Apollo 16

This is Apollo Control [at] 162 hours, 12 minutes [162:01] Ground Elapsed Time.

About 37 minutes showing on the wakeup clock until the crew of Orion is called for the start of their final days activity at Descartes landing site. Briefly summarized the EVA 3 activities will begin with some 45 minutes after depressurization being spent in the immediate area of the Lunar Module. Getting the LRV loaded with all the gear for the geological sampling. Getting everything prepared for the trek out to North Ray Crater. The arrival at North Ray Crater at what's called Stations 11 and 12 will be at 1 hour and 25 minutes after start of EVA. Total distance out to this particular point 4.9 kilometers. At 2 hours 30 minutes into EVA 3 they will return back some &frac12 kilometer, that is south from North Ray Crater to Station 13, arriving there some 4 minutes later. They will spend 20 minutes at Station 13 collecting documented samples and rake soil samples. Young and Duke will leave Station 13 at 4 hours and 5 minutes into EVA, return to what is called the 10 prime area, that is at Station 10 from EVA 2, going back again for a second look, therefore, it is called 10 prime. They will arrive at this location at 3 hours 31 minutes into EVA. Then they will return to the immediate area of the Lunar Module Orion at 4 hours and 5 minutes into the EVA and spend the remaining 55 minutes of the 5 hour EVA 3 in closeout. Parking - parking of the Lunar Roving Vehicle, stowing all the film gear for transfer into the Orion, all the sample bags, doing all the general housekeeping, grounds-keeping that has to be done prior to closing out the final EVA. The total distance estimated for the EVA 3, that is LRV mileage or kilometrage, will be 9.85 kilometers. Command Module Casper [is] nearing the end of its 45 - 45th lunar orbit some 17 minutes away from Loss of Signal. At 162 [hours] 16 [minutes plan GET, 162:05 actual GET], this is Apollo Control.

This is Apollo Control 164 hours 21 minutes [164:10] into the mission of Apollo 16. Young and Duke at the present time are donning their pressure suits for the third and final EVA of this mission. Here in the Control Center the Orange Team of flight controllers headed up by Flight Director Pete Frank is taking over from Gerry Griffin's Gold Team and since the previous 8 hour shift with the Gold Team has been primarily a sleep shift. That is the crew was asleep, there will not be a change of shift press conference. Mattingly has been awake for several minutes, has had some brief exchanges with the spacecraft communicator, Don Peterson, who moved over from the overnight CapCom position. Tony England is in now for EVA CapCom job. The air [to] ground communications from the CSM will go into transcript in the Houston news room. At 164:22 [164:10] this is Apollo Control.

This is Apollo Control at 165 hours, 2 minutes [164:50]. We've completed our shift handover in Mission Control. Flight Director Pete Frank, and the EVA team are now on. Spacecraft Communicator for the Lunar Module Orion is astronaut Tony England, and astronaut Hank Hartsfield is handling the communicator chores for the Command Module Casper. Flight Director for the Command Module is Don Puddy. At the present time Young and Duke aboard Orion, are preparing for their third period of extravehicular activity. The Flight Activities Officer estimates that they're pretty much on the planned time line for that. We expect that they'll be getting out of the Lunar Module a little after 166 hours, perhaps 166:10 to 25 [165:59 to 166:16], or between 9:45 and 10:00 am Central Standard Time. We'll continue to keep an eye on their progress and report and update that expected egress time, as necessary. During today's 5-hour extravehicular activity, primary activities will be concentrated on sampling the North Ray Crater region, and the vicinity of the Lunar Module. Departing the Lunar Module, the traverse [will] proceed to North Ray Crater. Along the normal traverses path, there will be a single station in the vicinity of the old Station 11 and 12 area at North Ray crater, and we expect to have the crew to spend about 1 hour, 5 minutes sampling at this station. Then returning from North Ray crater, along the outbound path, they'll make a 20-minute stop in the vicinity of the old station 13, which is about 1 kilometer from the rim of North Ray crater. And here they'll do some documented sampling as well as taking a rake soil sample of North Ray ejecta. They'll then return to the area of the Lunar Module. We expect that they'll spend about 34 minutes in this area, and we'll concentrate on additional sampling. In addition, John Young will obtain an additional Lunar Portable Magnetometer reading, both with and without a rock. In the case with the rock, they'll be sitting a rock on the instrument and attempting to measure the soft component of magnetism in the lunar sampling in effort to determine if the so called soft magnetism that we've seen on return samples is actually indigenous to the sample when it's picked up on the Moon, or if it perhaps something that's introduced to the sample by the electronic equipment, rotating motors and so on in the Lunar Module, or by some other magnetic field that it encounters on Earth. For the 55, final 55 minutes of the 5-hour EVA, Young and Duke will be going through closeout. Getting samples bagged up, and boxed up and back aboard the Lunar Module, getting everything buttoned up and ready for lift-off, before the time that they climb through the hatch and seal up Orion for the final time prior to LM lift-off. Ken Mattingly aboard Casper was awakened on the last revolution. He is now behind the Moon out of radio contact. We'll be reacquiring Casper in about 11 minutes, 50 seconds. Spacecraft now on its 47th revolution of the Moon. Mattingly is again in good spirits. He has a busy day ahead of him. Now, one of his major activities will be preparing for the rendezvous and subsequent docking later today. In conjunction with this, we read him up the preliminary procedures to the lunar orbit plane change manoeuvre. This puts the Command Module in the proper plane for the rendezvous and docking with the Lunar Module. That maneuver to be performed approximately [at] 169 hours, 10 minutes [168:59], but we'll refine that time. Our flight plan for that event is still not precise. We've got in block times, but not precise times, but on the scale it will appear to be about 169 hours, 15 [minutes] [169:04], and we'll as I say, getting a more precise time on that.

This is Apollo Control at 165 hours, 21 minutes [165:10]. The [LM] crew has completed their communications checks with Mission Control. They are now in the process getting [the] cabin closed out, ready for depressurization. Flight Director Pete Frank has just reported that they appear to be about 30 minutes ahead of their schedule at this time, a revised estimate now on egress is 165 hours, 55 minutes [165:44] or about 35 minutes from now which would put them out at about 9:35 to 9:40 Central Standard Time. We also have some updated time for the lunar orbit plane change and for the LM liftoff. We are now showing 169 hours, 17 minutes, 38 seconds [168:06] for the plane change manoeuvre that Ken Mattingly will perform in the Command Module Casper and our LM liftoff time, which is subject to change somewhat, by a matter of seconds, [will] probably now [be] 175 hours 43 minutes 30 seconds [175:31].

One additional change in our Flight Plan schedules which affects television. During the rendezvous and docking, we had originally planned to have television coverage of this. Because of the Lunar Module High Gain Antenna, the LMP's steerable antenna is not functioning, the Lunar Module operates on the Omni directional antennas. We experienced the problem prior to the LM landing where the relatively weak signal strength of the Lunar Module coupled with the comparatively much stronger signal strength from the Command Module High Gain Antenna was saturating the receivers on the ground stations and we were blocking LM communications. In order to avoid this sort of problem, we will not use the High Gain Antenna on the Command Module so that we get a more balanced signal strength level from the two vehicles and don't run into this saturation problem. Because we won't be using the Command Module High Gain Antenna, we also will not be able to receive television during the rendezvous and docking activities.

This is Apollo Control [at 168:09]. The [LM] crew again [are] pointing the High Gain Antenna and we expect to get approximately 20 minutes at this location, perhaps a little bit less, we're running just a little bit behind on the timeline. While we're waiting for the communications and the television to come back in we might also mention that Ken Mattingly, aboard the orbiting CSM Casper, is preparing to do a plane change manoeuvre to put the spacecraft in the proper position for rendezvous and docking later with the Lunar Module. That manoeuvre is to be performed at 169 hours 17 minutes 39 seconds. It'll be on the next revolution and on the 49 revolution of the Moon. The manoever will be performed with the Service Propulsion System engine changing the velocity 124.7 feet per second, and it will be a 7 second burn [of] that Service Propulsion System Engine. Sounds as if the crew is starting to get the antenna aligned.

This is Apollo Control at 171 hours, 36 minutes [171:24]. We're continuing to experience the noisy communications that we'd had to Orion on the lunar surface, due to the fact that we don't have the LM steerable antenna, the High Gain more directional antenna and we're using the Omnidirectional antennas on the Lunar Module. At about 173 hours [172:48] or a little bit beyond that we'll be able to cover the landing site with the 210-foot dish antenna at Goldstone, California. And we'd expect the noise on the circuit to drop somewhat at that time. While the crew on the lunar surface, Young and Duke, have been busy with their third Extra Vehicular Activity, Ken Mattingly has also been active aboard the Command Module, Casper, completed the plane change maneuver at 169 hours, 17 minutes, 39 seconds [169:05]. Flight Director Don Puddy, who's been following the CSM's activities says that the maneuver was almost precisely as planned; 124.7 feet per second change in velocity, this was a 7-second burn with the spacecraft Service Propulsion engine. And changed the plane of Casper's orbit a little over 1 and 1/3rd degrees and placing it in the proper position for rendezvous with the Lunar Module. The current CSM orbit is 65 by 55 nautical miles. For Ken Mattingly, this is a relatively quiet revolution there letting him have a break from his scientific duties, getting the Command Module cleaned up and ready to go - ready for the rendezvous and docking with Orion. And the subsequent large amount of material that will be transferred from the Lunar Module to the Command Module. The LM lift-off is currently scheduled to occur at 175 hours, 43 minutes, 30 seconds [175:31] Ground Elapsed Time. We have about 48 minutes left before we lose radio contact with Mattingly in the Command Module and he's now coming up approaching the Descartes landing site, he'll be passing over that in the next few minutes. At 171 hours, 39 minutes [171:27]; this is Apollo Control, Houston; continuing to monitor activities aboard Orion on the lunar surface.

This is Apollo Control at 172 hours, 24 minutes [172:12]. That was John Young reporting that they have a problem with dirt in connectors. He's advising us that they plan to remove their helmets sc that they can blow the dirt out of the suit connectors, and get everything fitting in tightly. At the present time Young and Duke are getting the cabin back in order, getting equipment stowed, and preparing to jettison equipment that they will not need further - such things as the Portable Life Support Systems. They'll open the hatch and deposit this unneeded equipment on the Lunar surface. That time in the Flight Plan is around 172 hours 30 minutes [172:18]. We're running a little bit behind. It'll probably come out closer to 173 hours. And at the present time Ken Mattingly aboard the CSM Casper is nearing the end of his 50th revolution of the Moon. We're just about to lose radio contact with that vehicle. It's been a quiet revolution for Mattingly. Flight Director, Don Puddy, advised that this period had been intentionally left open so that Mattingly could get the Command Module cabin in order to receive all of the rocks and other equipment from the Lunar Module, including the two passengers. And also to get everything set up for the rendezvous and docking, which will occur on the 52nd and 53rd revolutions of the Moon. As we mentioned previously we do not expect to get television of the docking. This was originally scheduled, however, it has to be dropped because of the fact the Lunar Module steerable antenna is not working. With this situation it becomes necessary for the Command Module while the two vehicles are operating separately and in close concert such as they will be during the rendezvous and docking procedures. It becomes necessary to operate the Command Module with its Omni Directional antennas, rather than with the High Gain antenna, so that we don't block the receivers at the Manned Spaceflight network station while we have one vehicle operating with a much greater signal strength than the other as we found out prior to the landing. We tend to get better saturation in the receivers in order to keep this balance proper and to avoid that sort of problem, the two vehicles will be operated in a rendezvous and docking stage using comparable signal strengths and comparable antennas. And we therefore will not be able to get the television. The signal strength will simply be too low for a good television transmission.

This is Apollo Control. We're in the process of completing our shift handover at the present time. Flight Director Gene Kranz and the White Team of flight controllers coming on to replace Pete Frank and the Orange Team for the Lunar Module. The Flight Director for the Command Module will be Phil Shaffer replacing Don Puddy at that position. And our Capsule Communicator at the moment is still Anthony W, England. Dr. Tony England was the CapCom also during the EVAs. And we resume will be relieved shortly, although he's still holding down those duties. And the Capcom for the Command Module is Astronaut Henry Hartsfield. We're planning to have a change of shift press briefing in about 15 or 20 minutes. Best estimate is probably for about 5:00 pm.

This is Apollo Control, Houston, at 174 hours, 20 minutes [174:08] Ground Elapsed Time. For Orion's ascent burn into orbit, Mission Control is looking at the following data. Time of ignition 175 hours 43 minutes 35 seconds [175:32]. Duration of the Ascent Burn 7 minutes, 16 seconds, 60,000 feet in altitude at shutdown. Velocity of 5,525 feet per second at shutdown. Orbit at insertion for Orion an apolune of 41.1 nautical miles with a perilune of 8.9 nautical miles. Orion should be about 160 nautical miles down range from its Descartes station at insertion. We're at 174 hours, 21 minutes Ground Elapsed Time [174:10 actual GET]. We will follow the air [to] ground conversation live as it occurs. This is Apollo Control Houston continuing to monitor.