Apollo 5 Pre-Launch Press Conference

8/4/2019 Apollo 5 Pre-Launch Press Conference

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PRE-LAUNCH PRESS COhJFERENCE

$J News centerJohn ~ i n n e d ~pace CenterNat ional Aeronaut ics and Spzce Administrat ionSunday, January 21, 1968

2:30 P.M.

Part ic ipantsWi i l im C. Schneider , Apol lo Mis s io n Di rector, Of f ice of MannedSpace Flight, NASARocco A. Fetrone, Dire ctor of Laun ch Operations, Kennedy SpaceCenter, NASAGeorge M. Low, Manager, k p o l l o Spacecraf t Program Off ice, *Manned SpacecrnFt Center, NASA601. W i l l i am Te i r, M anager, S a t ~ ~ r n/IB Pi*ogrc?mOff ice, Marshal !Space Flight Center, NASACol. Royce Olson, Director , Department of Defense Manned Fl ig htSupport Off iceChr istopher C. Kraf t , J r . , Director, F l i g h t !lperiiio&, MannedSpacecraft Center, W,SAE t r g c n ~ . Kuanz, A p o l l ~ Ffigi~tDirector , F1 igh! Operations,Mai ined Spacecraf t Get~teu,NASA


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Mr. King: The countdown for the Apollo 5 miss ion i s proceeding toward a plannedl i f t o f f t im e o f 2 p.m., Ea st er n Stan dard Time, tomorrow, Monday,January 2 2 . To cover some br ief logist ics, here i n the News Centerwe wi l l be open a l l nig ht tonight , phone 783-7781, and we w i l lhave people avai la ble w i th up-to-date informat ion on the status o f themiss ion and the count throughout the evening and the ear ly morninghours. We w il l be coming up, probably ju st about the t ime we come ou tof the bu i l t - in hold, wi t h the commentary whic h star ts at about T-3hours and 30 minutes in the count. During the morning hours we w i l lhave up-to-date information on how we stand up to that t ime before thecommentary begins. There w i l l be a postlaunch conference a t Pre ssS i te 2 a t T + 60 minutes, and there w i l l be a post miss ion conferencesome 7 1 /2 to 8 hours fo l lowing l i f to f f . Thi s w i l l take p lace in Houstona t the Manned Spacecraf t Center . It w i l l a l so be p iped i n here a t t heNews Center anci a t the P ress Si te a t the Cape.I wou ld now l ike to int roduce the f ive gent lemen here a t the Cape andwe have two gent lemen standing by i n Houston who w i l l par t ic ip ate i nth is aftern oon 's conference. From my right, here a t the Cape, we haveCol. Royce Olson, who is Dire ctor o f Department o f Defense MannedSpa cef l igh t Support Off ice. Next is Mr. Rocco A. Petrone, who i sDirector of Launch Operations for the Kennedy Space Center and LaunchDirector for the Apol lo 5 mission; Mr. Wm. C . Schneider, who isApo l l o 5 Mi ss ion Director , Off ice o f Mant led Space Fl ight , NAS AHeadq uarters. Next, Mr . George M . Low, who is Apo l lo ProgramManager from the Mann ed Space craft Center, And f inal ly , here a t theCape, Col. W il l ia m Teir, who is Manager of the Saturn IB ProgramOff ice at NAS A's M arshal l Space Fl igh t Center . And to c lar i fy r ightaway, I bel iev e the name is correct ly spel led in f ront o f Col . Teir , andincorre ct ly spel le d in several other places, it is T-E-I-R. Corre ct?An d standing by in Hoi~ sto n e have Chr istopher Kraft , who i s Directoro f F l ig ht Operat ions for the Manned Spacecraf t Center, and also f rornMSC, Mr . Gene Kranz, who is the Ap ollo 5 Fl ig ht Director . Mow wew i l l star t wi th Mr. Schneider, please.

Mr. Schneider: Good afternoon, lad ies and gentlemen, tve have ju st comp leted our ex -aminat ion of a l l o f the vehicle s and the systems, the status of the net-work, the Department of Defense suppo rt forces, the aircraft, an d last,but not least, the weather. An d everything is a s planned for our 2 4 0 0l i f to f f tomorrow. Tha t 's 1 4 0 0 Eastern Standard Time. We did pickup the count this morning a t about--at ex ac tly --1 0 a.m., and as ofr ig ht now, eve rything is proceeding smoothly and as planned. Mow wew i l l s t i l l p lan our 6-hour bui l t - - in hold that we have a lways in our sched-ule, wh ich ends 2 t 10:30 omorrow morning.


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Now, th is is the maiden voyage o f a very complex vehicle, and it i s avery bus y plan, or very good plan, I should say, of about si x and aha lf hours duration. During that t ime we w i l l be f ir in g the descent pro-pu lsi on system, or the DPS (dips) as you may hear i f referred to. Wew i l l f i re that twice, the f i r st one occurr ing jus t af ter four hours into themission. Fol l ow ing the second and las t DPS f i ring, we w i l l stage thevehicle, and do a " f i re in the hole" burning of the ascent propulsionsystem and then f in al l y on the la st orb i t we wi l l do the second and las tf i r in g of the ascent propulsion system, a f i r ing io deple tion. That wi l ltake approximately s i x and a hal f hours i f everything goes as plannedand w i l l conclude the preplanned port ion of the mission except for onea c t i v i t y I should mention. We st i l l wi l l be conduct ing one of our majorexercises. We hope we w i l l be monitor ing the status o f the S-IVB un-til it qui ts, and we do expect that that w i l l las t a fter that s ix and a h a l fhours.We wi l l a lso have a couple bonus act iv i t ies that we wi l l ga in out o fth is mission, the f i rs t one being an exercise designed to safe the S- IV Bvehicle whi ch we wi l l do on the f i rs t rev. And secondly, i f the missiongoes as we had planned, as described i n the press kit, we do hope thatwe w i l l have some consumables le f t and we wi l l then go into a ser ies o fpreplanned ac t iv i t ie s sim i lar to what we have done in the past with theAgena, which, i f you recal l was a t the end of the planned mission wedid ex ercise some of the systems on the Agena to see how it would be-have. Simi lar ly, in thi s mission, we w i l l be exerc is ing those backupsystems that we have not previously used and we wil l be using somecommands th at we had not used, ju st to see what does happen and wew i l l be doing some reaction control system fir ing s in some phenomenals i tuat ions. Essent ia l ly I bel iev e that takes us up to twel ve or thir teenhours, i f we have enough consumables on board a t the end that we cando everything.In addi tion to that, s ince th is is a re la t ive ly complex vehic le and it i sa maiden voyage, the people i n Houston, the flig ht cont rol people, havecome up wit h some preplanned ideas on what they wo uld do in case theyhad var ious types o f postulated equipment fai lures. I would l ik e to saytha t we have these preplanned procedures bu t they do of course assumea failure, a type o f failure, and they do of course assume th at we dohave suff ici en t t ime to activa te the backup modes, and some of these dorequire some pre tty fas t stepping on the part of Gene Kra nz and hi s peo-ple . So, wh ile we have these modes, these alte rna te modes, an d weare looking, we are grate ful th at we have them because many of theseal ternate modes w i l l a l lo w us to achieve most of our primary mission ob-jectives , even in the event of some failures . I do cautio n you, how e\~ cr,


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that while we have the modes available to us, it i s no t a t a l l cer ta intha t i f we are cal led upon to exercise them that we wi l l , I th ink thati s about a l l I 've g ot to say about thi s mission, and I guess we can turnit over the Questions and Answers.

Mr.King: Okay, we are ready to proceed wi th qu estions here at the Cape. Wew i l l a ls o come to you al l in Houston in a shor t whi le w i th quest ionsfrom there.Mr. Dederer: A coup le here fi rs t. One, how di d the fueling go on the LM, and I un -derstand it has been considered quite hazardous because of the involve -ment o f the SLA and.1 just wondered how this fueling event went.Mr. Schneider: Doug, I consider that it went very well. It took a l i t t le longer than wehad lai d out because o f extra precautions, but I be1 eve th at it wentvery successful ly .Mr. Dederer: Another one, how long w i l l the LM remain i n orbi t before it i s expec tedto come back in ?Mr. Schneider: Chris, why don't you answer that, or Gene?Answer: Primarily because we do not know the orbit the spacecraft wil l remaini n afte r we get through, and certain tolerances on the cu toff condition.It will probably be anywhere from days to weeks.Mr. Salestead: Could you elaborate a l i t t le bi t on what you did today as far as prepara-

t io ns were concerned? Did you fuel the LM for example?Mr . Petrone: The LM fue ling was completed act ual ly some days ago, I th ink i t wa sabout a week, you know you lose reference of t ime--we are workingaround the clock . Bu t i n terms of today, we say we pic ked up the counta t 10 o'cl ock th is morning, tha t is Easte rn Standard. Up to tha t periodo f time, we had been doing many checks whi ch we do in any normal re -cyc le. We came out of our countdown demonstration, we dried out thebird, drained it, dried, go back in, make leak checks, and a t the timewe pic ked up th is morning, we started installa tion s of batter ies. Theseare batteries that have to be activated some 4 8 hours before the m is-

sion, These are put in, or are being put i n now, proceeding to a launchvehicle power up i n about 3 hours on in to power transfer th is evening.The activit ies we had planned today are p a t of the normal count and arecycle coming out of our operat ion la te F riday night. A l l the propel lantloading of the spacecraft has been completed prior to picking up thecount. The only loadin g we do during the cotintdown is aboard the SaturnIB wit h the l iq uid oxygen and l i qu id hydrogen.


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Question: I wonder i f perhaps Mr. Lo w might be the r ight man to do this. I f youcou ld run down those systems, subsystems I suppose, wh ich are not onLM-1which w i l l be on the L M which goes to the moon?

M r . Low: The fi rs t one that comes to mind o f course, i s the su it loop of the environ-mental control system. Since we are not f ly in g men, we do not i n L M - 1inclu de the complete environmental contro l system, but only that partthat i s needed to cool the systems and enough oxygen to re plenish thegas supply in the cabin. There are a number of other systems whic h areei ther not on the L M or zre ina ctive. We are not carrying radars on th isfl igh t. B i l l points out we do not have the landing gear, but by and large,the vehic le is a complete vehic le. It i s part icular ly complete so far asthe guidance and prop ulsio n systems are concerned. The te st is, inso -far as L M i s concerned, primari ly a test o f the structure, the guidancesystem, and the in teractions o f the guidance system with the propu lsionsystem.Mr. Bergman: For Chris Kraft, I think. .Chris, how tough is th is missio n as comparedto pas t missions and what are the especial ly c r i t i cal f l ig ht port ions youare worried about?Mr. Kraft : I hink I have to say that from the standpoint of the work t hat the space-cra ft has to do, as we ll as the people on the ground, it is probably oneo f the most complex missi ons we have ever f lown. The guidance systemthat we are using i s l i ter al ly the system which we are using for the de-sce nt and asc ent from the moon, and we have had to "Klu ge" tha t systemso that it is able to work in earth orbi ta l f i ight. Th is means that the

platform had to be displaced. We had no means of realignin g that plat -form. We have to be very careful of the orbits we fly. This ve hicle i smeant t o fl y from here to the moon and not around the earth, 2nd there-fore it s instrumentation system is a rather peculiar one i n that we haveno means of recording the data. Th is means tha t we have to keep ourmaneuvers over our tracking stations and try t6 get as much coverage aswe can on each one of these revolutions. You put a l l th is together, i tis indeed a very complex m ission from the standpoint of cont rol l in g thetrajectory and monitoring the system.Mr. Dodd: D id I understand Mr. LOWo say there is no test of l i f e support systems

in th is par ticu tar miss ion?Mr. Low: Only a part ia l test of the t i f e support system. The port ion of the l i f esupport system that feeds into the pressure suit irr a manned flight isinoperat ive in th is miss ion. Thoro i~ghly ested? Yes, it wi l l be tes tedf i r s t o f a l l i n a very cornprehe nsi\~e round te st program. There i s a


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LEM tes t ar t ic le, LTA-8, which w i l l be sub jected to a l l o f the condi -t io ns o f the space environment in a large thermal vacuum chamber.And, the complete te st of the enviroilmental support system w i l l becarr ied ou t i n tha t tes t fa i c l i t y .Mr. Orlando: Ju st a s imple quest ion of terminology. Have you put back the "EH nLM ?Answer:' L M is spel led "LM," for Lunar Module.Mr. Orlando: Yes, but in the actua l lunar f l ight, does the "exploration" come backor not?Mr. King: The terminolgy remains the same a ll the way through. The E i s s t i l lout and wi l l remain out.

Mr. Benedict : Is crew fat igue s t i l l the determinat ion for cutoff tomorrow, or woulddarkness ha lt the countdown, and also, what i s the turn aro un ds itu a-t io n i f you have to scrub tomorrow?Mr. Petrone: Crew fatigue as we see it now is the essen t ia l fzctor. Darkness i s not.Our window not being based on any o f the c ondit io ns o f da ylig ht for ue-covery and so on, crew fatigue w i l l be the determining factor. Tha t i ssomething tha t has to be judged i n real time, based upon wha t i s goingon, wha t the problems you face are. Therefore, we have used the word"approximately" in the press ki t . What was your se co id quest io n?Re cy cle ? I f for some reason we don't put cryogenics aboard, tha t wou ldmean, le t' s say, a t 3 hours 30 minutes--T minus three thirty--tom or-row we c oul d recy cle to a Tuesd ay count, depending on the problems,of course. I f the problem could be f ixe d i n the rema ining time, we couldrecyc le to Tuesday. Beyond that, we would have to judge i n terms ofwhat has t o be done. I f we put cryogenics aboard and get f i ~ l l yoadedw it h our prope!lants, then our recycle on th is one i s going to be fourdays.Mr. Benedict : Do you put the cryos in at T minus 3 hours and 3 0 minutes, aft er youpick up the bu i l t - in ho ld count?Mr. Petrone: When we pick up the count af ter the bu i l t - in hold, the f i rs t step wi l l bet o sk i r t the load ing o f l iqu id oxygen. That w i l l be 10:30 tomorrow morn-ing i f we stay on our present schedule. Wi thi n about ten minutes of thet ime we pick LIP our count we wi l l act iv iat e our l i qu id hydrogen groundsystem and start f lowing i l l to the bird. When you start moving into thatyou go into a four day recyc le. L e t' s say four days. The window on this


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one not being set to a recovery time leaves us some f le x ib i l i ty as towhether we schedule for morning or afternoon. We have to look a t theto ta l work to be done. We use the word "approximate" on tha t four daystoo.

Mr. Bened ict : Ju st to c lar i fy , when you sa id you would recycle for Tuesday pr ior toprop ellant loading, does tha t mean a launch t ime on Tuesday or wouldyou pick up the ent i re 30 hour count again.Mr. Petrone: We cou ld hol d a t T minus 3:30 - three hours and thirty minutes - wecould hold a t that .. I f something came up that would force us to go intothe bird, then determining how far you have to go in, we co uld ho ld for2 4 hours where we now have our six hour buil t- in hold.Mr . King: L e t me c la r i fy th is a l i t t le more. The c ryoget ii c loading of the l iq u id oxy-gen and the hydrogen goes from about T minus 3 hours and 30 minutesdown to about 55 or so.Mr . Lewis : D id I understand you to say, Mr. Low, that there wou ld be oxygen i n thecabin, that you would f ly th is wi t h oxygen in the cabin rather than ni t rogen ?Mr. Low: No, we are f ly i ng wi th nitrogen i n the cabin, but any makeup during thef l igh t wi l l be wi th oxygen.Mr . Lewis : I n that connect ion, has this veh ic le been f i reproofed as N orth Americanis t ry in g to f i reproof the Apol lo .Mr . Low : bR4-5. has no t been fireproofed, because it is an unmanned f l ig ht. The

LM vehicle as a whole has been f ireproofed in much the same manner asthe command module has and we have completed suc ce ssf ul ly a f lamabi l -i ty mockup ser ies of tes ts wi t h a complete LM model to prove that th istype o f f i reproof ing has been successful.Question:

Mr . Te i r :

A couple of questions as to staging the S-IVB stage. Is this the f i rs tt ime you have dumped s izeable quant i t ies of l iq ui d hydrogen and l i qu idoxygen into space, and what w i l l happen to them? W il l they remain inthat s tate or w i l l they f loat away, or wha t?I n th is program this i s the f i r s t t ime we have ac tua l ly had a planned dumpo f the l iq uid oxygen and l iq uid hydrogen, and as to jus t exac t ly whatwou ld happen to them, I think we need a p hy sic i s t to answer that for you.Someone els e may be able to h elp me, but there is no rea l problem con-nected in any way wi t h this , because, o f course, a l l o f the other f i ights,even though you do not purposely dump, it is dumped a t some t ime i fthe veh icle breaks up or i f you have a pressure fai lure. So we see noproblem as far as the ciurnp of LOX or hydrogen i s concerned.


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Mr. Alexander: What are the Agena-like maneuvers you are going to try wit h the S-IVB?Mr. Schneider: We are not going t o do any maneuvers. If I mis led you by mentioning

Agena, forg ive me. We, of course, stage and have the asc en t stagepart from the descent stage and we w i l l as part of our second fir in g fir ethe ascent stage to depletion. We wil l be fir ing the reaction controlsystem under some abnormal situa tions wit h't he s mall thrusters and theattitu de thrusters, and we w i l l be doing some sta bil i za tio n checks usingthe attitu de thrusters, but there are no major burns scheduled in thatperiod.Mr. King: Jus t to clarify , George, you mentioned S-IVB. Does that satisfy theanswer. He was obviously talking about the lunar module.Mr. Low: May I correc t a statement I made a moment ago. In LM - 1 we are notrep leni shin g wi th oxygen in order to main tain cabin pressure. We areloading with nitrogen. We are no t reloading beyond that point. I t 'sdifferent from the way we handled Spacecraft 17, where we did re-plen sh.Mr. De Long : What was the nature of the power problem with the computer powersupply yesterday?Mr. Petrone: I can handle part of that, and maybe Bi lf Te ir would l ik e to add more.There were two failures during the latter part of the countdown demon-

stra tion . The two failure s were both in the same power supp ly tray,however, thorough aria lysis Saturday morning and Saturday afternoon,both at Mars hall Space Fl ig ht Center and here, indicate d that the twofailures were not related and it turns out that the particular circuitry ofthe elec tron ic components, you might say, experience a random failu re. .It has been repaired and put back in action, I bel ieve i t went back onthe l ine at two o'c loc k yesterday, so the computer has been up almo st13 hours now. We are mak itlg some sp ec ial measurements and wa tch ingthe currefit trends and they have indicated no problems as far as we areconcerned. I hink we have it total ly solved. Bil l , you may want toadd to that, because Marsh all has done quite a b i t of work, es pe cia llyduring the evening hours, I know, on that one. *

Mr. Te ir: In general, I can't add too much. I might say that failure analyses,both at Ma rsh all atid here, have ind icate d that they were both problemsw it h the regulator, component problems two differe nt components, oneon the i n p ~ it ide, a re ct ifi er there, and thc other was a diode on theo ~ ~ t p u tide. They can 't be tied together and Rocco indicated that the


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Question:

Mr. Low:Mr. Fontag:Mr. Low:Mr. LaMont:

Mr. Petrone:Mr. LaMont:

Mr. K i n g :Mr. Petrone:

computer has been on since yesterday, I believe he said at two o'clock.The power s u p p l y has been operating, actually, since eight o'clockyesterday morning where the problem was, and it looks good now. Wehave no reason to feel that there is going to be any problem remaining.I note that i n the press kit it says that the manned LM will weigh3 1 , 7 0 0 and advised the weight of the vehicle to be flown tomorrow.Does tomorrow's weight include compensation for the gear that has beenremoved ?Yes, it does.What is the tota l, exact weight of LM-1 flying tomorrow? .31,530 pounds.For Col. Petrone. I know there has been a constant fight out at thepad with rust and.. .The Chamber of Commerce wouldn't agree with you there.I know there have been a lot of measures take n, Are you sa tisf ied thatthe preventive, or corrective , measures, whatever they were, s ui t yourneeds ? And could you explain a little bit about what was done ?kre you speaking generally, or are y o i ~alking about Apollo 5 ?We do take normal preventative measures, i will answer this in part.Then I will have Bill Teir acid some things that Marshall, in turn, alsodid. There are normal preventative measures to prevent our atmospherehere i n Florida from taking over, certain nitrogen purges, dry gas, dr ynitrogen, things of that nature. On any vehic!e we do r u n certain in -spections, and on Apollo 5, because of the time it has been here, therewere certain, you might call them more thorough quality inspections setu p , and we i n turn, with M arshall; made some very detailed check1 is ts .We go i n periodically and look at various things. You have to keep i nm i n d that the vehicle essentially is purged. Wd do keep the tanks under.-.-press% -.with- d r y nitrogen in there . The engines-are-purged. You keepa constant d r y pad pressure i n there. O n our inspections, I think we wereL - -very wAT$F%ed and fiGiiZ nothing to indicate the state of the hardwarewas deteriorating. Biil , I 'm sure you want to add to that. I know i t wasof great concern to the people i n Marshail too.


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Mr. Teir: Yes. At the time we foresaw that the vehic le was going to be on thepad some time, we had our own designers at Marshall and each of thecontractors' designers, the quality people, and the operational peoplehere at the Cape get together and come u p with very detailed inspec-tion criteria, to look at those areas you wouldn't look at i f you madea normal inspec tion of the vehicle . After coming u p with these verydetailed criteria we conducted the inspections, using both the qualityand the operational people, and after o we were quitepleasantly surprised that there was no more deterioration than therewas. This was made i n A p r x - M a y - - o n the various parts of thevehicle. A nd eack three months, at leastevery threemonths, we con-tinued to make these insp ections . Each time what we found was le ssthan the time before. W had to change out no operational componentsdue to corrosion.

Mu. Howard: This is a followup on this q~estion f the weight. Could you tell mewhat is the weight of the components elimina,ted from this fl ight ? Thethings vire mentioned before.Mr. Low: I can't give you a specific answer because there are some deletions andsome additions also . For example, we are carrying a LM mission pro-grammer, .a box that ca rries out the functions of the man. We are car-

ry ing a lot of instrumentation on this flight that we w i l l not be carryingto the moon. So there are a lot of plusses and minuses and I don'thave with me de ta ils of tha t. I should als o mention that some of thestructural components, the skin is somewhat heavier on this LM thanit wil i be on later ships . So to answer your g~res tion pec ifica lly, ittake s a lot of numbers I don't have with me. To give you a genera.1answer, 1 mentioned the weight for this LM as 3 1 , 5 5 0 pounds. Theexpec ted weight of later ships is going to be as high as 32 ,000 pounds .

Mu. Wilford: A couple of related questions, Mr. Schneide r. What are some of thesealternative rnissions i f you get into orbit and have some troub le? Thesecond question is, i f you have trouble i n orbit, how long can you delayand still get in ail four engine burns ?Mr. Schneider: T h ~ s e re both f l i g h t questions and I would like to ask Gene Kranz toanswer them i f he wil l .Mr. Kranz: We have several alternatives. Our first alternative star ts d u r i n g launchphase. If for some reason we should have any spacecraft problenis orlaunch vehicle problems d ~ ~ r i n ghe launch phase, we have two systems

we can call upon to execute both descent stage ignitions and bothascent stage burns with the "fire in the ho le." Once we get into orbit


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Mr. King:

Sue Butler:

Mr. Low:

we sti l l have these two sequencers we can call on and perform overany site. This w i l l ess ent ia l ly sat isfy a good port ion of our objec-t i ves w i th in a per iod o f t ime o f about four a ~ dne ha lf minutes. Wehave other alterna tes based on certain spacecraft fai lures. Mr. Lo wtalk ed about the L M missio n programmer, This is a very cr i t i ca l com-ponent in the spacecraft. We have techniques developed to workaround certain relay fai lures within that L M miss on programmer.Generally, from a standpoint of sl ip s i n the mission, we have tw ooppo rtunit ies for spacecraft separation. The fir st one is over theCarnarvon si te in the f i rs t revolut io n and the second opportuni ty isover the contine ntal U nited States--excuse me--over Carnarvon, inthe f i r s t revo lu tion, is the f i r s t L M separation oppor tun ity and overthe cont inental Uni ted States at the end of the f i rs t and the beginningo f the second revolut ion. Thereafter, we have one rela t ive ly cr i t ic almaneuver we must perform very close to schedule. That i s the descentpropu lsion number one burn. Thi s occurs on the third revo lutip n overCarnarvon. Once we get past that burn we can es se nt ial ly sl ip theremaining tw o burns, the descent nutnber two burn and the ascentnumber one burn, wh ich are a l l one long sequence of abou t 13 minutesin durat ion. We can sl ip that one revolut ion. I f we accompl ish thatone, then we can come back and s li p the ascent burn number tw o onerevolu tion, so the one major maneuver that a good portion of the mis -sion i s based on i s the de scent propu lsion system number one maneuverover the Coastal Sentry and Carnarvon site in the third revolution.f understand there are no questions from Houston, so we w i l l continuehere at the Cape.I 'd l ike to pursue the weight just a l i t t le further, Mr. Low, i f I might,Fo r instance, cou ld you reassure us about progress being made in theweight of the rendezvous radar, which we real ize won' t f ly t h is t ime,but we understand i s one of the major overw eight items, plu s any others.Could you give us a status report.I 'd l ik e to correct one conir ier~ t ou made. 1 don't think that the ren-dezvous radar is any more of a weight problem than any other component,or the L M or the whole Apo l lo spacecraft. In the Apol o spacecraftprograrn we have bounced again st a weig ht l i m it for components, a l lsystem s and a l l modules of each spacecraft. On the other hand, wedo have this weight l im it wel l def ined and we l l under control so thatwe know that wit h the weights we have now, measured wit h weightsthat we are predicting for those things that have not yet been weighed,the performance capabil i t ies of our propulsion systems and with theamount of propellants we can carry we have a weight s i tuat ion that isvery t ight, but manageable, a weight s itua tion wi th which we canaccomplish the lunar mission,


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Mary Bubb:

Mr. Teir:

Mrs. Bubb:Mr. Teir:

Quest on:

Mr. Low:

Were there changes or modifications made on the booster as a resultof the fire ?

As a result of any damage in the fire there were no major modificationsof any type made, or 1 should say there were no modifications as are su lt of damage in the fire. We have made mod ificatio ns on a l l threeof the stages--or the two stages and the instrument unit--sin ce movingit to Pad 37. 1 would say a good portion of these are mission requiredchanges that must be made and others are changes from R and D infor-ma tion that we get as we con tinue through the program, and inform ationfrom other f l igh t tests, f l igh t tests of 5 0 1 , but none are due direc t lyto any damage i n the fire.The que stion was, were there any major changes made ov er al l?No, there were no major changes that I would c a ll major changes invehicle design made.Fo r Mr. Schneider or Mr. Low. As I ecall , L M - 1 was or ig inal lyscheduled for delivery on November 16, 1966, and it showed up inlate May 1967. In addition, i t was oviginally scheduled, I believe,to be launched in the second quarter of 1967 and it is now beinglaunched i n January 1968 . Could you run down the problems thatcaused thi s long clelay ?I hink 1 can speak specifically only about the problems that haveoccurred since I have been on the Ap ollo program, whic h is sinceabout Ap ril of this las t year. At that t ime, L M - 1 was scheduled fordelivery to KSC, I believe, in May. It was part way through withcheckout ac tiv it i es at the factory. This checkout was completed, andthe only significant problems that we had at that time concerned thespe cial instrumentation for LM-1 , the so-called development fl ig htinstrume ntat ion. We had some harness problems, we had to repla cethe wiririg harness in that, to assure ourselves that our measurementswould h old up through the fl igh t.Fo llo wi ng the delivery, and during the checkout period here at the Cape,the one signif icant di f f icul ty we had was concerned with a large numberof leaks in the prop ellan t system. Now, when we say leaks, we oughtt o be very carefu l to define what we are ta lki ng about. Because we areta lki ng here about minute leaks, measured wi th pressurize d he1 um,escaping extremely sl ow ly through some of the joints. I made a cal-culatio n at one time and I orget the exac t numbers, but tak ing thekind s of lea ks that we had, and i f you had to think in terms of quanti-ties we know, i t wouid take several years to f i l l up a milk bottle, forexample. We are ta lk ing in terms of numbers li ke 10-7 r 3.0-8 ccper second. Yet, we had spe cifica tions for the system that indic ated


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Question:

Mr. Schneider:

Mr. Bergman:

Mr. Petrone:

Mr. Bergman:Mr. Schneider:

Mr. Bergman:

Mr. Schneider:

we had to f ix those leaks and th is took quite a bi t of time. Once wehad fix ed the leaks, L M - 1 was a very good spacecraft in going throughchecko ut here at the Cape. Once we got into the actua l te st and check-out procedures, it went extremely smoothly and very well, and we havehad no significa nt problem.Then perhaps Mr. Schneider could te ll us then, from November 15, 1966,to April, why there was that delay.I'm afraid I can 't --I'm sure we can supply you wi th that inform ationlater.A double barreled question for Rocco Petrone. Do you re al ly mean,Rocco, that you w i l l launch in tot al darkness tomorrow night at seven,eight, nine, or ten, a l l things being the same, i f you are proceedingtoward a good launch setup?Yes. You went down a lit t l e further--total darkness w i l l not affe ctour ab i l i ty t o launch.Right up to midnight or 1 .m. as long as the crew holds ou t?The determining factor w i l l be crew fatigue, and at both here and atHouston and the DOD ac tiv iti es . We say crew, we mean the tot alcrew supporting the mission--launch, f l ght--but that is the deter-mining factor, Jules, not the spec ific time of day.Okay, Second questio n now. For B i l l Schneider, on the mis sion it -se lf. If your mandatory mis sion obje ctive s are no t met, you don 't geta good fli gh t burn, or a fl ig ht burn plus D PS and ascent stage burns,does that mean you w i l l have to refly wi th a L M -2 unmanned, and ifso, how w i l l that influence the manned fl i gh t schedule for the remain-der of 68 and 69 ?Welt, I hink , as was announced by Mr. Webb in our scheduledac ti vi ti es for the year, we do now presently plan a LM-2 on top ofthe 206 veh icle. So, the schedule as outl ined some months agodoes include a LM-2 flight as part of the planning.


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Mr. Bergman: Conversely, Mr. Schneider, i f everything goes we ll on the LM-2,the present flig ht or mis sion profile , what do you hope to prove orf ind out w i th LM-2?Mr. Schneider: LM-2 , j us t li ke the 020 spacecraft, i s configured such that -- l e tme retract and start a l l over -- LM-2 is configured so that it candupl icate the m ission of LM-1 and the plan for a LM-2/206 missionprecisely dupl icates the LM-1/204 mission so i f everything wasachieved, and everything was successful (a nd w ew il l not be able tote l l th at for some timelwe would hope to be able to delete tha t f l ight,the LM-2 f l i gh t .

Imight add this. Th is i s completely in consonance wit h our previousplanning, where from a space craft standpoint, not a launch vehicle-standpoint, the 020/502 f l igh t spacecraft objectives were iden t icaito the 017/501 f l ig ht, so that either one would sati sfy our space-cra ft objective. However, obviously on 502 we'l l have the 502objectives by themselves.

Mr. King: Question was LM-1 and LM-2 the same type of space craf t? Mr.Low answered YE S .Question: We have heard a lo t of tal k today about random fai!ures and repairs,problems wit h regulato rs, rela ys thus and so, and I bel ieve Mr. Tei rwas pleasa ntly surprised how l i t t le damage was caused by the Flo rid aweather, I want to ask just one question and to answer it, I guessB i l l Schneider is it . How confident are you?Mr. Schneider: I would say I am as confident in this mission as I have been in any.We always prepare ourselves completely and we never go forward intolaunch wi th any reservations. We recognize that i n any f l ight , thereare certain things that you cannot pred ict beforehand, but belie ve me,i f I had any reservations or if any of the gentlemen up at th is table hadany reservations, we would be puttin g out an announcement saying wewere not going tomorrow.Albe rt Salestead: Is the second ascent burn the lunar-abo rt simu lation ?Answer: No, the f i rs t ascent burn i s a sim ulation of the lunar abort and i toccurs -- it is in i t iate d whi le the second descent burn is s t i l l inprogress.Question: Following up Jules Bergman's que stion about a launching i n darkness,

I believe we have the same interests at heart. Mr . Schneider po st ~~ la te d


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crew t i r ing based on an 8:00 a.m. laun ch as about 4 i n theafternoon. Have you, among yourselves, decid ed when the crew w i l lget t i red ?Mr. Petrone: Tha t has to be decided i n rea l t ime. So much depends on what theproblem is . You see, you can get cer tain res t. Depending on at whatstage ce rtain things happen we could br ing in certa in people later andwe can do a certain amount of rotation. It is re al l y an i tem we haveto keep our f in gers on throughout the t ime we are proceeding in thecount, whether or not the fatigue problem is one that wi l l bring us tothe point of saying we are not going any further.Mr. King: For the benef i t of those mutual interests we w i l l at tempt to get itbefore the 111 00p .m. news show.Mr. Bergman: Following up these wrong questions and my questions, i f you weremaking a random ball par k guess, what would your guess be as to whencrew fatigue might become such a determining factor that you wouldsa y you'd better scrub ? What t ime of the evening, would you say?Mr, Petrone: Jules , rea lly, tha t's not a thin g to be determined by a computer. Iti s to be determined by people on the f loor at the t ime. And tha tjudgment ju st has to be made ri gh t there, depending upon what yourproblems have been and what our forecast would be for proceeding, thestatus o f support, and there i s so much involve d that you cannot putan arbi t rary l imit on it. Sometimes maybe these l u n a windows helpus, for i f i ts 11 o'cl ock you're through, whether you are ready or not.Bu t in this one, withou t a window set by other factors, it is the crew,and I say both launc h and support around the world. It w i l l have to bedetermined i n real t ime.Question: You'd l ik e to go at two o'c lock tomorrow afternoon?Mr. Petrone: Yes, tha t's when we're going to go.Mr. 'Schneider: I f you're asking i f we're going to go through and n i t p ick it, the answercannot be that we are going to be able to do that, because not onlydo we have to worry about Rocco's crew, bu t we have thir tee n hoursof f l ig ht a ct i v i t y af terward, and we do have al l of the f l igh t control lers,pa rti cu lar ly the Goddard network people who w il l be on the l ine, so i fwe run into troubles ea rly i n the game, then Rocco 's postu latin g aboutgoing on into a late night launch becomes a po ss ibi l i ty . I f we areproceeding down toward a two o'clock in the afternoon launch the samegeneral type of crew restrictions -- four, six, ei gh t hours, so mething


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on that order -- i s a poss ib i l it y . I f there i s going to be any n ightt ime launch I hink you w i l l be able to condi t ion yoursel f to thepo ss ib i l i t y about the same way we are. Yo u'l l get long notice on it.Mrs. Bubb: I f you get a good L M f l ig ht and a good second Saturn V, what do youthink the chances are of manning Apollo 3?Mr. Schneider: That i s one of those qual i fy ing quest ions. You have to s i t here andthink. The spacecraft is being conf igured and the launch vehic le isbeing prepared so that eventual i ty co uld take place, but I wouldn' twant to say anything about the proba bi l i ty that we wi l l be able to do

it u n t i l I hear po st ff ig ht from George Lo w th at the spacec raft, theLM , has passed al l of i t s object ives, and from the launch vehic lepeople that they are sa t isf ied. I cannot say any more than yes, it i sa poss ib i l i t y . We are not preclu ding tha t option, but i t is one thatwe w i l l have to exerc ise.You see, we have a launch vehicl e object ive in there- too. We have tonot on ly have a successful 501 command module t es t and we aretomorrow, I hope, going to have our successful L M f l igh t. We s t i l lhave to get that second successful Saturn V f l ig ht under our bel t too.

, Question: Two ques tions. One for George (Low ) and one for Gene Kran z. Fi rs t,Gene, at what time w i l l you and your crew be coming aboard tomorrowMr. Kranz: The majo r i ty of us w i l l be sleeping i n the crew rest quarters here inthe contro l center and upon no tif i ca tio n that they have picke d up thecount af ter the b ui l t - in hold and completed the in i t i a l s et of commandchecks which wi l l occur immediately af ter pick ing up the count, we wi l lreceiv e not i f ic at io n that they have picked up. We should be on stat ionsometime between three hours -- T minus three hours -- an d T minustw o and a hal f hours.Question: And George, i f a l l tes t object ives are met, can the L M be consideredman-rated after th is f l ight or wi l l .it also have to depend on the outcomeo f L T A - 8 ?Mr. Low: Certa inly we ' l l have to depend also on the outcome of L T A - 8 and anumber of other tests -- ground tests that are going on and wil l con-tinue to go on for some time yet. We have not yet comp letely qua lif i eda ll subsystems for manned fl ig ht i n ground tests.Mr. Benedict : ' Mr. Schneider, in your recent Washington press conference you men-t ioned the po ss ib i l i ty that even i f you d idn ' t ach ieve orb i t you mig i l t


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st i l l be able to car ry out a lo t o f the L M mission object ives. I ' d l i k eto ask Gene (Kranz) how this co uld be possible, just w hat the opt ionsare here.Mr. Kranz: They are basic al ly dur ing the launch phase. The powered f l ig ht phase

is ten minutes i n durat ion. From about two minutes and thi r teenseconds, or about the normal sta gin g time, we ena ble the -- what weca l l t he -- abort moni tor rout ine. From th is per iod on un t i l we insertinto orbi t we have three poss ible al terna t ives. We have a cont ingencyorb i t decis ion a l ternat ive s imi lar to that which was d iscussed i n the501 and wh ich ex i s t s i n t he 5 0 2 mission. They are ess en t ial ly thesame. In addi t ion tor this , i f for some spacecraf t or launch vehicleproblem after staging we should end up faced with an abort si tuation,we can execute what we ca l l a LGC suborbital sequence. Th ispart icu lar sequence pressu r ized the RCF system, separates the space-cra f t from the launch vehicle, ini t ia tes a very short descent numberone descent propu lsion sys tem burn; we'd have a short coast t ime,wou ld reig nite the descent prop ulsion system, go to a 3 0 0 percentthro tt le on the descent system, an abort stage, and l ig ht off the ascentengine. We'd aga in have a short coast sequence and reig nite theascent engine i n a per iod of twenty seconds or s ix ty seconds, dependingupon wh ich sequence we choose.I 'd l i ke to po int out that what you have in your press k i t says we aregoing to do certain maneuvers at cer tain t imes in a planned f l ight .Once thi s f l igh t gets underway, because of the t rajectory l im i tat io nsas wel l as the computer l imi tat ions, it may well require a great dealof real t irne f l ig ht plann ing to reshape that f l ig ht plan and we won' twant to be judged b y the f l i gh t plan you have in your press ki t . Thereare many ways of acc ompl ishing the ob ject ive s of this f l ig ht and wemay well have to choose them once we get into orbit.

Question: There was one thing i did n' t qui te get clear ear l ier when they weretalk ing about af ter you load the cryogenics -- star t loading them --a t T minus three hours and thi rty minutes. You sai d after tha t i f yo uhad to recyc le you'd have to rec ycl e for four days, but I wasn't surefor how long you cou ld hold dur ing that per iod. ' What would be themaximum length of t irne?Mr. Petrone: 'Th e quant i t ies i n our storage containers -- I 'm assuming no otherproblems and that it i s j us t a quest ion of replenishment -- we haveautomatic replenishment going on and we also have planned to re-topour storage containers. Le t 's say there was a problem other than tha tat the pad. We then could cyc le i n transfer trucks to re-top our large


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storage containers -- they now have some 125 ,000 gal lons of l iqu idhydrogen and l i q u id oxygen, so I hink you have to get back to thefa ct the problem comes wi t hin the bounds of crew fat igue. We wi l lhave enough hydrogen and LOX i n our containers to take us throughthe window of the human factor.

Mr. King: As is the usual case i n Apollo, we have several gentlemen who needto catch a plane, and I see Mr. DeLo ng has the only hand up, sowe' l l take that as the f inal quest ion.Mr. DeLong: Wha t are your weather co nstra ints on lau nch and the lon g range fore-cas t? Does it l ook l i ke . . . .Mr. Petrone: We see noth ing in the foreca st we got here a few hours ago to ind ica tetha t there shou ld be any problem to launch ing tomorrow or i n theimmediate days ahead.Mr. King: Before we f in ish up, Col . Tei r wanted to make a br ie f statement.Mr. Teir: I wanted to make one comment in answering the question on changesafter 204. I di d not mean to indicate tha t we have neglected anylessons learned. We have made several safety reviews and havemade sorne minor changes i n the vehic le as a re su lt of those. Theseare changes that are considered minor i n ci rcu i t ry and things l ik e that ,bu t no major change, and none as a r esu l i o f it . We have tried toapply the lesson s learned to a lairnch veh icle o f this type.Mr. King: One f in al matter of logi st i cs . As far as trans porta t ion to the presssi t e tomorrow, bus t ransportat ion w i l l star t at about T minus fourhours i n the count, and the l as t bus w i l l depart from here at aboutT minus si xt y minutes. The buses w i l l also stop at the south gateof the Cape on the way out. Thank you very much.

Documents

Apollo 5 Pre-Launch Press Conference