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Apollo 11 Technical Crew Debriefing, Volume 1 (scan)

NASA via ibiblio · 1969-07-31 · 251 pages · text by OCR

This is Volume 1 of NASA's Apollo 11 Technical Crew Debriefing, dated July 31, 1969. The Mission Operations Branch of the Flight Crew Support Division at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston prepared it, and it was originally classified Confidential. In it Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins go phase by phase through suiting, launch, powered flight, Earth orbit and lunar surface activities. They comment on suit fit, vibration, checklists, lunar dust, footing and poor sleeping conditions in the lunar module. A section titled Visual Sightings appears in the table of contents.

  • p. 15 …LIGHTS ARMSTRONG Launch vehicle lights, roll program, pitch program, roll complete were on time, as were…
  • p. 41 …Then, just as in the simulator, the DAP rolled itself out. It ceased its pitch rate…
  • p. 43 …I did have a slight roll misalignment. I knew I had a slight roll misalignment, but…
  • p. 48 …It definitely had a good roll to it moving away. ## CONFIDENTIAL
  • p. 63 …roll angle is unconstrained in that with large trunnion angles, the computer may pick a roll…
  • p. 64 …being furnished to me in regard to roll angles. However, I didn't. That's one…
  • p. 65 …What they meant was that the spacecraft did not have to be rolled in such a…
  • p. 66 …very large, and you have an obvious roll on its alignment in the reticle, then it…
  • p. 79 …We always used 0.3 deg/sec roll and we never tried the 0.1. It…
  • p. 111 …There is a constraint on 2-jet roll, 4-jet roll, and no-jet roll, depending…
  • p. 150 …While flying AOT, you depend on the other crewmember to assure you that the roll gimbal…
  • p. 158 …It was then that I clearly realized that we weren't rolling as fast as was…
  • p. 216 …The part that had been melted, separated, and rolled back or peeled back on the secondary…
  • p. 224 …d know what is inside a certain roll. In many cases, there is nothing in it…
  • p. 227 …When it rolled up, it had a tendency to sneak off to the side and crinkle…
  • p. 247 …Also, I could roll over on one side or on the other. I had the two…
  • p. 248 …more horizontal position or the capability to roll from one side to the other. That's…
## CONFIDENTIAL

trying to check all that out. It turned out to be sort of a witch hunt. For future flights, they might check into which is the best control mode for extracting the LM. I think it's okay the way we did it; but, if one of the springs gets hung up and throws you sideways, it may be better to do that maneuver under SCS control rather than CMC, FREE.

There were no abnormal dynamics. The thing backed out absolutely symmetrically as far as I could tell.

## 5.28 VEHICLE DYNAMICS OF CSM/LM

## DURING EJECTION FROM S-IVB

## 5.29 ADEQUACY OF ATTITUDE CONTROL AND STABILITY

The S-IVB was always very stable prior to, during, and after LM separation. SM RCS plumes had absolutely no effect on visibility or on S-IVB stability.

## 5.32 EVASIVE MANEUVERS

We thought at one time we might be somewhat rushed during that time period. It turned out that was comfortable and we were prepared to do the evasive maneuver. We could have done it 5 or 10 minutes earlier than it was called for. Luckily, it is not a maneuver that is time-critical. I think the present scheme of causing the S-IVB to overburn by

# CONFIDENTIAL

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Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. The text was read from the page images by an OCR model; expect the odd misread word. 251 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.