Apollo 13

This is Mission Control at 17 minutes. We've had Loss Of Signal with the spacecraft. We'll be reacquiring shortly through the Canary Island Tracking Station. The total burn duration on the third stage was about 45 seconds longer than planned; we would not expect at this point that this would have any serious effect on the Translunar Injection, the fact that we did consume a bit more propellant out of the third stage than was originally planned. We are standing by now for Acquisition Of Signal through the Canary Island Station. We should be reacquiring radio contact with the spacecraft shortly.

This is Apollo Control; we're still standing by for any conversation with the spacecraft over Canary Islands. The booster systems engineer reports that at this point he has no explanation for the early shutdown of the S-II - Saturn second stage - center engine.

This is Apollo Control. We've had Loss Of Signal now with the spacecraft at the Canary Island Tracking Station; we won't reacquire again until the spacecraft reaches the tracking station at Carnarvon, Australia. That will be at a Ground Elapsed Time of 52 minutes, 36 seconds. Recapping at the time we lost contact with the spacecraft through Canary Islands, we looked to be in very good shape for the Translunar Injection burn, with the Saturn third stage. The second stage center engine shut down about 2 minutes early; the total overburn time on the third stage was about 10 seconds. We don't expect that this would have any effect on the Translunar Injection. At 25 minutes, 20 seconds; this is Mission Control, Houston.

This is Mission Control, Houston at 52 minutes. We're standing by now for Acquisition Of Signal and our Network controller reports we've just reacquired the spacecraft over the Carnarvon station.

This is Mission Control at 57 minutes, 15 seconds. Not much conversation with the crew on this pass over the Carnarvon tracking station. Jack Swigert reported that the platform had been aligned as called for in the Flight Plan. There's not a great deal of activity scheduled in the Flight Plan at this time. Flight Director Milton Windler has checked the status with his flight controllers and CapCom Joe Kerwin will be passing that up to the crew shortly.

We've had Loss Of Signal now with the spacecraft through Carnarvon. Apollo 13 will be coming within range of the tracking antennas at the Honeysuckle Creek, Australia station in less then a minute. We'll stand by for reacquiring.

And at 1 hour, 10 minutes into the flight of Apollo 13, we should be reacquiring radio contact with the spacecraft through Honeysuckle Creek momentarily. Recapping briefly the situation during the launch: We had a normal first stage burn. The second stage ignition was normal up through 5 minutes and 30 seconds at which time the inboard engine, engine No.5 shut down early. The center engine had been scheduled to shut down at about 7 minutes, 44 seconds Ground Elapsed Time. The cut-off on the second stage was at about 9 minutes, 48 seconds - about 30 seconds early, and the total excess burn time on the third stage was about 10 seconds. CapCom Joe Kerwin has just put in a call to the crew. We've had Acquisition Of Signal. We'll stand by for conversation with the spacecraft.

We've had Loss Of Signal now from the spacecraft. At last look, everything appeared to be normal with the spacecraft and the launch vehicle. We currently show an orbit of 103.2 nautical miles - actually, a correction on that, 102.6 by 106.3 [nautical miles, 190.0 by 196.9 km] and our current altitude is 103.2 [191.1 km]. We'll be reacquiring the spacecraft over the United States at a Ground Elapsed Time of 1 minute, 28 seconds, 43 - 28 minutes, 43 seconds at which time you heard the crew advise that they will be configured for the TV transmission, which is scheduled to occur at about 1 minute - 1 hour, 36 minutes over the MILA station. The Post Launch Press Conference is scheduled to begin shortly at Cape Kennedy. At 1 hour, 7 minutes; this is Mission Control, Houston.

Chair: Okay, we're back here at Kennedy Space Center now, and I guess we're ready to proceed. We're going to atttempt to conduct this post launch conference between communications with the spacecraft. This gives us approximately some 20 minutes. We'll do our best to try and get as many questions in in that time, but I'll be standing by for a signal also so we can go back to air-ground at the proper time so you can keep up with every phase of the mission. At this point, I'd like to introduce Mr. Walter Kapryan, Director of Launch Operations for the Kennedy Space Center and Launch Director for Apollo missions.

Kapryan: Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. It's a pleasure to see you on a clear day for a change. I guess there really isn't too much to report to you as far as the countdown itself is concerned. It was perfectly nominal. We had no problems whatsoever with the spacecraft, with one exception and that was in that we do have a lock to safe our pyro bus and it takes a key to remove that lock and we broke the darn key off in the lock and it took us a little while to get it out. We did have a spare key and we took that off. And that's the soil and substance of our problems with the spacecraft. At approximately 1 hour and 50 minutes before launch, we did run into a little difficulty with a LOX vent valve on the S-IC stage which we were attempting to cycle; open and close as required for the venting process, and it stuck on us in the full-open position, and we ran through a repeated number of cycles attempting to free it and for some time were unsuccessful in doing so. It caused us concern in that if we had not been able to close the vent valve, we would not have been able to pressurise the LOX tank at T minus 72 seconds. However, we did run some nitrogen gas through the system and we were able to sufficiently raise the temperature such that we were able to close the valve and we proceeded the rest of the way with that vent valve in a closed position at all times and we do have a second vent valve in the stage that we relied on to give us the correct conditions at time of stage pressurisation at T minus 72 seconds. Those two items were the soil and substance of the problems that we encountered during the entire countdown. As most of you know by this time, the first stage burn was perfectly nominal. You may have noticed that it seemed almost like an eternity before the vehicle cleared the tower. That, of course, was because this is the heaviest vehicle that we've flown. It was approximately 26,000 pounds heavier at lift-off than Apollo 12 and the S-IC engines, though they were perfectly within specification, were rated at about 100,000 pounds total thrust less than those that we had on the Apollo 12 vehicle. This made the time about one half to three quarters of a second longer in clearing the tower. All of the first stage burn, as I mentioned earlier, was perfectly nominal. The second stage burn was nominal up until the time that the S-II inboard engine cut off. That engine is normally cut off by switch selector command approximately 90 seconds before the outboard engines are cut off. For some reeason that we have not been able to determine at this time, the engine did cut itself off approximately 2 minutes earlier than planned. Now, as a result of that having happened, the outboard engines of course burned approximately a half a second [means minute] longer; they burned to fuel depletion and made up some of the energy that was lost by virtue of the inboard engine having cut off early, and when we burned the S-IVB, it burned approximately half a minute longer than originally planned in order to make up the deficiency and at the end of the first burn of the S-IVB, the deficiency was made up. Now, we had approximately 2,200-pound payload margin for this mission. We used up a little but of that margin by the fact that the engine did cut off early but we did not use up enough to - to lose any confidence in our ability to perform the TLI manoeuvre. We do still have a 3-sigma capability. So, we have no reason to suspect that we will not have a good TLI burn and fly a perfectly nominal mission from this point on. I guess that's all I have in the way of general comments. Feel free to ask any questions if you choose to.

Chair: Hey, Dick, right down here.

Newsman: Why did we nominally have main stage engines lower rated in thrust, if I understood you correctly?

Kapryan: They weren't - they weren't - Well, you know, the vendor guarantees engine performance to within cer - to a certain specification. These engines did meet that specification. It just so happens they weren't quite as hot as the ones we flew on Apollo 12. There's nothing wrong with them. I don't - I don't mean to imply that. I'm just explaining to you why it took a little longer to clear the tower than it had taken on previous missions.

Chair: Up there. Go ahead.

Newsman: Does the longer time for the S-IVB burn affect the time lines, or...?

Kapryan: I don't think it affects us significantly. I think we're going to be within seconds. Certainly not more than a minute or two.

Chair: Question Anderson.

Newsman: Do you have that total lift-off weight, since it was the heaviest, other than 26,000 more than the others?

Kapryan: No, I don't. It was - if you recall what Apollo 12 was, add 25,600 pounds to it.

Chair: That was about 6.4 [million pounds] but we'll check that figure for you. Al, up there. Go ahead. Okay. Go ahead. Go ahead, Reg.

Turnill: You told us there was a 22,000-pound payload margin...

Kapryan: 2,200-pound.

Turnill: ...200, thanks. How much of that margin has been consumed, please?

Kapryan: Best we can determine, we used up a significant proportion of that margin. Now, beyond that margin, we still have what we call a 3-sigma capability, so we have the full 3-sigma capability plus somewhat of a margin. Now, at the time I left the firing room, we did not have all of the numbers in yet, telling us exactly how much we had but we did - were able to establish that we still had - we did have the full 3-sigma margin. The 2,200 pounds was something that was a little bit of gravy that we had in addition to that.

Turnill: And is it a fact that you've just got enough for TLI now?

Kapryan: Yes. For a 3-sigma condition. In other words, for a worst-case condition. If you put all of your 3-sigma errors together, which is the basis on which we plan our missions, we have enough reserves to handle that.

Turnill: Thank you.

Unknown speaker: We use - we still have margin. We still do have - we have all the margin we wanted to have. We've not used up all our margin or even come close to using it up.

Kapryan: We have our full 3-sigma margin.

Chair: [Garble].

Newsman: On that - on that weight again, what - where are you getting the extra 22,000 pounds? Is that fuel, and if so, located where?

Kapryan: The - as far as the margin itself was concerned, well, we flew - we flew with some extra propellants aboard this vehicle. Part of it for the reason of flying this missions and part of it to just get a little bit of added knowledge in - as a preliminary to flying the 'J' missions which are going to be missions where we fly with heavier payloads than we've been flying to this time. So we loaded the tanks up more than was required to fly the mission.

Chair: Go ahead, [garble].

Newsman interjection: Does that include...

Newsman: Do you have enough fuel left for the - to guide the S-IVB for the lunar impact?

Kapryan: I asked that question when I left the firing room. The best answer I could get at that time was that we should not affect our capability of flying the nominal lunar impact with the S-IVB. In other words, we expect to impact the S-IVB where we planned to.

Chair: Ed. Over here.

Newsman: Why that's the same question I wanted to ask.

Chair: Have any over here? Okay, any more hands? Okay, we'll take two over here and then we'll wrap it up.

Newsman: [Garble], Mattingly was in the control room. Was there no concern about his being infectious with German Measles?

Speaker: He was in the control room in Houston.

Kapryan: Mattingly left the cape last night.

Chair: I think we'd have to - We'll try to find that out for you, Ben, but I don't think we have any details. Ken Mattingly observed the launch from the Mission Control Center in Houston, not here. If you have a question, Andy, go ahead.

Newsman: Could you give us the figures again for the additional burn of the S-II and the S-IVB?

Kapryan: Yes, the S-II inboard engine, the center engine cut off 2 minutes and 7 seconds earlier than it was supposed to. As a result of that, the outboard engines burned 33.96, roughly 34 seconds longer than they would have had the inboard engine burned for its proper time. As far as the S-IVB is concerned, the delta in time was about the same; 33.97, roughly 34 seconds longer.

Chair: Okay, we'll take one here.

Newsman: One last thing about this extra fuel, Walt. Did you have extra fuel in the S-IVB by any chance, as a result of running this weight up and did that give you a little more leeway?

Kapryan: Yes, we had some extra fuel in all three stages. We had about the same amount of LOX that we flew on Pete Conrad's mission. We had approximately 9,500 pounds more RP-1 than we had on Apollo 12, and we had more LOX and hydrogen on both the other stages. I knew those figures but I've forgotten them. I can't give them to you.

Newsman: Did that make any difference in the 3-sigma?

Kapryan: Well, it helped us out.

Newsman: Okay.

Chair: All right, we'll take one final one up here.

Newsman: Can we have exact lift-off time please?

Kapryan: Let me check here. Here it is. It was 600 milliseconds late. 2:13.00.6

Chair: Okay, thank you very much. That completes the conference. We should be coming back up on acquisition in about 10 minutes.

Kapryan: [Mumbling to PAO.] There's one thing I said that I'm not sure I knew [garble] what it does to the time line...

This is Apollo Control at 1 hour, 28 minutes. We'll be re-establishing radio communications with Apollo 13 in about 40 seconds as the spaceship comes within range of the Guaymas, Mexico tracking station. During the launch phase, the medic reports the following heart rates. These are maximum heart rates for the three crewmen. Commander Jim Lovell had a maximum heart rate during the launch of 116; the Command Module Pilot Jack Swigert had a maximum heart rate of 102; and the Lunar Module Pilot Fred Haise also had a maximum heart rate of 102.

CapCom Joe Kerwin has just put in a call to the crew through Guaymas. We'll stand by.

That was Jack Swigert reporting, apparently his first view out the windows.

Off the southern coast of the United States, but we'll stay with it and perhaps we'll get a picture in a moment or so.

We've Loss Of Signal now with the spacecraft through the Vanguard Tracking Ship; we'll be reacquiring at Canary Islands in just a few minutes.

We've lost contact now with the spacecraft through the Canary Islands Tracking Station. We'll be reacquiring in a little less than 30 minutes, at a Ground Elapsed Time of 2 hours, 26 minutes; when the spacecraft comes within range of the tracking antennas at Carnarvon Australia. During the pass over the United States, and out over the Atlantic, CapCom Joe Kerwin gave the crew a preliminary go ahead for Translunar Injection. We have adequate propellant margins on the Saturn third stage, and despite the some 10 seconds of additional burn in getting into orbit due to the early shutdown of the second stage center engine. It is not expected that the somewhat later injection time will have any significant effect on the Flight Plan; the preliminary time for the beginning of the Translunar Injection burn is 2 hours, 35 minutes, 27 seconds. The Flight Dynamics Officer is in the process now of updating that time but we don't expect a significant change. At 1 hour, 57 minutes, 55 seconds; this is Mission Control, Houston.

This is Apollo Control at 2 hours, 25 minutes. Apollo 13 is now about 10 minutes away from the scheduled ignition of the S-IVB engine to start the spacecraft on its way to the Moon. The Flight Dynamics Officer advises that the planned time for the beginning of that burn will be 2 hours and 35 minutes, 44 seconds Ground Elapsed Time. Our network controller reports that we've just had Acquisition Of Signal with the spacecraft from Carnarvon and during this pass, flight controllers will be looking at the spacecraft and the launch vehicle - the S-IVB - one last time before Translunar Injection.

The crew is rather quiet at this time, preparing for that Translunar Injection burn. The burn again scheduled to begin at 2 hours, 35 minutes, 44 seconds. The predicted duration of the burn is 5 minutes, 47 seconds and we expect that the spacecraft and S-IVB will accelerate some 10,417 feet per second [3,175 m/s] as a result of that maneuver. We will not get data from the burn and we'll be out of acquisition with the spacecraft at the time the maneuver occurs. Three ARIA aircraft, Apollo Range Instrumented Aircraft, are stationed in the ground track off the coast of Australia underneath the point on Earth where the Translunar Injection burn will be occurring. They'll be recording data from it which we could play back somewhat later if necessary. The booster engineer's just reported that the S-IVB chilldown in preparation for the burn has begun.

We've had Loss Of Signal now through Carnarvon. And CapCom Joe Kerwin has just put on a call through one of the ARIA aircraft.

We expect communications will continue to be somewhat noisy during the time that conversation from the spacecraft is being relayed through the ARIA aircraft. As mentioned before, we will not see the telemetry data on the burn. We do hope to get voice reports on the progress of the maneuver from the crew. We are now just a little more than one minute away from the scheduled beginning of that burn.

Jim Lovell reports that we have ignition.

Lovell's report would indicate we had a very close to on-time ignition. A total burn duration should be about 5 minutes, 47 seconds.

Jim Lovell just reported that everything looks good with that burn. We're still about 7 minutes away from reacquiring the spacecraft through the station in Hawaii at which time we'll get our first good look at the trajectory as a result of this burn.

We're now 3½ minutes into the Translunar Injection burn. Some 2 minutes, 17 seconds remaining in the maneuver which will start Apollo 13 en route to the Moon.

Now about 20 seconds away from the scheduled shutdown time. Jim Lovell reported a few moments ago that that they're experiencing a bit of vibration on the S-IVB. Previous crews have also reported similar experience toward the end of the burn.

Lovell's report of engine-on came about five or six seconds after the preplanned time.

Our communications continuing to come to us relayed through the ARIA aircraft. CapCom Joe Kerwin advised Lovell and the Apollo 13 crew that we'll be reacquiring a little less than three minutes from now through Hawaii at which time we should get good solid S-band communications and also our first look at the trajectory of Apollo 13 following the burn.

Our communications is getting quite noisy at this point through the ARIA relay. Lovell's reports of ignition and engine shutdown would indicate that the burn went at least fairly close to nominal. He reported engine shutdown about six seconds following the time that the engine was scheduled to shut down. And we'll be reacquiring at Hawaii in about 45 seconds.

We have had Acquisition Of Signal at Hawaii, we'll stand by for a call to the crew.