Spacelog Apollo 11

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.

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.