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Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / Re: 116:58:07 Trench creates the Flight Dynamics re-entry checklist
« Last post by bfeist on April 01, 2024, 12:47:02 pm »This is awesome!
This forum is for discussion about content found on https://apolloinrealtime.org
Very little of the thousands of hours of Mission Control audio on the website has been heard or documented. As you find moments of interest, post them here for discussion.
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52
Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / 116:58:07 Trench creates the Flight Dynamics re-entry checklist
« Last post by MadDogBV on March 22, 2024, 12:20:34 pm »Apollo geeks and flight dynamics nerds brace yourselves - this is going to be your lucky day.
This is by far the highlight of the FIDO loop. During the Black Team shift starting at around 110-112 GET, FIDO Dave Reed, RETRO Chuck Deiterich and GUIDO Ken Russell are manning the trench along with YAW Will Pressley. This will also be the same group of personnel that works the White Team's shift during re-entry.
Dave, a stickler for organization and "doing the right thing", sets aside time with Chuck and Ken to draft a re-entry checklist for the flight dynamics team during the hours leading up to entry interface. This is required due to the massive amount of work needing to be done in a very short timespan, getting both the CSM reactivated and aligned, the service module and LM jettisoned, and the midcourse correction required to stay in the corridor.
What follows from this point on is truly remarkable: an unbroken three-way discussion that goes on for over an hour, essentially a planning meeting taking place on a live MOCR loop. During this time, Dave has backup personnel respond to inquiries from other flight controllers so that his team can focus on drafting the checklist. Presumably, he got permission from Lunney to do this since even FLIGHT avoids bugging him with questions. (AFD is not so lucky when he tries later on.)
RETRO: https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=116:58:07&ch=19
FIDO: https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=116:58:07&ch=20
This is by far the highlight of the FIDO loop. During the Black Team shift starting at around 110-112 GET, FIDO Dave Reed, RETRO Chuck Deiterich and GUIDO Ken Russell are manning the trench along with YAW Will Pressley. This will also be the same group of personnel that works the White Team's shift during re-entry.
Dave, a stickler for organization and "doing the right thing", sets aside time with Chuck and Ken to draft a re-entry checklist for the flight dynamics team during the hours leading up to entry interface. This is required due to the massive amount of work needing to be done in a very short timespan, getting both the CSM reactivated and aligned, the service module and LM jettisoned, and the midcourse correction required to stay in the corridor.
What follows from this point on is truly remarkable: an unbroken three-way discussion that goes on for over an hour, essentially a planning meeting taking place on a live MOCR loop. During this time, Dave has backup personnel respond to inquiries from other flight controllers so that his team can focus on drafting the checklist. Presumably, he got permission from Lunney to do this since even FLIGHT avoids bugging him with questions. (AFD is not so lucky when he tries later on.)
RETRO: https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=116:58:07&ch=19
FIDO: https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=116:58:07&ch=20
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General Discussion / Re: Identifying speakers/ Mission Control teams
« Last post by bfeist on March 22, 2024, 11:04:50 am »My apologies. I recently had to move this forum to a new host and misconfigured the attachment system. It should be working now.
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General Discussion / Re: Identifying speakers/ Mission Control teams
« Last post by MadDogBV on March 20, 2024, 08:37:54 am »It's a webhost issue; the files are still technically there, just inaccessible and locked off until the webhost makes them available again. I did save a local copy. Here it is: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y9mjRT6vvmsq9Gy7xcAoAdRP8NM0d2Ko/view?usp=sharing
As others have mentioned, the MOCR manning situation is a mess post-accident and it's not out of the realm of possibility to hear two or more distinct voices on a loop during any given shift (Greene, Boone, Stoval, and Reed can all be heard on the FIDO loop throughout the GET 90+00 White team shift.
As others have mentioned, the MOCR manning situation is a mess post-accident and it's not out of the realm of possibility to hear two or more distinct voices on a loop during any given shift (Greene, Boone, Stoval, and Reed can all be heard on the FIDO loop throughout the GET 90+00 White team shift.
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General Discussion / Re: Identifying speakers/ Mission Control teams
« Last post by ke6jjj on March 10, 2024, 07:10:03 pm »The attachement has gone 404 again. 
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Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / 089:30:00 Trench can't keep track of all the meetings going on
« Last post by MadDogBV on February 21, 2024, 08:53:05 am »It is now 8:43AM local time. FAO Bob Lindsey is reaching out to RETRO (but instead getting FIDO Bill Boone) to ask whether there's going to be an 8am re-entry meeting. Boone doesn't know about that - but he does know about Bill Tyndall's data priority meeting, and he wonders if perhaps that's what FAO means?
Link: https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=089:30:00&ch=20
Apollo 13 was on its way back to Earth. Although the PC+2 abort burn was executed as correctly as could be under the circumstances (with subsequent tracking indicating that a MCC5 would still be necessary), flight control still had one major problem to contend with: re-entry - all the activities that would be needed in the last six hours of flight.
One of the most key aspects of Apollo 13 after the oxygen tank disaster is the total, industry-wide mobilization that occurred in order to solve rapidly-developing problems that urgently needed an answer by a certain timeframe. From one end of the Manned Spacecraft Center to the other, there was one practice that was a near-constant throughout the mission: Meetings. Meetings. Meetings. Sometimes planned, but more often improvised, all to tackle different problems, all vacuuming up different flight controllers with all of their varying levels of expertise.
This is why when listening to the FD loops after the abort burn, you sometimes can hear up to 3 or 4 different officers manning one station during a single shift. They frequently had to be swapped out as managers such as Gene Kranz, Bill Tyndall, Neil Hutchinson and Jerry Bostick yoinked controllers and brought them from one meeting to the next.
Link: https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=089:30:00&ch=20
Apollo 13 was on its way back to Earth. Although the PC+2 abort burn was executed as correctly as could be under the circumstances (with subsequent tracking indicating that a MCC5 would still be necessary), flight control still had one major problem to contend with: re-entry - all the activities that would be needed in the last six hours of flight.
One of the most key aspects of Apollo 13 after the oxygen tank disaster is the total, industry-wide mobilization that occurred in order to solve rapidly-developing problems that urgently needed an answer by a certain timeframe. From one end of the Manned Spacecraft Center to the other, there was one practice that was a near-constant throughout the mission: Meetings. Meetings. Meetings. Sometimes planned, but more often improvised, all to tackle different problems, all vacuuming up different flight controllers with all of their varying levels of expertise.
This is why when listening to the FD loops after the abort burn, you sometimes can hear up to 3 or 4 different officers manning one station during a single shift. They frequently had to be swapped out as managers such as Gene Kranz, Bill Tyndall, Neil Hutchinson and Jerry Bostick yoinked controllers and brought them from one meeting to the next.
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Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / 061:27:28 Burn time freakout: "Is he loaded correctly?!"
« Last post by MadDogBV on February 16, 2024, 02:44:11 pm »Within three minutes of the free return burn, FLIGHT Glynn Lunney suddenly notices that the wall clock in the MOCR is off by a large amount. Once RETRO Tom Weichel provides a countdown from his retro clock indicating the time left before the burn, Glynn suddenly becomes a lot more animated over the loop.
It was shortly thereafter determined that the wall clock had been improperly set by the comm staff, and that both the spacecraft and the retro clock were properly synchronized to the burn time.
Link: https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=061:27:28&ch=19
As an addendum, later before the PC+2 burn, FIDO Bill Stoval (also in the MOCR at the time of the free return burn, sitting next to Bill Boone) reminds Bobby Spencer to check the wall and retro clock to make sure both are aligned - "I'd hate to get zapped on that one again."
It was shortly thereafter determined that the wall clock had been improperly set by the comm staff, and that both the spacecraft and the retro clock were properly synchronized to the burn time.
Link: https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=061:27:28&ch=19
As an addendum, later before the PC+2 burn, FIDO Bill Stoval (also in the MOCR at the time of the free return burn, sitting next to Bill Boone) reminds Bobby Spencer to check the wall and retro clock to make sure both are aligned - "I'd hate to get zapped on that one again."
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General Discussion / Re: Mobile Device Website Issue
« Last post by RobatRobot on February 07, 2024, 06:09:59 pm »No rush. History isn't going anywhere. Glad you're still engaged with it. My projects are notoriously unfinished. Thanks for the update. 
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General Discussion / Re: Mobile Device Website Issue
« Last post by bfeist on February 05, 2024, 06:27:08 pm »My apologies for how sub-par the mobile version of AiRT is. It's entirely due to me running out of time when building the original app. There's work in progress now to redesign/build the whole web experience. This time around, mobile will be given much more consideration.
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Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / 110:32:09 GUIDO gives the first words on CSM alignment techniques to CAPCOM
« Last post by MadDogBV on February 05, 2024, 09:53:53 am »This is prompted by a question from Jim Lovell, who wanted to know how the command module will be aligned for re-entry, particularly with the LM still hanging onto it. As far as I know, these are the absolute first ever words spoken over the Flight Director loop regarding the actual techniques involved. It comes across as a somewhat informal conversation, with GUIDO Gary Renick essentially walking through the process and CAPCOM Jack Lousma repeating his own interpretation of the words back to him (off the loop), to make sure that his understanding is correct for when he passes it up to the crew.
There's a lot of background noise on the GUIDO and CAPCOM loops, so for the sake of ease on the ears, this is just the isolated flight director loop.
LINK: https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=110:32:39&ch=50
There's a lot of background noise on the GUIDO and CAPCOM loops, so for the sake of ease on the ears, this is just the isolated flight director loop.
LINK: https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=110:32:39&ch=50