Apollo 11 Mission Status Thread

[MeteorWayne]

The all important program alarm :shock:

 

[CalliArcale]

8 minutes into the burn now; altitude 9200 feet, descending 128 feet per second.

"We built our rockets and spacecraft using the English system, flew in space using the nautical system, and explored the moon using the metric system." -- Jack Schmitt, Apollo 17 moonwalker

 

[CalliArcale]

Approach phase has begun:

"Houston. You are go for landing."

1202 alarm noted.

Final descent phase! 1400 feet now.

 

[CalliArcale]

"60 seconds" -- prop margin remaining; Armstrong is maneuvering to avoid a boulder field.

 

[CalliArcale]

"Tranquility Base, the Eagle has landed."
"Roger, uh, Tranquility, you've got a bunch of guys about to turn blue here."

 

[MeteorWayne]

Finally, the words were didn't know exactly what we were waiting for"

"Houston, Uhhh, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed"

 

[CalliArcale]

"Earth is big and bright and beautiful." Neil Armstrong, looking out the window.

A problem was discovered in the descent module stages, downstream from the propellant tanks, and NASA engineers have established that it will not present any threats to the crew. The descent stage propulsion system is no longer needed; the only remaining concerns would be safety related, and apparently NASA is not worried there, as the line reportedly should be able to handle any overpressure that results.

The site has stopped its animated "stages" showing the progress to the moon, but the audio stream replaying NASA's radio coverage of 40 years ago is still playing. Awesome.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Flashbacks :lol:

 

[MeteorWayne]

"You are go for cabin deprss(urization)"

 

[MeteorWayne]

40 year ago right now, Neil Armstrong made the first human footprints on the moon

 

[CalliArcale]

The live feed has ended, since apparently the return to Earth is not as interesting, so I will now rely the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal.

After a couple of hours on the surface, performing some experiments, photographing the lunar surface, retrieving samples, and presenting commemorative materials (a metal human figure to represent all fallen astronauts and cosmonauts, and a plaque on the LM descent stage indicating that "we came in peace for all mankind"), Armstrong and Aldrin returned to the LM and repressurized. Some surplus equipment was jettisoned to save weight for today's liftoff, and the crew then attempted to sleep. Aldrin reportedly slept fitfully on the floor of the LM, while Armstrong stood against the wall and was unable to sleep at all. Between the cramped conditions and the sheer excitement of being on the moon, sleep has eluded the astronauts.

The crew have officially awakened, and have spent the last few hours preparing their vessel for the return to orbit. In about an hour, they will become the first people ever to blast off from another world.

 

[MeteorWayne]

NASA is still running mission audio here:

http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/apoll ... index.html

1 hour 18 minutes to ascent ignition...

 

[CalliArcale]

Sweet! Tuning in now.

According to the ALSJ, LM ascent stage propellant tanks are now pressurized.

Wait a minute -- you say 1 hour....you must be listening to the audio. I'm going off of a timeline shown in mission elapsed time, and another showing major events in GMT. I think I have made a faulty conversion from GMT to my local time.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Yes, listening to the audio.
I have a timeline link, let me check it....{insert Jeapordy Music}

yeah LM ignition is at 17:54 UT which is 1:54 PM EDT, 12:54 PM CDT about an hour from now.

 

[CalliArcale]

"You are cleared for takeoff."
"Roger, understand. We're number one on the runway."

 

[MeteorWayne]

And NOW the tanks are pressurized

 

[MeteorWayne]

"Crew of Eagle going through pre ignition checklist"

About 3 minutes to ignition...

 

[MeteorWayne]

Ignition, The Eagle's on the way home....

 

[CalliArcale]

2600 feet altitude.

 

[CalliArcale]

Eagle has been in lunar orbit for some time; it is now stationkeeping near Columbia in preparation for docking.

 

[CalliArcale]

Vehicle has docked. LM crew are performing housekeeping duties (vacuuming up the all-pervasive lunar dust, etc) now in preparation for transfer to the CM. As the Apollo stack is behind the Moon, there is currently no signal.

 

[CalliArcale]

Correction: They have already transferred, and are now performing housekeeping on the CM side. Crew got ahead of schedule while on the backside of the Moon and Collins reported 17 minutes ago they jettisoned the LM. Armstrong observed cracks on the LM docking tunnel's thermal covering, but did not believe them to be structural.

 

[MeteorWayne]

There was something spoken about (I didn't hear it all) that I was not aware of. Apparently there was some kind of problem that made them jettison the LM earlier than originally planned.

 

[CalliArcale]

Not exactly a problem; they got ahead of schedule. They were intending to jettison the LM as early as possible in any case; ground control just didn't think they'd get that far that quickly. If I understood the chatter correctly, it's just that the mass of the LM ascent module presented problems for the navigational systems, so they wanted to be docked for as short at time as possible. Also something about one of the navigational systems not being actively cooled, so they'd bake it to death if they kept the LM attached too long, but I didn't catch the details to understand what they meant by that.