Apollo 5 Post-Launch Press Conferenece

8/4/2019 Apollo 5 Post-Launch Press Conferenece

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APOLLQ 5POST-LAUNCH PRESS CONFERENCE

SATURN HISTORY DOCUMENTUniveoity f Alabama Research InstituteHis tory of Science G. Technology G ~ U P

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' Press Site #2 -------..-OC.NO-moo""John F. Kennedy Space CenterNat ional Aeronaut ics and Space Adrr;inistGijon

Monday, January 22, 1 9 6 8

Major Gci12raI Samuel C. Pllillips, Director, &polio Program Office,Off ice of Manrred Space Fl i q k i , NASA- -Rocco A. Pettone, Director o f Laanch Oyoetions, Kennedy SpaceCenter, NASAColonel W i l l a n Teir, Manager, Saturn I / iB Program Office, Marsha!!Space Flig!?: Ccnier, NASA


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Mr . K ing : The gentlemen from my right, B i l l Teir, who i s the Saturn IB Pr o j ec tManager f rom the Marshal l Space f l ight Center ; General Sam Phi l l ips,who is the Ap ol lo Program Manager, Gff i ce o f Manned Space Fl ig ht ,NASA Headq~rarters; Rocco Petrone, who is D irecto r o f Lau nch Opesa-t ion s for Kennedy Space Center , als o La unch Director for the mission.General Phi l l ips.

Gen. P h i l i ps : La di es and gent lemen, i t 's a pleasure to be back hare again. Ap ol lo5 was successfu l ly launched at 5:48:08 Eastern Standard Time.The performance of the launch vehicle, in terms o f the t imes o f theburns, was complete ly nominal and you can f o l l ~ whe time l ines asthey were g iven in the press k i t . The shutdown of the S-IVE occurredon t ime a t 9:58 after the launch and orbi tal insert ion was a t 10:08.The orb i t p lanned war; 88 by 118, The actual orbi t was 87.6 by119 .5 . The ve loc i ty a t orb ita l inser t ion was 25,685 feet persecond.The sequence, up un t i l the time we le f t the F l ig ht Di rector 's c i rc u i ta few minutes ago, had taken us oiler Carnarvon, where the deploymentof the Spacecraft L M Adapter panels was confirmed and the sequencethat, was the separat ion of the Lu na r Mo dtile f.r.oro the boos ter oc curr edand was conf irmed. So a t 54:%5he separation of- he Lunar F\ilodu!eand i ts procee ding on i ts own was conf irmed.I ' d l ike to ask Rocco Petroue to say 2 fcw words about the coi~ndkdo~?rn.

Mr. Petrone: 'The count, with the except ion o f two ho lds that we had, wzs. . twent ac co rd ing to our ex pe ct at ions . The t-raud.?rja;.e, as you know, wasmany, many months i n preparat ion to b r ing it to the point that we didtoday and about ha l f ivay through our mission we've st-ill go t to watchth e bM funct ion to kn or~ , you migh t say, i f we've cbne ou r j i jb r ight .i t h i n k everyth i t ly proceeded sm oot l i ly. We did hnve tkxvs irrslds, Orre,I believe Jack d id at tempt to dt.sc+aibe t o you. lVc \iqJere l i n n l ~ g i j l ~some di f f i cu l ty in keeping the L M z t the desired teinp;c-ratxe :o f takeoff.VJell, we wanted to keep it a t ttla"ctr:mperatu+z 211 th e t i t i ~ c n the ps;dand we use a fveon ccjoi'ing system. There sre bol t fes, VJ? ca l l tileinK bott le s. Thcy look l ike what yoti 'c i norm?lly see w i t h v i? ld in r _ ]53s.T h i s has freou l i y a i d .Lye ha d them a t the base o f the AGCS room, r i g h t on t i ic pad , and they

= .feed ILquid u p into the spacecraf t and into a boiler where ! L vai_lcrizes.We go t an jndicai.ii?n o f a high tempeu;.ture r cad i r~g . ~ ~ 3occi tic?edt ha l


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the l i q ui d was no t t ransferr ing proper ly. We went out there and di dsome troublesh oot ing and iso lat ion of some cyl ind er banks, brought itin properly, a t lea st to our sat isfact ion, watched the temperature therest of the way. Toward the end of the count it started to go up some.It never gave us the alarm because now we could pre t ty wel l c ontrol thefreon f low. Now tha t hold there took an hour and 2 8 minutes for thefreon .A s you recal l , we were in the LO X loading and at the t ime we se ntsome people ou t to work the problem. We stopped load ing LO X and o fcourse our l in es got "hot" so there was an addi t ional hour and 1 0minutes get t ing the LOX system back where it had been at the t ime wereve rted to go out and troublesh oot and correct the freon problem.So there's asum total of two hours, 38 minutes for the LO X and freon.Now the remaining t ime of the total of 3:48:00 was a DDAS problem.DDAS i s par t o f the e lect ronic data, Dig i ta l Data Acq uis i t io n System.I t ' s a method of acquir ing data, you might be in a hurry, lo fs of it andt ransmi t t ing it back to the blockhouse. We have the same system inthe b lockhouse to decode it for us. It gives us the abi l i ty to communi-cate wi th a l l the ac t iv i t ies tha t are going on wi th the computer. We ad-dress the computer and cal l out test programs through the DDAS.We had a fa i lure in a power supply w i th in the uni t and sent the peopleout t o repa ir it, did repair it, br ing it back LIP on line, rala some t es tprograms, sa t isf ied ourselves that everything was okay, and then pro-ceeded wi t h the re st of the count.Tha t ' s a l l I have. The DDAS was ais o at the pad, It was i n what. weca l l the Automat ic Ground Contro l Stat ion. I t ' s r ight a t the base ofthe umbi l i ca l .

Gen , P t ~ i l l i p s : I ' d l i ke to ask G i l l T e i r t o cornn~ent n the perfarrnance of the launchvehic le.Mr . Te i r : The performance of the launch vehicle--1 can' t add loo much to thecomment tha t it was a very nonl inal f ight f rom the launch veh ic le v iew-po in t ,

Fo r the countdown and checkout the launch vehicle stayed wel l wi t i t i nredfines through the entire checko:rt, both pro pu isio il sys tem s and y i d -ance sys ten~ s . Up aclti l the time of launch we hzd r iot busted a r2dfIr1.2which is , I th ink, a very yoocl co~ ~ntc lov~ lnor a vehicle o f t h i s t ype .


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The S -I B stage burn was nominal. We got both the inboard and out-board cutoff very close to the time. I don't have the exact deviat ionfrom the planned time yet.The S-IV B stage, as General Ph i l l ip s tol d you, both from the guidanceviewp oint and propulsion viewpoint, was r ight on the mark. The tmc eactual ly came out so close that you could hardly tel l the di f ference be-tween the planned trace and the launch vehicle trajec tory.That ' s about a l l I can give you.

Gen. Phi l l ips: W e ll , we h a ~ e ~ a b o u tive hours left before we wi l l be zble to judge thetota l success of th is mission. And, as I said, at the t ime we l ef t theblockhouse and monitor ing the Fl ig ht Director 's loop, the spacecraftlook ed good and it s separation had been confirmed, and I th ink wewould l ik e to see i f you have any questions at this t ime.Mr. K ing: I t ' s a l i t t le hard to see the hands, b u d see Sue But ler 's hand there.Do you have a question, Sue?Sue Butler: I ma.y have rnisseci it, but what was the problem on the Redstone?There was some ki nd of problem you mentioned, Jac k.Gen. Phi l l ips: Wel I, the Redstoce was posit ioned in ihe north Atlant ic and i t wasp o s i t i o ~ e dor command and telemetry in case i t was necessary for thef l ight director to take any kind o f al tergate mission act ion in the eventof d i f f icu l t ies during boost or the f inal part of the boost phase.

There were di f f icul t ies this morning - t about the time v e picked up thecount with the telemetry computer. I hese di f f icul t ies pers isted pret tymuch during the day, and during t h e day the F l i gh t D i rector and h isteam worked out a satis fzctor y method to be able to re ly on the essent ia lfunct ions they would have lo c jnt f r ~ mh2 Redstone using i t s commandprocesso r compute: in case the teleni2iry cornp~jter !ad-.ed was n s l f u~c - at i on ing a i the t ime of th e launch. So "Lhy had worked ou t a ri;eanl; o fsatisfactori ly corninanding the mission evan w i t h k i f f i cu ! t i es and ind5eiia t the t ime of lairnch the Redstone Eelemzlry was not fui lct ioning pro-perly,

Mr. King: Dick. Right here in the firs! row.Quest ion: Perhaps Kocco Petrone might answer i l l i s. Uh o make:; ti)? DDAS ?What f i rm is involveci?


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Mr. Petrone:

Mr. Tei r :

Mr.. Petrone:Mr . Tei r :Gen. Phi l l ips :

Question:

Gen. Phi l l ips :

Mr. I


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Question:

Mr . K ing :

Gen. Phi l l ips:

Mr . K ing :Mr. Lamont:Gen. Phi l l ips:Mr. Petrone:

. Mr. K ing :

Gen. Phi l l ips:

Jus t a br ief one on 5 0 2 . Are we st i l l leokiny for an early Marchlaun ch? Are we on t ime, no problems r ight now?We're s cheduled for the fir st quarter, as we'vtl said . I don't knowwhether you want to add to that, Sam?A po l l o 6/502 i s coming along in good shape. We' re a l i t t l e b i t of four de tail ed da ily working schedule. There are no serious problems.There 's noth ing s igni f ica nt at th is t ime and I have every reason tobel ieve we wi l l l aunch it during the first quarter.Go ahead, Sande rs.Can you give us the schedule for the rol lou t now?1 ' 1 1 turn that one over to Rocco.It should he the f i rs t week in February.Any further quest ions here?We have a l i t t l e note from Houston that start ing a t 6 : 2Q a.m. CentralStan dar d Time, tomorrow morning, it's possible the spacecraft may bev i s i b l e a t 30 degrees above the horizon. This is on the run fromHouston to the Cape. It wou ld be on any time in tha t area. T h i s i ssome information tha t has jus t been passed on.It seems we've had a rather quick conference in view1 of the Woristonweather we're having here and we' l l terminate the cot~ference t thistime.We' l l see you a l l after the mission is over.

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Apollo 5 Post-Launch Press Conferenece