Apollo Hasselblad Magazine Lock
Assembled by Eric Jones.
Last revised 31 October 2014
At 133:47:46
in the Apollo 12 Lunar Surface Journal, Pete Conrad and Al Bean
are near the rim of Surveyor Crater, getting ready to make their
way into the crater. A short time previously, they
discovered that the thumbwheels used to tighten the connections
between the cameras, camera brackets, and trigger handles had
come loose. When they removed Al's LMP camera to tighten
the assembly, the thumbwheel fell off, making reassembly
impossible. They put the LMP camera with its attached
Hasselblad film magazine in the Hand Tool Carrier. Because
Al was going to be taking documentation photos during their
examination of Surveyor III, they decided that Al should wear
Pete's CDR camera. They got Pete's camera off his
chest-mounted Remote Control Unit (RCU), got the assembly
tightened, and installed the camera on Al's RCU. There was
very little unexposed film left on the magazine Pete had been
using, so Al shot the four remaining frames as a mini-pan.
He then took the magazine off the CDR camera and replaced it
with the magazine Al had been using on the LMP camera.
However, Al had trouble working the lock that secured the
magazine to the camera body. "The (magazine) lock is
what's driving me buggy," he told Pete.
| Detail from Apollo
training image KSC-69PC-545 showing Al during an
indoor training session at the Cape. The
magazine lock is labelled. Photo taken 6 October 1969.
Note Al's watch strapped to his left wrist. The
time is about 4:30 p.m. |
The following photographs were taken by Ulrich Lotzmann of a broken NASA HEC (SN1044) in his collection.
We are looking at the camera body from the same prospective Al would have had
of a Hasselblad mounted on his RCU.
| In Locked position, the
latches on either side of the lever are as near the lever
as possible and are withdrawn into the body of the camera
as far as they will go. A properly positioned
magazine would be firmly attached to the camera body. |
| With the lever in the Open
position, the latch hooks have extended out of the camera
body but have not moved outward from the left-right center
line. In this position, the magazine will be loose
but can not be detached from the camera body. |
| Detail from Apollo training
photo 69-HC-415
showing the lever in the open position, but not far enough
to release the magazine. The magazine is only
loosely connected to the camera body. |
| With the lever moved beyond
the Open position, the latches have moved away from the
left-right center line and the magazine can be detached
from the camera body. |