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Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / 068:57:10 Discussion about DPS engine liner problem

« Last post by MadDogBV on September 24, 2023, 11:06:39 am »

This was a topic actually discussed in the 13 Things That Saved Apollo 13 series. The decision to use the LM DPS engine to perform a PC+2 abort and fly around the Moon was considered one of the most vital choices ever made to save the lives of the crew, as it discarded the need to use an SPS engine that (at that time) was in unknown condition given its location in proximity to the explosion.

However, although DPS aborts had been practiced in sims, there was a concern regarding whether the engine liner could stand the treatment of a long burn of 800 ft/s or greater, particularly after having already used it for a midcourse to free return and with two more MCCs planned after the abort burn. During the Accident+1 Griffin shift, FIDO Dave Reed and CONTROL John Wegener discuss these potential problems, as it has a pretty major effect on their abort planning.

Link: https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=068:57:00&ch=56

Note that due to the tape drift glitch, the GOSS-4 loop is used to capture CONTROL's portion of this conversation.

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Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / Re: Apollo 13 Film vs Reality

« Last post by MadDogBV on September 22, 2023, 01:52:07 pm »

Every time they tried to get BIOMED data on the return voyage home, the signal strength was just too weak to bring back anything useful to the ground, since the POWERAMP for the transceiver was turned off in order to save power. It also interfered with comm and tracking, so the flight directors hesitated to bring it up each time the surgeons asked for it. Example here when INCO Hanchett and SURGEON Ziegleschmidt negotiate with Glynn Lunney: https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=093:25:23&ch=7

As far as what was done for Fred Haise's fever - I don't think anything was done, certainly not on the ground. The infection became truly acute at the end of the mission, and nothing was ever mentioned on the loops about it. Everybody was trying to focus on getting the spacecraft configured for a successful re-entry. From the Flight Journal:

Undiscussed on the air to ground radio loop, Fred is feeling worse for wear. He has developed a urinary tract infection as a result of insufficient water intake.

Lovell, from 1970 Technical debrief: "Fred woke up with chills before we did midcourse correction 7."

Haise, from 1970 Technical debrief: "Yes. I wasn't sure what gave me the chills. I was back in the CM at about that time, and I had to go to the bathroom. I stripped naked in the 42 degree temperature ricocheted around touching bare metal, and it just chilled me to the bone every time I'd touch anything. You can't help but bounce all around in there. I was really cold for the next 4 hours. From that time on, it sort of began to catch up with me. I began to feel tired. Before that, I really didn't feel much effect at all."

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General Discussion / Re: Apollo 13 Mission Ops Report - Sections of interest

« Last post by MadDogBV on September 17, 2023, 09:47:04 am »

ITEM 2 - The Mailbox

Well, this hardly needs any introduction. The CSM LiOH cartridge adapter: It's one of just many improvisations created by the engineers of Apollo 13 to get the crew home. Of course, it should be noted that there were multiple methods being considered to scrub out carbon dioxide from the spacecraft, and Sy Liebergot briefly mentions one such method on the FLIGHT loop during Gerry Griffin's first shift after the accident, at around 70:27. However, this was the one that flight control and the crew eventually settled on. By the time that Milt Windler assumes command of the MOCR after the PC+2 burn, manned spaceflight has already christened it with a name: The Mailbox.

There are multiple diagrams to be found of this contraption online, particularly on the Apollo 13 Flight Journal. This diagram attached was the copy that was included in the Mission Ops Report. You can see that the TELMU engineers have taken a Xerox of the diagram of the then most recent iteration of the LM (note the date at the top-left corner of 2/20/70) and added their own drawings and notes to indicate how the Mailbox was to be configured.

From TELMU section, enclosure:

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Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / Re: "While we're playing these games": Dick Brown's role in EECOM

« Last post by MadDogBV on September 17, 2023, 09:20:29 am »

I don't remember if I ever pointed this out, but in the Apollo 13 Mission Operations Report, the EECOM team gives a brief shout-out to the EPS team for their performance during the anomaly. That would, of course, zero in on Dick Brown as he was the prime EPS responsible for tracking the O2 Tanks. Considering that many hundreds or thousands of people who saved Apollo 13 went unnamed in history, and considering that the majority of the Mission Ops report spends about 90-95% of its text discussing problems, anomalies, recommendations for change, etc., this is high praise indeed.

And as well it should have been: He gave recommendations to power down, advised on whether the voltage current could hack the loads during troubleshooting, and he made the call (which John Aaron passed up) to turn on battery A when fuel cell 2 finally bit the dust. Even after this was done, he kept track of the battery usage, which would become essential later when the procedure was created to charge the CSM batteries from the LM.

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General Discussion / Re: Other Apollo Missions

« Last post by MadDogBV on September 12, 2023, 12:52:55 pm »

As noted in an earlier post, there was a delay - likely as a result of COVID-19 and budget constraints - and it looks like the end date of the project was pushed back to August 2024 according to NSF's award page.

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General Discussion / Re: Other Apollo Missions

« Last post by Kasper on September 12, 2023, 08:58:41 am »

Okay. But what do you mean with a hold up?

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Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / Re: 057:53:58 Kamman and Hutchinson need quick and dirty answer on IMU heaters

« Last post by MadDogBV on September 11, 2023, 01:57:12 pm »

There was definitely an operational MER during Apollo 13. Throughout the mission on most of the loops - the first 2/3 of the Kranz shift just before the accident is a good example - the controllers make reference to Building 45 and Don Arabian. Bldg. 45 was the location of the MER, and Don Arabian was its leader. During that shift, he and the SPAN bigwigs (Joe Roach and a few others) talked about how they were going to bleed down the SHe (supercritical helium) if the telemetry showed excessively high readings during the LM pass.

The problem apparently was so critical that when Kranz called up SPAN to let them know he was powering up the LM early, there was nobody available in SPAN to give him either a go or no-go. The controller who answered him, Bill Blair, was a North American contractor. 😅

Link: https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=053:22:11&ch=50

During and after the accident, the MER spread out to encompass nearly the entire Manned Spacecraft Center as they vacuumed up controllers and contractors, working furiously to develop procedures and solve imminent problems regarding the spacecraft. John Wegener, who was the CONTROL during one of the Griffin shifts during translunar coast, is never seen or heard from again after that shift. It's plausible to guess he was conscripted for MER duty, and I'm sure there were others.

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Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / Re: 057:53:58 Kamman and Hutchinson need quick and dirty answer on IMU heaters

« Last post by bfeist on September 11, 2023, 10:13:50 am »

Today Mission Control uses a similar structure where the engineers who designed a piece of equipment are available during EVA. They sit in a room called the Mission Evaluation Room (MER) and when the crew runs into a problem such as a bolt that won't turn, the person who can answer the exact torque tolerances of that bolt is available on the loop. I don't know what the history of this structure in mission control is, but it's very likely that it's due to the occurrences that happened during apollo 13.

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Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / Re: 057:53:58 Kamman and Hutchinson need quick and dirty answer on IMU heaters

« Last post by kendradog on September 11, 2023, 04:25:17 am »

One of them says that they are "down to one fuel cell". I'm not sure if Dick Freund understood fully that they would soon have not one but rather zero fuel cells remaining in about 10 minutes.

I love these dialogs between the specialists in one system who want the whole spacecraft to support that system and the Flight Director. It was critical that Flight, whether Gene Kranz or here Glynn Lunney, understood the technical details and how they all fit together and could make key decisions.

This also reminds me of the Kranz speech in the movie about how they want to contact every person who built every component on the spacecraft. It is kind of impressive that they could quickly get to the IMU or IMU heater manufacturer to get a quick test of how it would respond to cold temperatures. It's really rather extraordinary, that means of all the thousands of critical components in the entire spacecraft, NASA must have had the manufacturers standing by for immediate, expert advice and even testing. What an amazing time.

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Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / 057:53:58 Kamman and Hutchinson need quick and dirty answer on IMU heaters

« Last post by MadDogBV on September 09, 2023, 11:03:38 am »

This is one of the greatest examples of having to evaluate quick decision-making during a crisis, in the midst of what is likely considered the apogee of peril during the Apollo 13 mission, minutes before an imminent shutdown of the CSM and the LM not yet being operational.

GNC Jack Kamman makes a call to an IMU heater expert to determine whether the heaters need to be powered up for the crew to return home safely. Then someone else jumps into the call in the nick of time to clarify the nature of the question. The person they are calling is probably Dick Freund, based on the dialogue in the call as well as the fact that he makes reference to "AC doing a study". That "AC" is ACDelco, a subsidiary of General Motors. They were the manufacturer of the IMU used inside the command module, and in the flight controller assignment list, Dick is identified as an employee of that company.

https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=057:53:58&ch=18