI plus 90 pad that was passed up a short while ago is abort information should an abort of this mission become necessary after the Translunar Injection burn. We've also passed up the information for the Translunar Injection burn. The second burn of the S-IVB, the third stage of the booster, ignition time 2 hours, 37 minutes, 43 seconds. Duration of the burn 5 minutes, 44 seconds and a Delta V or added velocity of 1,515 feet per second. We've had acquisition at Canary now. We'll continue to standby.

This is Apollo Control at 1 hour, 55 minutes into the mission. Apollo 12 is over Africa now in its second revolution out of range of the Canary Island station. We have a correction on the ignition time for Translunar Insertion burn. The time we gave you earlier 2 hours, 37 minutes, 43 seconds is the time for initiation of Timebase 6 in the instrument unit of the S-IVB, that's the Timebase for the Translunar Injection burn. S-IVB is now in Timebase 5 which is the orbital Timebase for the instrument unit. Ignition will come 9 minutes, 38 seconds after the start of Timebase 6, so that would put the time for ignition of the TLI burn at 2 hours, 47 minutes, 21 seconds. Carnarvon will acquire Apollo 12 at 2 hours, 25 minutes, 27 seconds. This is Mission Control, Houston.

This is Apollo Control, and we are in contact with Apollo 12 through Carnarvon. Just a few minutes ago - here's the start of that pass.

We are back live now."

That was Dick Gordon."

We have about 2 and a half minutes left in this pass at Carnarvon. We will not acquire Honeysuckle this time, but there are 2 Apollo range intrumented aircraft, acronym ARIA, between Australia and Hawaii; we will have voice communication with Apollo 12 through these aircraft however we will not have telemetry or tracking data at the start of the TLI burn, which will take place between Australia and Hawaii. The ARIA aircraft will be recording the data; they do not have the equipment to transmit in real time back to Houston; we'll pick up telemetry and tracking at Hawaii acquisition about half way through the Translunar Insertion burn. Ignition time for that burn, 2 hours, 47 minutes, 21 seconds, cut-off at 2 hours, 53 minutes, 5 seconds.

We have data and thrust is Go. Burn looks good."

Flight dynamics says we're right on. Telemetry data shows velocity 31,195 feet per second climbing rapidly. Altitude now 130 nautical miles. We're getting tracking data now in addition to telemetry. Predicted cut off looks nominal guidance reports. Velocity 32,700.

33,000 feet per second. Altitude 153 nautical miles.

We lost the approaching 30."

4,000 feet per second now, and altitude 70 nautical miles. This burn continuing to go extremely well. 35,000 feet per second altitude 187 nautical miles, cut-off.

We were predicting a cut-off velocity of 35,420 feet per second. The onboard reading shows 35,413 per second. We showed cut-off altitude onboard as 191.7 nautical miles. We had predicted 195 altitude is now 203 nautical miles. Velocity will start to drop of now while altitude continues to climb very rapidly.

Altitude now 403 nautical miles. Velocity is down to 34,426 feet per second.

And the weight now down to 138,000.

That sounded like Al Bean.

Altitude now 781 nautical miles, velocity down to 32,824 feet per second. Getting rid of all that propellant in the S-IVB has brought the weight down to 138,389 pounds. That's total vehicle weight. We are at 3 hours into the mission now; we passed up a separation time to the crew when they separate from the S-IVB at 3 hours, 18 minutes, 4 seconds. Altitude now 1,023 nautical miles, velocity 31,900 feet per second. This is Apollo Control at 3 hours, 6 minutes into the mission. We will continue to stay up live through these next activities, separation coming up in about 12 minutes; crew busy getting ready for that, followed by turn around and the Command and Service Module docking with the Lunar Module; this activity should be on TV. The Flight Plan calls for the crew to activate the TV camera at an elapsed time of 3 hours, 28 minutes, with about an hours TV pass there during and after the docking maneuver to the Lunar Module and extracting it from the spacecraft Lunar Module adapter attached to the S-IVB Stage. We'll continue to stand by for any conversation between the crew and the ground. Altitude now is 1,987 nautical miles, velocity 28,872 feet per second. The booster engineer reports the S-IVB has started maneuvering toward the separation attitude. Apollo 12 is 2,222 nautical miles from the Earth now; velocity 28,253 feet per second.