Spacelog Apollo 11

Look at data on the DSKY. It's stabilized and is holding steady now.

Roger.

Looking out the window I can see a number of small craters on the bottom of Schubert N.

We're coming up on the Foaming Sea where I'll be doing some P22 marking on a crater of my choice, name of crater, Camp.

Okay. We'll be watching for Neper.

And notice register 3 has reversed itself, and it's heading back the other way now without any pitch thruster firing.

Roger, Mike. We confirm that you've changed the direction of your pitch rate.

Generally speaking —

The crater —

— The tendency seems to be to pull the LM down toward the center of the Moon there as in a gravity gradient experiment.

Roger, 11. We copy —

It may have something to do with MASSCON's or it may —

Roger. We copy …

…

It may have something to do with MASSCON's or it may just be the peculiarity of the DSKY display.

Okay. We've observed the behavior of your DSKY, and I think we've got the data here to work on it. Let us grind around a little while on it, and we'll report back to you, probably in a REV or two.

Okay. Well, in the meantime, I'm going to pitch down toward 315.

Roger.

Three craters—three horizontal craters that you now have in the field of view are immediately underneath the ground track. The right hand is the largest crater that you see, Dubiago P.

Roger. We concur on the identification of that crater.

And we show you coming up on landmark Alfa 1 here shortly.

Roger. Mike's having his first look at Alfa 1 at the present time.

Yea. It's a very bright crater. It's not a large one but an extremely bright one. It looks like a very recent and, I would guess, impact crater with rays streaming out in all directions which should make my—Correction—the Foaming Sea easy to see coming up on it now. Crater Camp is one of the smaller ones out on the—on the floor of the Foaming Sea.

Here we show you over the Sea of Fertility now, and we ought to have Langrenus down south of track a few degrees, about 9 degrees south of track.

Now the crater that's in the center of the screen now is Webb. We'd be looking straight down on it at about 6 minutes before power descent. It has a relatively flat bottom to the crater, and you can see maybe two or three craters that are in the bottom of it on the western wall, the wall that's now nearest the—the camera. Near the bottom of the screen, we can see a dimple crater, just on the outside. And then coming back toward the bottom of the screen and to the left, you can see a series of depressions. It's this type of connected craters that give us most interest to discover why they're in the particular pattern that they're in. I'll zoom the camera in now and try and give you a closer look at it.

Roger. We're observing the dimple crater now. The central peak we can see on the Orbiter photos doesn't seem to stand out very well here.

Well, they're not central peaks. They're depressions in the center.

Roger.

And you'll notice on the pitch thruster activity, I've still—I've put in a dozen minimum impulses in pitchdown, and I'm still far from correcting back to 315.

We're moving the camera over to the right window now to give you Langrenus, its—its several central peaks and -

Roger. We got Langrenus in our screen now.

Okay, 11. This is Houston. We're getting a beautiful picture of Langrenus now with its rather conspicuous central peak.

The Sea of Fertility doesn't look very fertile to me. I don't know who named it.

Well, it may have been named by a gentleman whom this crater was named after, Langrenus. Langrenus was a cartographer to the King of Spain and made one of the—one of the early reasonably accurate maps of the Moon.

Roger. That's very interesting —

… at least it sounds better for our purposes than the Sea of Crises.

Amen to that.

Okay. It looks like you're coming inside now on the camera.

Well, I can't get behind to see the monitor. I'll bring the focus in, but we're going to be looking down past one of the LM quads and one of the antennas almost straight down at the ground track that we'll be seeing coming in now. I guess there's maybe 2 or 3 minutes before power descent.

All right, that should put the LM structure about in focus, and I'm going to move it out to infinity and then expand the field of view.

Crater Secchi is out my window now, window number 2.

Hello, Apollo 11. This is Houston. We show you coming up on the terminator at 78 53, about 7 minutes from now, and we've also got the LOI 2 and TEI 5 PAD's ready for you after the TV whenever you want to terminate. Over.

Roger.

And we're getting a good view of the track leading into the landing site now and -

Okay, And it looks like we got Secchi K, went by about 10 seconds ago; coming up on Apollo Ridge.

And in the right hand portion of our screen right now, we can see Messier Alfa and Bravo with the light colored rays streaming off in one direction.

I don't know if you can make out, but in the Sea of Fertility there are a number of craters that are just barely discernible, old, old craters whose outlines are just barely able to be seen.

Roger. I think we can make them out. The color really enhances our ability to discern features and craters over what we see in real time on our black and white monitor.

Right. The—At these low Sun angles, there's no trace of brown, it's now returned to a very gray appearance and, like the 8 crew says, it has a look of plaster of paris to it at this Sun angle, which is completely lacking in …

Roger.

Okay. This is very close to ignition point for power descent. Just passing Mount Marilyn that—that triangular shaped mountain that you see in the center of the screen at the present time with crater Secchi Theta on top of the far northern edge of the mountain.

Roger. We're getting a good view of Mount Marilyn and the Secchi Theta.

And now we're looking at what we call Boot Hill; occurs 20 seconds into the descent.

The bright, sharp rimmed crater at the very right edge of the screen, Censorinus T. Now passing the—the 1 minute point in power descent.

Roger. And for your information, your current altitude is 148 nautical miles above the surface.

Don't you think?

I'm unable to determine altitude at all looking out the window. I couldn't tell whether we were down at 60 or up at 170.

I bet you could tell if you were down at 50,000 feet.

I wouldn't be surprised.

We're passing some steep ridges here. The edge of some old craters that were photographed by Apollo 10; and those—the crew of Apollo 10 was very impressed with the steepness of these ridges when they came over them at about 50,000 feet.

Roger. We can observe they're also steep even from this altitude. You got quite a shadow being cast by the Sun at these low angles.

The entire surface is getting considerably darker than the surface that we looked at previously when the Sun was quite high above us. The crater in the—bright crater in the center of the screen,—well, the smaller one is Censorinus.

Roger. And we show you low over 1 minute from the terminator at the present time.

How's the brightness of the picture you're receiving? You think we ought to open f stop some as we approach the terminator?

Yes. The brightness is still doing quite well. You can go ahead and open it up a stop or two. The automatic light level compensation seems to be working beautifully.

There's a good picture of Boot Hill.

Roger. We're —

Three minutes and 15 seconds into the descent.

Roger. We're seeing Boot Hill now.

The next crater coming into the bottom, that's Duke Island right there, and to the left, the crater—the largest of the craters near the center of the picture right now is Maskelyne W. This is a position check during descent at about 3 minutes and 39 seconds, and it's our down range position check and cross range position check prior to yawing over face up to acquire the landing radar. Past this point, we would be unable to see the surface below us until getting very near the landing area.

Roger. I imagine you'll get a—you'll get a real good look at that tomorrow afternoon.

Sinuous Rille is the one that was referred to in Apollo 10 as Sidewinder.

That's a good name, too: Sidewinder and Diamondback. It looks like a couple of snakes down there in a lake bed.

And we're approaching the terminator now. See the —

Roger.

Contrast has increased and only the sunlit side of these ridges remain illuminated, while the dark sides and the shadow will become completely black.

11, this is Houston. The picture's getting a little grainy now. You might go ahead and open up the f stop.

Landing point is just barely in the darkness. That one crater, the upper part of which you see, lower part completely in darkness. The small, well defined crater is Moltke, which is about abeam of the landing sight.

Roger. We can just see; it looks like a little less than half of its rim right now.

And we can make out just barely some features on the surface, maybe from earthshine.

Are you wide open on the f stop at this time?

Yes, we are.

Yes. And it looks like we're just about to get the Sun coming into the lens, so we'll have to move the camera away.

Roger.

We can't see any earthshine or any surface features at all in earthshine now due to the fact that the LM is very bright and is causing our pupils to contract. It's a very fantastic view to see the terminator as you look along the edge of it. I think you'll agree that some of these craters that you're seeing in the picture now are really accentuated by the lengthening of the shadows as they come close to the terminator.

Yes. It's a very beautiful and a rugged sight that we've got on the screen now.

And I think you've got some interesting data on thruster firing versus pitch angle. It looks like that LM just wants to head down towards the surface, is all.

Roger. I have a comment here that says that's what the LM was built for.

I believe!

And as the Moon sinks slowly in the west, Apollo 11 bids good day to you.

Roger. We sort of thought it was the Sun setting in the east.

Well, it depends on your point of view.

Roger. Out.

Apollo 11, Houston. When you're ready to copy, I have an LOI 2 PAD and a TEI 5 PAD. Over.

Okay. Stand by.

I'm passing 182 inertial. I'm going inertial now.

Ready to copy LOI 2 PAD.

Roger, LOI 2: SPS/G&N: 38320, plus 166, minus 081 080 11 3603, minus 01408, minus all balls, minus 00743, all zeros, 196 359 00657, plus 00537, 01592 017 01531 23 1160 138. Vega, Deneb 243 183 012, two jet 19 seconds, DAP, R1 20101. Sextant star between 79 30 10 and 79 52 10. Attitude is heads down, retrograde pitched up 28 degrees. HA after the burn—Was that NOUN 42 for HA and 64.6 and HP 54.6? Over.

Roger. On the NOUN 42 value, the last stuff you gave, HA is 65.6, HP is 54.6. Otherwise, I readback correct. I'm standing by with your TEI 5 PAD. Over.

Roger. HA 65.6 for NOUN 42. And ready to copy.

11, this is Houston. TEI 5 SPS/G&N: 37201, minus 060, plus 047; TIG 086 09 3666. NOUN 81: plus 33521, plus 03441, minus 01458; roll NA, pitch 032. The rest of the PAD is NA. Ullage two jet, 16 seconds undocked. Over.

Roger. TEI 5 SPS/G&N: 37201, minus 060, plus 047 086 09 3666, plus 33521, plus 03441, minus 0145 458, NA, 032. The rest is NA. Two jet, 16 seconds, undocked. Over.

Apollo 11, this is Houston. Readback is correct. Out.

Apollo 11, this is Houston.

Houston, you want us back on downvoice backup? Over.

Apollo 11, this is Houston. That's affirmative on the downvoice backup. We'd like you to confirm your UPTELEMETRY switch in the NORMAL position. Over.

Roger. It's in BLOCK. Did you get us the—You got us a new CSM state vector and an LOI 2 target load in between all that television, didn't you?

That's affirmative.

Thank you.

And what I'm asking for is the switchover to —

The UPTELEMETRY switch is in NORMAL. Over.

Apollo 11, this is Houston. Over.

Go ahead, Houston.

Roger. During the LOI 1 burn, your engine burned a little bit more propellant than we predicted, and consequently, we'd like to update—or send you a new TEI 4 PAD. Over.

Okay.

Our chamber pressure onboard was higher that time, too. It's all on the onboard tape, the time entry, and the chamber pressure; but to make a long story short, it worked its way up to 100.

Roger.

And down here, we showed a chamber pressure of on the order of 103 to 104 psi during your burn on playback.

Okay.

Go ahead with the TEI 4.

Roger. TEI 4 revised: SPS/G&N: 38320, minus 055, plus 060 084 30 2749, plus 31380, plus 03475, minus 01032; roll NA, pitch 034. Rest of the PAD is NA. Ullage two jets 16 seconds, undocked. No LOI 2. Over.

Just in TEI 4 SPS/G&N: 38320, minus 055, plus 060 084 30 2749, plus 31380, plus 03475, minus 01032, NA, 034. All the rest of the PAD's NA. Two jets, 16 seconds, undocked. No LOI 2.

Apollo 11, this is Houston.

Roger. Go ahead, Houston.

Roger. We've been looking at your systems data on playback, and everything is looking good. In particular, the SPS looks good. I would like to remind you, though, of a request to perform this burn on the bank A ball valves only, and you are GO for LOI 2. Also, we have currently in the flight plan, you scheduled tomorrow to start entering the LM at about 96 hours GET, and we'd like to know if you have any plans to initiate this ingress into the LM earlier. If so, we can call the people in ahead of time. Over.

Well, we didn't have any plans to. No. We just wanted to be ready at that time.

Roger. We just wanted to make sure that we were ready when you were ready. Over.

Okay. And to get the sextant star in LOI 2, that's roll zero. Is that affirmative?

That's affirmative. Roll zero.

Apollo 11, Houston. Five minutes until LOS. And with respect to your request for the nitrogen bottle pressures preburn, just before the burn, we were showing 2270 pounds per square inch on bottle Alfa and 2350 on bottle Bravo. Over.

Apollo 11. Roger. Thank you.

Apollo 11, this is Houston. Two minutes to LOS. Your AOS on the other side is 80 33 21, and the friendly White Team will see you when you come out from behind the Moon.

Apollo 11. Roger.

Thank you, Bruce.

Make that your friendly “Greens”. Your friendly White Team CAP COMM will see you when you come out from behind the Moon. I think it's basically the Maroon Team here, and we “Greenies” are leaving.

Okay. I don't blame you, Hank.

Hello, Apollo 11. Houston. We're standing by. Over.

VGY minus 0.0, VGZ minus 0.1, DELTA-VC minus 5.2, fuel 362, OX 364, unbalance plus 50, and our postburn now 94's, 66.1 by 54.4. Go ahead.

Roger. We copy, Neil. Would you say again the DELTA-VZ? We missed that. Over.

Roger. That was minus 0.1.

Roger. Copy the burn report. Sounds good.

And all looked good up here.

Apollo 11, Houston. We missed your DELTA-TIG and also your DELTA burn time. Over.

DELTA-TIG was zero and the burn time was 17 seconds.

Copy 17.

Apollo 11, Houston. We'll be satisfied if you pump up the cabin to 5.4. Over.

Okay. We're showing about 5.2 right now.

Roger.

And, Charlie, the LM/CM DELTA-P is just over 1 pound right now.

Apollo 11, Houston. Over.

Hello, Apollo 11. Houston. Over.

Apollo 11, Houston. If you read, please attempt to acquire on the high gain. We're having trouble locking up on the TM and we have no voice. Over.

Hello, Apollo 11, Apollo 11.

Roger.

Roger. We're reading you five by. Go ahead. Over.

Roger. We have you on high gain now.

Roger. We lost the TM and the voice for about 5 minutes here. We attempted a handover and fouled it up in some manner, but we got you back now. Thank you much.

Okay. We're pressurizing the LM at this time.

Hello, Apollo 11. Houston. We have a P22 AUTO optics update for you if you're ready to copy. Over.

Ready to copy.

Roger, Mike. It's landmark Alfa 1: T1, 82 37 35; T2, 82 42 50. We're 7 miles north. Over.

Copy. P22: T1, time 82 37 35; T2, 82 42 50. And the target is 7 miles north. Thank you.

I get the distinct impression, Charlie, that mare there laps up over the edge of the mountains at the shorelines.

Roger. We copy.

Houston. On your comment about the mare lapping up to the terrain—mountainous terrain, is that an impression like a lava flow coming in around a prominence, Neil, or is it more -looks like it's sloping up at that point? Over.

It isn't true everywhere, but there's certainly places where there seems to be a slope downward towards the shoreline on the mare. In other words, from the mare down to the shoreline is a downward slope indicating that it might be a lava flow.

Roger.

Crossing Duke Island and Maskelyne W.

Say again, Neil. Over.

We just crossed Duke Island and Maskelyne W.

Hello, Apollo 11. Houston. We're wondering if you've started into the LM yet. Over.

We have the CSM hatch out, the drogue and probe removed and stowed, and we're just about ready to open the LM hatch now.

Okay, Charlie. We're in the LM. The docking index mark is the same.

Roger. We copy.

Charlie, apparently there just doesn't seem to be any slow way to get that REPRESS to AUTO without making a big bang.

Apollo 11, Houston. Say again. Over.

Roger. There just doesn't seem to be any slow way to get the REPRESS closed to AUTO and avoid a big bang. Over.

We copy, Buzz. Thank you much. Out.

We concur with that, Buzz.

Apollo 11, Houston. We'll have LOS 81 45, next AOS—Stand by.

Next AOS 82 32. Over.

Okay. 82 32.

Houston, Apollo 11. I am going to start a maneuver to P22 attitude at this time.

11. Roger. We copy. Over.

Okay. We're noticing some water inside the command module for the first time. There's a little puddle of it on the aft bulkhead sort of like 101 had.

Roger.

I'd like to know how EECOMM wants to get rid of it. There are a number of different ways and what does he think is the best one?

We'll be with you in a moment, Mike. Stand by.

No big rush. It will wait until the next REV or two.

Hello, Apollo 11. Houston. We've played back the LOI 2 burn. It looks really good to us. The systems were all good. We got an orbit on the limited amount of tracking at 65.4 by a 53.9. Over.

Hello, Apollo 11. Houston. We're standing by. Out.

Okay, Houston. We'll be done with P22 in just a couple of minutes.

Houston, Apollo 11.

Go ahead.

Roger. You copy that NOUN 49 on your downlink? If you've had enough time, I'll proceed.

Apollo 11, Houston. We see a NOUN 89. You can do the VERB 34 now. Over. Beat me to it.

Yes. I've done it, Charlie.

Roger.

Houston, Apollo 11.

Go ahead, 11. Over.

All that procedure for P22 seemed to work very well. The only thing that was a little odd, is that there was some DAP thruster activity. I had pitch in ACCEL COMMAND, and roll and yaw in RATE COMMAND, and somehow, roll and yaw got excited and the DAP went into a flurry of thruster firing. We've noticed the same thing in the CMS, and just written it off as a CMS peculiarity.

Roger. We saw that activity, Mike. We'll see if we can track it down and let you know. Over.

Okay.

Apollo 11, Houston. You can proceed to sleep attitude now. Over.

That's in work, Houston.

Okay.

Houston, we're holding inertial a little while to study the approach to the landing zone.

Houston, this is Apollo … in the Eagle—Apollo 11 in the Eagle. I've got … for our landing area.

Apollo 11, Houston. You are breaking up badly. Say again. Over.

Roger. I can see the entire landing area from the position I'm in looking out the left window in the LM.

Roger, Buzz. Understand you can see the entire landing area looking out the LM windows. Over.

That's right.

…

Apollo 11, Houston. Say again. Over.

Apollo 11, Houston. We got a lot of noise on the downlink. Would you please try your high gain in wide beamwidth, and the angles are 180 the yaw and pitch zero. Over.

Houston, Apollo 11. How do you read us on the high gain? Over.