SpaceFlight A British Interplanetary Society publication
Volume 61 No.8 August 2019 £6.25 Walking on the MOON Happy 50th! copy
Getting the EVAsSubscriber right A very British contribution A very Soviet perspective 08> 634997 770038 9 copy Subscriber CONTENTS Features 12 The first Moonwalk Concluding our detailed coverage of the Apollo 11 mission, we look at activities associated with planning and executing the first lunar surface EVA, in which the initial set of experiments was 2 laid out by Armstrong and Aldrin.
Letter from the Editor 21 A very British contribution BIS Fellow Keith Wright gives a first-hand Swifter than an English summer, no sooner is it here than it’s gone! account of his days working on the Apollo And soon that will be the feeling programme, where he helped to get the about the 50th anniversary of the experiment packages ready and made his own first Apollo Moon landing. But we unique contribution to the Apollo 11 mission by will continue to remember events sending a Union Jack to the Moon! from time to time as we progress to the special anniversary of the 26 Faltering decisions last Apollo landing in December 12 2022. Why did the Russians take so long to start their Meanwhile, in this issue I am Moon programme? Editor David Baker reflects proud to bring you another on his own discussions with senior Soviet personal recollection from a decision-makers 15 years after Apollo 11. British Apollo veteran with a truly fascinating story to tell. And next 35 Marking time for cosmonauts month there will be another personal reflection to emphasise Philip Corneille continues his coverage of the very real fact that the British watches flown by astronauts and cosmonauts contribution was strong and is with a description of the FORTIS chronograph, remembered still, on both sides of the first of its kind to fly in space. the Atlantic. We should not forget 21 that launched as a very American copy challenge in the midst of the Cold War, Apollo had its international element too. I am also very pleased to Regulars incorporate in this issue a NASA Apollo 11 flight chart, courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution, 2 Behind the news custodian at the National Air and Slow, slow, quick-quick, slow Space Museum in Washington, DC, of the largest collection of 4 Opinion space artefacts anywhere in the 26 world. In the UK, please visit the 6 ISS Report NationalSubscriber Space Centre and the London Science Museum for an 9 May – 8 June 2019 unforgettable “Apollo experience”. Happy 20 July! 38 Multi-media The latest space-related books, games, videos
42 Satellite Digest 559 – May 2019 David Baker [email protected] 46 Society news / Diary 35 COVER: NEIL ARMSTRONG AND EAGLE REFLECTED IN THE HELMET OF BUZZ ALDRIN / NASA OF BUZZ THE HELMET REFLECTED IN AND EAGLE ARMSTRONG NEIL COVER: What’s happened/ What’s coming up
OUR MISSION STATEMENT Editor David Baker, PhD, BSc, FBIS, FRHS Sub Editor Ann Page Creative Consultant Andrée Wilson Design & Production MP3 Media Promotion Gillian Norman Advertising Tel: +44 (0)20 7735 3160 Email: [email protected] The British Interplanetary Society Distribution Warners Group Distribution, The Maltings, Manor Lane, Bourne, Lincolnshire PE10 9PH, England Tel: +44 (0)1778 promotes the exploration and 391 000 Fax: +44 (0)1778 393 668 SpaceFlight, Arthur C. Clarke House, 27-29 South Lambeth Road, London SW8 1SZ, use of space for the benefit England Tel: +44 (0)20 7735 3160 Email: [email protected] www.bis-space.com Published monthly by the British Interplanetary Society, SpaceFlight is a publication that promotes the mission of the British of humanity, connecting people Interplanetary Society. Opinions in signed articles are those of the contributors and do not necessarily reflect the views of to create, educate and inspire, the Editor or the Council of the British Interplanetary Society. Registered Company No: 402498. Registered charity No: and advance knowledge in 250556. The British Interplanetary Society is a company limited by guarantee. Printed in England by Latimer Trend & Co. © 2019 British Interplanetary Society 2017 ISSN 0038-6340. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced all aspects of astronautics. or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording by any information storage or retrieval system without written permission for the Publishers. Photocopying permitted by license only.
SpaceFlight Vol 61 August 2019 1 SLUGBEHIND THE NEWS
SLOW, SLOW, copy QUICK-QUICK SLOW? Announced just three months ago, could the proposed Artemis Moon programme soon be in freefall?
THE MOON HAS ALWAYS HELD an emotional and with scheduling timelines for delivering the connection with some people, driving irrational hardware. Only then would a contract be awarded to Subscriberdecisions regretted later. Now, it seems, NASA is the selected winner (SpaceFlight Vol 61 No 6 p12). faced with a series of seminal decisions as it tries to This was a modified variant on the multi-phase find support – and money – to get back on the lunar approach used for Shuttle procurement. In that cycle, surface in 2024, 52 years after the last Apollo Phase A was a feasibility study undertaken by a wide astronaut departed. But is it a Moon too far? range of acknowledged industry participants each Amid a public-relations blizzard of rousing words, paid seed-money to carry out a conceptual analysis of emotional speeches and gripping videos, popular the idea. This was followed with Phase B, a definition support for Moon missions is slipping away across a study awarded to at least two or three potential wide range of metrics. Each one vital for getting contenders for much more comprehensive, and astronauts back on the lunar surface from US soil. To expensive, subsidised proposals on detailed design see where and why, a little background is essential. configurations. In turn, this led to Phases C/D, which began with an RFP issued to several contractors, OUT WITH THE OLD… each with their own subcontractor teams. When NASA examined the way it would get humans Under C/D, technical proposals were submitted by back on the Moon it defined a three-stage lunar the contenders, embracing work from their team lander operating out of the Lunar Gateway which it members, and the two phases would result in the would put out through a Request for Information award of a Design, Development, Test and (RFI). This would provide a specification upon which Evaluation (DDT&E) component followed by a First interested companies could begin to develop design Manned Orbital Flight (FMOF) component. This and operating concepts. After reviewing these would merge into the contract for supporting full different approaches, NASA would issue a Request operational use of the system, managed by NASA for Proposals (RFP) which would result in interested but under contract to the manufacturer. industry contenders sending in their ideas, costed This was the way NASA traditionally did things and
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The first Artemis lander descends to the lunar surface – an event NASA currently plans for 2024.
that was how it was done for the Space Shuttle. But ways are now incapable of providing solutions for the it is cumbersome, bureaucratic and costly, wastes goal laid down by the White House. A goal that may time and reflects an extended interpretation of “due very well be achievable but not with those ways. diligence”. But it is the way government departments do things and is a general sign that an agency is …IN WITH THE NEW losing its leanness over time in favour of programme To fulfil the Trump administration’s desire to put SLOW, SLOW, overburden (inflated complexity) and cost risk- astronauts back on the Moon by 2024, additional mitigation. The consequence is usually one of funds will be required to supplement NASA budgets ABOVE financial overruns and repeated delay cycles. None over that period and beyond. An initial request for Getting on the of that occurred with the Shuttle programme $1.6 billion hascopy been requested of Congress for the Moon will require because delays were largely a result of unanticipated Fiscal Year 2020 budget which begins on 1 October the Lunar Gateway technical problems and constrained annual budget this year. Of that amount, $1 billion would be to pay as a staging post. QUICK-QUICK SLOW? appropriations. for the lander itself. That can only be achieved if NASA began the post-Shuttle era – essentially a NASA re-orientates its bidding and contract process human space flight survivability plan – by releasing from hardware procurement to a service contract. In some of the constraints and leasing services from that regard, Administrator Jim Bridenstine has With the private and commercial contenders for contracted outlined a fast-track scheme to get industry services rather than contracted manufacturing. mobilised for a new approach. decision to Instead of defining the specifications for a In the existing programme plan, three separate accelerate the requirement, it issued the requirement to lander elements (Descent, Ascent and Transfer Subscribercontenders and then contracted with more than one (SpaceFlight Vol 61 No 6 p14 illustration) would be first landing contender to mitigate the danger of reliance rather contracted under the NASA Space Technologies for than risk. It was a neat volte-face. Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP) programme. from 2028 to And there certainly was risk. To show intent and That would have supported a landing attempt with commitment, contractors had the advantage of humans in 2028 but NASA is now adopting a more 2024…the old investment-sharing between government and the open-ended approach by which the initial landing commercial companies, to see the latter over heavy would be accomplished by a vehicle designed and ways are now development costs. It was the success of the developed not to a detailed specification, as has commercial cargo contracts that eventually resulted happened with all previous manned vehicles, but to incapable of in effective operational logistical support for a requirement. operations at the International Space Station, with The intention is to utilise the same fast-track providing SpaceX and Orbital ATK taking over from the lander for both an initial touchdown and for solutions for Europeans and the Japanese in supplying the establishing a semi-permanent presence later in the station. Success there encouraged SpaceX, followed decade. The possibility here is that it would provide the goal laid by Boeing to successfully bid for commercial crew an opportunity for both requirements to be met with contracts. But that was not the way NASA initially an “open architecture” approach common in the down by the began moving toward a Moon lander capable of combat aircraft world; build a fully capable, state-of- carrying four people to the surface. A hybrid concept the-art vehicle with growth capability to mature but White House emerged which would have seen a more familiar with capacity to expand its operating regime. RFI/RFP sequence preceding bids to build the But Congress is concerned about the price. hardware and contractor selection. NASA has been working to put figures into the With the decision to accelerate the first landing estimated overall budget requirement, an initial from 2028 to 2024 all that has changed and the old estimate being an additional $20-30 billion over
SpaceFlight Vol 61 August 2019 3 BEHIND THE NEWS Briefing WHEELS UP The engineering build-up of NASA’s Mars 2020 rover is well under way with wheels being installed during June. Supported by a rocker-bogie, the redesigned wheels are a developed version of those on the Curiosity rover that landed on Mars in August 2012. On that mission the wheels suffered unexpected degrees of damage from sharp rocks necessitating a new and revised procedure for traversing the surface to avoid such obstacles. Structurally identical to Curiosity, Mars 2020 will be launched in July next year with a planned touchdown at Jezero crater on 18 February 2021. It carries a unique set of OrbitBeyond presents its uncrewed Artemis lunar surface exploration lander. experiments including equipment to cache samples for return to Earth on a later mission. those five years. With an existing Neither is Congress open to the annual budget of approximately $20 initial budget hike of $1.6 billion, billion, that adds $4-5 billion each refusing to give the nod until NASA year; a hike of 20-25% per annum comes up with a more detailed on a consistently sustained basis. description of the steps to achieve But that is the average cost spread. a 2024 landing and more precise The overall supplementary curve tailored cost estimates. And the would be more like a bell curve: vexed question “why do this now” rising fast, topping out and falling is stimulating criticism both inside back, which means the mid-years and outside NASA, where internally could require a peak surge of the agency has often in the past 30-40%. It is very difficult to see had to scavenge money from that as achievable, particularly in existingcopy science programmes to the present climate. pay for human space flight LUNAR RESCUE NASA has already lost a key programmes. The European Space Agency is testing a advocate of the fast-track approach Externally, there is no substantive Lunar Evacuation System Assembly (LESA) in after Congress refused to allow public support for a return to the underwater trials simulating a reduced NASA to set up a new directorate Moon. Notwithstanding the 50th gravity environment. LESA is designed to specifically for this purpose under anniversary of the Apollo 11 allow a disabled astronaut to be recovered special assistant Mark Sirangelo, mission in July 1969, it is easy to safely from the lunar surface and returned to forcing the agency to let him go. forget that about 50% of the lander by one person. Tests that began in 2017 have led to a more refined design providingSubscriber both lifting device and stretcher Opinion that allows recovery by a lone astronaut. The device, which may be a part of equipment carried on an early Moon landing planned by NASA as part of a cooperative development, WHY THE HURRY? was tested underwater in June by ESA astronaut Samantha Christoforetti and IT IS 50 YEARS SINCE THE FIRST HUMANS touched the surface of the NASA’s Jessica Watkins. Moon. In that intervening period we have witnessed the end of surface exploration by astronauts and seen a preoccupation with Earth orbiting science research. All on the back of two colossal engineering projects – the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station. Once conceived in parallel, they emerged in sequence, build-up of the ISS beginning in 1998, some seventeen years after the first flight of the Shuttle. Both Shuttle and ISS were the sole surviving remnants of an aggressively ambitious post-Apollo proposal, masterminded by Wernher von Braun and manned space flight boss George Mueller. It embraced space stations, orbiting geosynchronous space bases, lunar orbit stations, Moon bases, nuclear-powered deep-space shuttles and Mars landings. That plan had been championed by Vice President Spiro Agnew in 1969 and died because the nation decided it had seen enough of advanced and expensive techno-virility symbols. Fast forward to the present and a post-ISS goal has been unveiled by another Vice President – Mike Pence – with a return to the Moon and a mission to Mars Lunar rescue simulated underwater. as the next great goal. Yet we are still waiting for a reason to get there within five
4 Vol 61 August 2019 SpaceFlight BEHIND THE NEWS Briefing MOONBOUND NASA has chosen 11 companies to help it get on the Moon by 2024. By the end of the year, they will each have provided preliminary studies on landers capable of carrying astronauts to the lunar surface. Under a NesxtSTEP Appendix E agreement, they are required to embrace a fast-track to the Moon within five years followed by utilisation of the same hardware for a more established presence from 2028.
CHINA STATION The China National Space Agency has announced plans for nine experiments as part of tasks to be conducted aboard its flagship space station, which it plans to launch in 2022. Bigger than Tiangong-2, it Work is under way on the first Orion to fly around the Moon, scheduled for 2020. will become a major space asset as NASA downgrades the ISS from 2024 in a controversial move necessitated by Americans supported the Apollo off the Artemis programme with budgetary constraints. China has worked programme even as it reached its NASA having to find money with the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs zenith. Now, in current surveys, elsewhere. And the rumours are to recruit science experiments from 17 only 42% like the idea of a landing already around for taking that from nations and 42 hopeful participants. back on the Moon by 2024 while the ISS. But that will be very 20% are opposed and 43% think difficult due to the lacklustre that neither Mars nor Moon should interest from anybody in taking copy be a priority. Moreover, half of the over the orbiting laboratory from US population would like to fly in 2024, which is already costing orbit while the greater majority say NASA around $3.5 billion per they have no interest at all in annum – a majority percentage of travelling beyond. the additional amount NASA needs With Congress remaining to be to get back on the Moon. Trouble is, convinced and an ambivalent nobody seems to want to relieve public, the shine is already coming the US taxpayer of the ISS. SF SHIP TRACKER ESAIL, the first commercial microsatellite developed under ESA’s SAT-AIS ship Subscriber tracking programme, passed a significant milestone when its Canadian operator, We are still waiting for a reason to get there within exactEarth, signed a launch service agreement with Arianespace on 9 May. five years, surging the budget by up to 40%. Is it The spacecraft will track ship movements over the entire globe as it orbits the affordable? Is it even desirable? planet. About 90% of global trade takes place on the oceans. Satellite coverage years, surging the budget by up to 40%. Is it affordable? is it even desirable? promises enhanced safety by tracking There are many reasons why we should go back to the Moon: to resume the ships and route provisions for industry, scientific exploration of our celestial companion in this bi-planetary system; to government and maritime authorities. better understand how its evolution plays into the model of Earth’s origin; and to assess its resources and discover hidden deposits of water and ice that we know to be there. There are less physically obvious reasons too: as a stimulation for a new generation of technologies to inspire young people; as a binding force for international cooperation (it will surely need a joint multi-national effort); and as a proving ground for structures, propulsion and operational procedures which will equip us well to go to Mars – when we decide to. But we must make the decision to return to the Moon in a timely, appropriate and cost-effective way. We have seen the folly of setting firm dates before, with its cost in lives and missed capabilities. We need to go at a firm and sustainable pace, placing the schedule within a range of national and international priorities. The last time we went it was a race – next time it must be to stay. SF David Baker ESAIL signatories: Peter Mabson of exactEarth (left) and Geoffroy Legros of Arianespace.
SpaceFlight Vol 61 August 2019 5 SATELLITES ISS Report 9 May – 8 June 2019
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Expedition 59 is completing its third month n 9 May, the crew had relatively light- duties to celebrate Russian Victory Day. of operations under the command of Russian They continued with the third of four days of work with the Fluid Shifts experiment. Oleg Kononenko and his crew of flight O McClain conducted further research with NASA’s Rodent Research-12 investigation by engineers, Americans Anne McClain, Nick checking on the mice who are being observed for changes to their immune systems in microgravity; Hague and Christina Koch, Russian Alexei Koch devoted a third day to the Kidney Cells study which NASA described as seeking “innovative Ovchinin and Canadian David Saint-Jacques. treatments for humans on Earth and in space”. The Orbiting Carbon Observatory-3 (OCO-3) Report by George Spiteri was removed from Dragon’s unpressurised trunk
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and robotically installed on the exterior of the ABOVE on the station’s truss structure. Japan’s robot arm station’s Japanese Experiment Module-Exposed Canadarm2 with its robotic attached to Kibo handed off the Cloud-Aerosol hand, also known as Dextre, Facility at approximately 04:00 UTC on 10 May. on 13 May. Dragon (right) is Transport System (CATS) to Canadarm2 and the Two further days of functional checks took place berthed to Harmony. payload was installed inside Dragon’s trunk on 14 and OCO-3’s Pointing Mirror Assembly (PMA) May, where it was jettisoned and burned up in the ALL IMAGES: NASA ALL IMAGES: was deployed. The PMA and OCO-3’s context atmosphere once Dragon left the ISS. CATS had cameras conducted an initial survey of OCO-3’s been delivered to the ISS in 2015 to conduct low surroundings to ensure nothing unexpected was cost atmospheric monitoring techniques from orbit interfering with its view of Earth to start measuring (SpaceFlight Vol 57 No 4 p 133). carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This was followed by Canadarm2 extracting EVA PREP and installing the Space Test Program-Houston On 13 May, Kononenko and Ovchinin began 6 (STP-H6) hardware for space physics research preparations for their upcoming EVA and McClain
SpaceFlight Vol 61 August 2019 7 ISS REPORT
calibrated the Astrobee cube-shaped free flying robots inside Kibo. The robots are being tested for their ability to perform routine maintenance duties aboard the ISS and provide additional lab monitoring capabilities, whilst Hague and Koch continued to explore how space flight changes the immune system, pathogens and kidney cells. The following day, Kononenko and Ovchinin began gathering tools for their impending spacewalk. McClain, Koch and Saint-Jacques worked with the Rodent Research-12 facility and Hague inoculated culture bags inside the Life Sciences Glovebox (LSG) for the Micro-14 experiment. Hague assisted Kononenko and Ovchinin with their spacewalk preparations on 15 May. He also photographed samples of microalgae that could supplement the diet of future astronauts travelling ABOVE and worked with the Human Research Facilities-1 to the Moon and Mars and continued research Nick Hague assembles and and 2 (HRF-1and HRF-2) racks before inspecting installs the Water Storage with the Micro-14 investigation. McClain, Koch System inside Destiny on the TangoLab-1 hardware which enables a variety and Saint-Jacques continued working with the 29 May. of tissue, cell and botanical investigations to be Rodent Research-12 experiment inside Destiny and carried out. Kononenko and Ovchinin checked McClain took time out to answer questions from their Orlan-MKS EVA suits for the forthcoming students at her alma mater in Spokane, Washington. spacewalk and discussed procedures with Russian During the early hours of 16 May ground ground specialists. controllers in Houston used Canadarm2 and the Despite 18/19 May being a light-duty weekend, Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator (SPDM) The robots are the crew continued to work with microalgae or Dextre to remove the failed Battery Charge samples and Saint-Jacques posted a short video on Discharge Unit (BCDU) from Express Logistics being tested for twitter to explain the Canadian Vection experiment Carrier-1 (ELC-1) and place it on the Japanese which he told viewers “is using virtual reality to Experiment Module (JEM) airlock Orbital their ability to study how the spaceflight environment changes the Replacement Unit (ORU) Transfer Interface (JOTI). way we judge distances and also how we interpret The following day McClain brought the failed unit perform routine our own environment without Earth’s gravity”. inside the station where it was later transferred maintenance duties Kononenko copyand Ovchinin began the working inside Dragon and returned to Earth for analysis. week 20 May by resizing their Orlan-MKS suits Hague conducted two further days of research aboard the ISS and checking them for any leaks. Saint-Jacques with the Micro-14 experiment on 16 May, whilst transferred data captured from the Synchronised his Russian colleagues continued with their EVA Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental preparations and McClain, Koch and Saint-Jacques Satellites (SPHERES) Vertigo experiment, whilst performed additional research inside Destiny McClain tended to the mice by cleaning cages gathering samples from the Rodent Research-12 and restocking food for the Rodent Research-12 investigation. investigation. Hague and Koch wrapped up work Koch studied a pair of yeast strains on 17 with the pathogens study and photographed protein May using the miniPCR hardware for the Genes crystal samples for a student designed experiment. In Space-6Subscriber experiment, which is exploring how On 21 May, Kononenko and Ovchinin space radiation damages DNA and how the cell BELOW performed two further days of preparations with repair mechanism works in microgravity. Hague Christina Koch conducts their Orlan-MKS suits inside Pirs and worked on conducted further checks on microalgae samples botanical research. the Russian Cardiovector cardiology experiment. Hague sequenced DNA samples inside Columbus for the Genes In Space-6 experiment, whilst Koch teamed up with McClain and Saint-Jacques to conduct two more days of observations with the Rodent Research-12 experiment, completing operations with the investigation the following day. Hague worked on ESA’s Biolab hardware on 22 May, the remainder of the United States Orbital Segment (USOS) crew conducted NASA’s Team Task Switching psychological and psychosocial study. Crewmembers also collected blood and urine samples for later scientific analysis and wore an Actiwatch to monitor crew rest and sleep cycles over a 96 hr period to examine how an astronaut’s biological clock functions during space flight.
RE-BOOST Progress 71’s engines were fired for just under 20 min at 16:08 UTC on 23 May to boost the
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station’s orbit by approximately by 4.02 km to ABOVE Washington Post and conceded that he doesn’t “get place the complex in a 428.6 x 409.8 km orbit Oleg Kononenko (left) the opportunitycopy to look out the window” as much as and Alexey Ovchinin to accommodate the next Soyuz undocking and commemorate Alexei he’d like to. Koch added that the station rarely flies landing. Leonov, the first human to over a place that she’s lived at and it’s brought home On 23 May, Saint-Jacques calibrated the walk in space. The sign to her “the perspective of how big the Earth is”. navigation camera on the Astrobee robot inside attached to the spacesuit Kibo. Koch set up hardware in the Microgravity at left translates to "Leonov RUSSIAN SPACEWALK No 1". The sign at right says Science Glovebox (MSG) inside Destiny to explore “Happy Birthday, Alexei Kononenko and Ovchinin opened the Pirs hatch the production of high-quality optical fibres which Arkhipovich”, Leonov’s to begin their spacewalk at 15:42 UTC on 29 May. could help create commercial products benefitting patronymic name. Their first task was to make a short commemorative both Earth and space industries. Hague did more speech in honour of the world’s first space walker, work with the Genes In Space-6 experiment, whilst Alexei Leonov. The cosmonauts dedicated KononenkoSubscriber and Ovchinin conducted further their EVA to Leonov who turned 85 on 30 May cardiovascular investigations and carried on with and placed a photo of him outside the station, their spacewalk preparations. prompting Kononenko to announce “you are with Koch continued working with the MSG facility us”. The crew also had two messages on the back on 24 May, whilst Saint-Jacques analysed his blood of their respective suits that read “Leonov No.1” courtesy of Canada’s Bio-Analyser experiment and “Happy birthday Alexei Arkhipovich”. At the and McClain conducted emergency navigation conclusion of the spacewalk and back inside Pirs, techniques inside the Cupola using a Sextant. “Happy birthday Ovchinin added “our EVA wouldn’t be possible Kononenko and Ovchinin ended the working week Alexei Arkhipovich. without your first EVA”. by continuing to prepare their Orlan-MKS suits and The cosmonauts installed handrails outside EVA tools. Our EVA wouldn’t the Russian segment between Zarya and Poisk, The USOS crew had an extended light-duty retrieved results of the Test scientific experiment weekend 25/26/27 May to take in US Memorial Day. be possible without from the surface of Poisk and jettisoned the plasma Their Russian colleagues devoted four final days wave experiment hardware. The spacewalk lasted reviewing procedures for their spacewalk and spoke your first EVA” 6 hr 1 min and was the 217th dedicated to ISS at length to ground specialists in Korolev mission assembly and maintenance totalling 56 days 16 hr control about the EVA. Roscosmos tweeted a photo 54 min. of the cosmonauts giving a thumbs up together with On 30 May, Kononenko and Ovchinin stowed their Orlan-MKS suits inside Pirs. their EVA tools and suits and debriefed ground On 28 May, McClain stowed items to be returned specialists in Korolev. Hague and Koch worked to Earth inside Dragon, whilst Hague and Saint- with the VO2max experiment, which measures Jacques routed power cables inside Destiny. Hague oxygen uptake and aerobic capacity, whilst McClain later joined Koch to answer questions from the and Saint-Jacques updated software for the
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Photobioreactor life sciences study and stowed the Canadian Bio-Monitor device which analyses human biological samples in orbit. The following day, Koch helped Kononenko and Ovchinin stow US tools used during the EVA inside the Quest airlock. Hague, McClain and Saint-Jacques continued loading items inside Dragon, including frozen research samples into the spacecraft’s freezers. Hague later joined McClain to participate in regularly scheduled eye examinations. The USOS crew devoted the weekend of 1/2 June to completing their loading of cargo into Dragon and Saint-Jacques tweeted footage showing the “odd behaviour of air bubbles in water in the absence of the effects of gravity”. Dragon was unberthed from the Earth-facing port of Harmony at 12:25 UTC on 3 June. Robotics Officer Troy McCracken in Houston commanded Canadarm2 to release Dragon at 16:01 UTC as the complex flew 416.8 km above Myanmar. Saint- Jacques monitored the manoeuvre from inside the Cupola following Dragon’s third and final departure burn and radioed “farewell Dragon” to which CapCom Brandon Lloyd responded with “farewell indeed, it was a heck of a mission”. Dragon performed a 12 min 41 sec de-orbit burn (according to space analyst Jonathan McDowell “at around 20:56 UTC or 20:46 UTC”) on 3 June and after the spacecraft’s trunk was jettisoned, SpaceX tweeted approximately one hour later “Good splashdown of Dragon confirmed” at 21:48 UTC The USOS crew (14:48 local time) in the Pacific Ocean 326.9 km south west of Long Beach, California to complete devoted most of 7 copy SpaceX’s Commercial Resupply Services-17 (CRS- 17) mission. May to unloading Dragon returned with more than 1,905 kg of supplies and scientific experiments including the cargo from Dragon month-long study of the immune system’s response with Koch to weightlessness. Two days later, Dragon arrived at the port of Los Angeles where its cargo was enthusiastically unloaded and the vehicle itself was later transported to SpaceX’s test centre at McGregor, Texas for post- tweeting; “Let the flight analysis.Subscribercargo ops begin!” PROGRESS DEPARTS Progress MS-10/71P was undocked from the aft port of Zvezda at 08:40 UTC on 4 June. Progress fired its engines at 11:46 UTC and according to a Russian space industry source quoted by the Russian news agency TASS entered “the atmosphere” to “partially burn out”. TASS added that “unburnt fragments” of the unmanned cargo craft impacted a “non-navigable part of the Pacific Ocean” 43 min later at 12:29 UTC. On 5 June, the USOS crew devoted their second day to setting up and initiating the Veg- 04A investigation in the two Veggie facilities. This ABOVE how weightlessness affects the cardiovascular human research experiment aims to grow Mizuna The crew gathers for system, whilst McClain took her turn with the a portrait inside the mustard, a leafy green crop for 28 days under two vestibule between Dragon Astrobee robot to test its manoeuvrability inside different light quality treatments and focus on and Harmony. From left: Kibo. microbial food safety, nutritional value and taste Christina Koch, David Saint- McClain, Koch and Saint-Jacques entered the acceptability by the crew. Hague and Koch also Jacques, Oleg Kononenko, Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) on Alexei Ovchinin, Anne conducted ultrasound eye exams on Kononenko, McClain and Nick Hague. 6 June to sample air for microbes and stow spare McClain and Saint-Jacques ahead of their imminent hardware in the habitat. McClain also sampled return to Earth. Saint-Jacques had his blood algae grown inside the Photobioreactor to explore pressure checked and arteries scanned to investigate the viability of closed, hybrid life support systems
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“FarewellSubscriber Dragon”. “Farewell indeed, it was a heck of a mission”
in space. Koch wrapped up a study observing how ABOVE up views of our beautiful planet” and with reference fluids slosh and wave in space to improve satellite Dragon on SpaceX’s to her upcoming departure from orbit added: 17th contracted mission fuel systems and help increase knowledge of Earth’s moments before being “What would you do if you had two weeks in oceans and climate, whilst Hague spent most of the released from the space?” Kononenko attached sensors to Ovchinin day inside Destiny installing components of the Canadarm2 robotic arm. to monitor his vital signs during an exercise session Water Storage System in the US lab. Kononenko as part of the Russian Profilaktika-1 (Prophylaxis-1) and Ovchinin took breath and blood pressure experiment. Ovchinin also worked on the joint measurements for a Russian cardiopulmonary study Russian/ESA Plasma Kristall-4 physics study. and tested the communication systems in Soyuz On 8 June, the crew enjoyed another light-duty MS-11 in preparation for the spacecraft’s departure. day and found time to work on JAXA’s Probiotics The following day was McClain’s 40th birthday, bio-medical experiment and the Capillary which she commemorated by tweeting a message Structures investigation which is examining a new the previous day to say she was “Taking short method of using structures of specific shapes to breaks between all the activities on board to soak manage fluid and gas mixtures. SF
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The first MOONWALK After successfully landing on the Moon, Armstrong and Aldrin faced the last big challenge – getting out on the surface. by David Baker ith Eagle at Tranquility Base the condition RIGHT lift-off, synchronisedcopy with the path of the orbiting of the Lunar Module would determine Buzz Aldrin Command and Service Modules. Accordingly, descends the the next several hours. Nobody knew ladder to become a series of “T-stays” were built in for two-hour how well Eagle would survive the descent the second man intervals providing the crew with lift-off times, burn W and landing. It had not been done before. on the Moon. duration and guidance numbers which they would The first job was to conduct pre-planned procedures, manually put in to the Apollo Guidance Computer. including dumping residual propellant, opening the T-1 was an immediate decision from Mission vent valves to prevent over-pressurisation, conduct Control after rapidly assessing the condition of the systems checks and prepare for an emergency lift-off LM from telemetry and on-board readings. The “go” should that become necessary. Mission Control needed BELOW to stay for T-1 was voiced up by Charlie Duke just 1 to accurately assess the state of the spacecraft after Astronaut Alan min 26 sec after landing, followed by T-2 voiced up touchdown. Bean feels the just 6 min 5 sec after touchdown. The next T-stay Subscribertension as Apollo Preparation for an immediate departure was a would be when the Apollo spacecraft came around 11 reaches a critical activity in the minutes after landing on every critical milestone again on its next orbit. Throughout the duration Apollo mission. Should something begin to go wrong in its mission to of Eagle’s time on the surface the T-stays would be they would have to get back to the Apollo spacecraft. land on the Moon. computed for each successive revolution, voiced up If possible, the crew would wait to launch at a time in which a standard ascent and rendezvous could be conducted. That would allow rehearsed procedures to be followed but it was dependent on the path of the orbiting Apollo spacecraft, which came around once every two hours. If there was an urgent need to get off the lunar surface, that could occur at any time of course but Apollo had to be ahead of the Lunar Module when NASA AND RIGHT: LEFT the latter reached orbit. Several procedures existed for that, including some highly elliptical orbits which could be performed by Mike Collins in Columbia, trading time for location; for instance, by climbing high above the Moon and then coming back down, the Apollo CSM could allow the LM to move ahead with respect to its own orbit, or to go to a lower orbit and overtake the LM higher up. It all depended on just when the emergency occurred. Most contingencies would allow time to prepare for
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landing to the EVA. Armstrong had said that it was preferable to get on with the all-important Moonwalk rather than spend 9 hr 30 min before going outside. So it was left to them to decide what to do when they got to the surface. There was another reason as well. Being test pilots the crew were mindful of the imperative in every flight plan written up for aircraft tests: get priority objectives achieved first in case a non-critical but early termination of the flight left high priorities unfulfilled. After getting all the way to the surface, it was only sensible to get the EVA over with in case some non-hazardous but unavoidable requirement to lift off frustrated the all-important Moonwalk. There were things to test out there on the surface, not least the PLSS backpacks and the suits, as well as a visual inspection of the LM. The post-landing checkout went far better than expected and the two astronauts set about preparations for EVA before electing to rest. The procedures for EVA were well rehearsed but proved longer to execute on the surface than they had in simulations on Earth. Operating within the confines of the LM did not help, as the simulations had not been subject to the limited volume of the spacecraft. Moreover, it required one astronaut to help the other with critical connections, adherence to the checklist and double verification of connectors and dial or switch positions, on the installed equipment inside Eagle, on the suits and on the Personal Life Support System (PLSS) back-packs. Considered by most astronauts to be the smallest habitable spacecraft ever built, the Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU)copy had not been tried before in the environment for which it was designed. The basic to the crew and noted down. ABOVE A7L suit was capable of supporting an astronaut in These rigid procedures were considered important Neil Armstrong the vacuum of the lunar surface for around four hours rehearses the for the continuity that could flow from one mission lunar landing in a when connected to the PLSS. Only on Apollo 9 had to the next so that the well-rehearsed and simulated LM simulator. it been possible to evaluate the suit and the PLSS and templates would form the backbone of operational only for a limited period of 47 minutes of Earth-orbit development. In this way, evolution to more advanced EVA. Complex in design and operation, the PLSS was missions would build on recognised practice and supplemented by an Oxygen Purge System (OPS), a demonstrated success, rather than having to invent The post- back-up oxygen supply should the main PLSS fail. But separate procedures for more advanced methods on there were unique aspects to the Moonwalk. later missions.Subscriber landing A major technical challenge facing PLANNING A WALK checkout In trying to construct a template for the lunar surface activity, the Apollo 11 flight plan gave the astronauts went far a two hour period for post-landing checkout before better than a 35 minute meal break followed by a four hour rest period. Following that, a one hour meal would precede expected a two hour checkout of EVA equipment with a 2 hr 40 min Moonwalk. This would be followed by a 1 hr 30 min post-EVA checkout and a 40 min meal. Only then would they get another rest period of 4 hr 40 min and a 2 hr 28 min preparation slot making ready for ascent while snacking. Lift-off would end a stay time of 21 hr 27 min. RIGHT Crew voices from It didn’t work out that way. Cutting the number of the Apollo 11 flight EVAs from two to one and deferring the more complex were captured on set of ALSEP experiments to Apollo 12 (SpaceFlight a SoundScriber Vol 61 No 6 p12) made the timeline awkward and machine capable vulnerable to late task completion. Armstrong and of recording onto magnetic tape Aldrin had discussed this extensively with each other – a technology and with flight planners and some flight controllers. It developed in was held as a crew option that they move quickly from Germany in 1935.
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subcarrier and the PLSS status data modulated on to the 10.5 kHz subcarrier. The voice and four subcarriers amplitude modulated a 259.7 MHz carrier which was then transmitted to the LM and relayed on to the S-Band and across to the MSFN. Technically, and on a breadboard layout, this all worked well but the rapid development of the equipment which was to be used on the Moon for the full-duration H and extended J missions outpaced the equipment which was built in to the Lunar Module. The final and detailed subsystems design and component sub-contracting was in place by 1967 and the specific engineering of equipment was completed long before the final operational plan had evolved.
WESTINGHOUSE Moreover, NASA changed its mind about detailed requirements and merely placing two astronauts out on telecommunications engineers resulted in the ABOVE the surface instead of one created significant problems requirement to simultaneously support two astronauts Westinghouse which could not have been resolved without some TV manager Stan on EVA. In the original plan the EVA astronaut would Lebar with the compromises. It was simply too expensive to go back carry a spacesuit communicator (SSC) integral with colour camera in to production spacecraft and change electronic his PLSS which would transmit his voice and seven (left) and the and communications equipment. The compromises analogue data subcarriers over a 259.7 MHz AM black-and-white outlined here were the only way to support two men on carrier to the Lunar Module. There, the carrier was TV camera used the surface at the same time. on the surface. demodulated and the voice and subcarriers then re- modulated on to the Unified S-Band (USB) carrier, or MOONWALK 1 subcarrier, for transmission to the Manned Space Flight The EVA on Apollo 11 was a strange mix of formalities, Network (MSFN). However, there was no provision at engineering tasks and scientific investigations, all all for a second astronaut within the system and that surface activities being divided into those sectors. necessity was not required when it was assumed, as Documenting the Moonwalk, and as an installed part it had been in the Gemini programme, that only one of each landing, the first astronaut to leave the LM astronaut would be on the lunar surface at a time. That BELOW would crawl backwards through the hatch and on to changed around mid-1967 when it was decided to put Deployment (left) the porch, at which point he would pull a D-ring and of the two sub- two men out to work simultaneously. pallets of the Early deploy the Modularisedcopy Equipment Stowage Assembly The dual EVA communication system evolved Apollo Surface (MESA) located on the forward right quadrant through a relay from one astronaut’s EVA Experiments (Quad IV) of the Descent Stage. Packaged inside communicator to another with two relays involved in Package began the pie-shaped quadrant, the MESA was a hinged when they were transmitting the first astronaut’s voice to the MSFN. removed from tray containing equipment required on the surface. The first astronaut employed a 279.0 MHz FM carrier the Scientific It would open downwards to expose sample boxes, for his voice with EKG data modulated on to a 3.9 Equipment Bay tools, equipment and a black-and-white TV camera kHz subcarrier. The second astronaut received and using lanyards, aligned, when the MESA was opened, so as to televise demodulated the 279.0 MHz carrier wave. The received and (right) Aldrin the landing leg and a portion of the lunar surface for at the rear of Eagle voice and two subcarriers were combined with the retrieving the laser viewers to witness these historic first steps. second astronaut’s voice on a time-share basis with reflector and the Armstrong was on the porch at 109 hr 16 min 19 LEFT: DAVID BKAER ARCHIVE / FAR LEFT: NASA LEFT: / FAR ARCHIVE BKAER DAVID LEFT: EKGSubscriber date frequency modulated on to the 5.4 kHz seismometer. sec, descended the ladder on to the footpad and LEFT: EASEP / RIGHT: NASA / RIGHT: EASEP LEFT:
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touched the surface of the Moon with his left foot at RIGHT running through a pulley at the top of the porch. 109 hr 24 min 20 sec. Aldrin descended the ladder at Buzz Aldrin carries Aldrin stowed them inside the LM before Armstrong the two science 109 hr 35 min 30 sec after which both men read the instruments to joined him and closed the door. plaque on the forward landing leg and conducted a their deployment cursory inspection of the LM. After Aldrin egressed site. DEVIL IN THE DETAIL to the surface, photographed by Armstrong, the For space enthusiasts enamoured with precise statistics, Commander repositioned the camera to a stand about there is a problem when it comes to logging the 18 m away from Eagle and then conducted a bulk cumulative duration of spacewalks and Moonwalks sample collection. An initial (contingency) grab sample in particular. Over time the start point for an EVA had been pocketed already in case of a rapid retreat can be expressed as the time when the crew went on from the surface. independent life support, the time the cabin began to Formal activities included erecting a US flag (0.9m depressurise, the time it was fully depressurised and the x 1.5m) and conducting a brief dialogue with Richard So when did time the hatch was opened. Today, the precise times of Nixon, the US President. Aldrin would deploy a Solar some of those events are misquoted, misidentified or Wind Collector (SWC), a vertical strip hung on a pole the EVA lost! It began with the Gemini programme and only to collect particles from the Sun before being rolled got worse during Apollo. back up and returned to Earth. commence? In official mission reports the first lunar surface Beginning little more than an hour into the EVA, Take your EVA has several times at which a formal start to the Aldrin would move around to the left rear quadrant activity began: was it when the astronauts went on life (Quad II) of the Descent Stage to the Scientific pick – there support from their PLSS back-packs, when the cabin Equipment Bay (SEQ) from where he retrieved the was totally depressurised or when the hatch door was EASEP experiments. Consisting of a Passive Seismic is no agreed opened? As noted, donning the equipment for the Experiment (PSE) and a Laser Ranging Retro Reflector surface EVA involved a two-man operation for each (LRRR), he carried them to the deployment site time astronaut. Power came on Armstrong’s PLSS at 108 hr 7 where they were unpacked and set up on the surface. min 20 sec and for Aldrin at 108 hr 30 min 10 sec with The PSE was powered by solar cells and had two a communication check the first priority. The front small radioisotope heaters fuelled by tiny pellets of hatch was opened at 109 hr 07 min 33 sec. The fan for plutonium 238 but the LRRR was entirely passive and oxygen circulation came on at 109 hr 13 min 18 sec for would be used to reflect laser beams from Earth for Armstrong and six seconds later for Aldrin. distance measurement between the two worlds. So when did the EVA commence? Take your pick – After that the two astronauts set about a there is no agreed time and anything to the contrary is documented sample collection using a few standard false and favoured on this or that data point. Similarly, techniques applied to different collections of rocks and when did it end? copy regolith (surface soil) carefully recording each item The hatch was closed at 111 hr 39 min 13 sec, with a 35 mm camera and voicing to the ground what BELOW marking the official end to the EVA and the feedwater they were doing. The EVA ended with retrieving the Powered by solar for Armstrong’s PLSS was closed at 111 hr 39 min 38 cell arrays, the SWC from its pole and transferring the Sample Return seismometer is set sec; for Aldrin, twelve seconds after that. Cabin re- Containers (SRCs), Armstrong attaching each to the down on the lunar pressurisation began at 111 hr 42 min. PLSS power was clothesline-like Lunar Equipment Conveyer lanyard surface. switched off at 111 hr 56 min 09 sec for Aldrin and 1 min 11 sec later for Armstrong. Armstrong used 16,560 mmHg of the 49,680 mmHg between relief valve reseat at 109 hr to start of repressurisation. Aldrin used slightly more of his marginally higher installed pressure Subscriberover the same period. In electrical energy, Armstrong used up 49.25% of his battery power while Aldrin used 50%. In oxygen quantity, of the 0.57 kg in each PLSS tank, Armstrong used 42.8% while Aldrin consumed 47.6%. Another parameter was the consumption of feedwater for the cooling system. Of 3.9 kg loaded at launch, Armstrong consumed only 33.7% while Aldrin expended 51.1%, the much lower metabolic rates for each crewmember being the result of such low uptake, where more than 58% had been predicted. In the case of each system, this EVA demonstrated the ability of both the suit and the back-pack to support Moonwalks of much greater duration, which was gratifying for mission planners working up flight plans and operations procedures for the H and J missions of greater duration. The performance of the pressure garment assembly (PGA) component of the EMU was a critical performance marker on taking Apollo from a development to an operational phase and the outstanding performance of the PLSS opened the door to much more ambitious activity on the lunar surface. Most astronauts regarded the suit/back-pack
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BELOW system as Apollo’s third spacecraft and its engineering The Lunar fidelity was of the highest. In lectures several years Equipment Conveyor was later Armstrong himself used the PLSS as a model used to move of compact and miniaturised systems engineering. sample return However, there was still much work to be done on containers to the making the suits more comfortable and providing better Ascent Stage. articulation inside the limb joints and this development would continue with upgrades to a new generation of suit for later missions, a design considerably refined for the J-series and labelled the A7L-B. For the record, Armstrong wore suit A7L-056 with PLSS-00015 which weighed 36.12 kg fully charged and OPS-013 with a charged weight of 18.14 kg; Aldrin wore A7L-077 and PLSS-00014 at a charged weight of 36.11 kg and OPS-008 at a charged weight of 18.25 kg. Using the EVA as a baseline reference for planning future, more expansive activities, the crew were satisfied with the performance of the suit and back-pack while finding it relatively easy to walk, run, lope or hop around on the surface. Several times they knelt down to pick up objects and reported movement across a maximum continuous traverse of 61 m to be acceptable although tiring. This latter fact probably biased by the fact that this was late in the EVA on top of a long day without rest. Overall, Aldrin expended more energy than Armstrong and there were indications, several not noted for several decades after the mission, that serious cardiac responses had been decoded in the medical data. Events for the crew went according to the Lunar Surface Operationscopy Plan which defined the sequence BELOW Mission Control manages the return flight to Earth. Subscriber
18 Vol 61 August 2019 SpaceFlight SPACE HISTORY in which activity would proceed. In all, 5 hr 55 min of black-and-white TV was obtained for this EVA, which lasted 2 hr 32 min from hatch open to hatch closed, verifying the integrity and the operability of the suit and the back-pack for future missions. With the EVA over, it was clear from the extensive discussion the crew held with Mission Control that they had been excited by their experience. Not for the historic or political significance of the event but by the apparent ease with which all these new procedures had been conducted. This included the landing, the pre-EVA preparation (which, nevertheless, had gone on longer than expected) and the Moonwalk itself. With the exception of lift-off, these were critical phases to clear technical obstacles as Apollo shifted to its fully operational phase beginning with Apollo 12. The long anticipated rest period, the only one the crew would get on the Moon, began at 114 hr 50 min with Dr Kenneth Biers monitoring the crew’s physiological parameters as they opted to keep their helmets on, but this was not a factor in their erratic and periodic sleep. Over the next months and years ABOVE predicted and close to the pre-planned values, the APS the permeation of Moon dust into every piece of The Apollo 11 performing within expectations, the engine actually crew wear clothing, clinging to every surface it touched, was not Biological running for 7 min 15 sec. The crew were unable to hear apparent to those outside the NASA tent and even Isolation Garments the engine itself due to the reduced pressure inhibiting many employees were not aware of the effect it had on as they are the propagation of sound waves and the fact that they equipment, filters, the environmental control system transferred to the were in full pressure garments and helmets (in case and on the health of the Moonwalkers until more recovery carrier. of some damage to the structure incurring pressure expanded operations made it clearly apparent. loss). But they had heard the separation bolts firing, and felt the shock, as the Ascent Stage severed links COMING HOME Overall, Aldrin to the Descent Stage. Total Ascent Stage main engine While Armstrong and Aldrin rested fitfully on the propellant consumption was 2,193 kg versus the pre- Moon, Collins slept aboard Apollo. A call went up to the expended flight predictioncopy of 2,252 kg. LM from Mission Control at 120 hr 38 min, by which Various plans had been formulated about what to time the CMP had been long awake. Collins went about more energy do with the LM Ascent Stage on extended missions but his business performing guidance platform checks with for this engineering verification flight it was jettisoned the P52 computer programme, noting that he would than at 130 hr 09 min 31 sec with a separation burn of pass over the LM at 122 hr 22 min 51 sec, one full Columbia’s RCS thrusters at 130 hr 30 min 01 sec, a revolution before lift-off from the surface of the Moon, Armstrong 0.6 m/sec manoeuvre lasting seven seconds, putting while Armstrong and Aldrin made ready to depart. the CSM about 37 km ahead of, and 1.7 km below, the The nominal plan for leaving the surface had the orbit of the Ascent Stage at Trans-Earth Injection. The Ascent Stage rising vertically for 48.7 m at which point, data transmission system in the Ascent Stage stopped eight seconds after launch, the guidance system would working at 136 hr 54 min, the guidance platform switchSubscriber to the orbit insertion phase, commencing a BELOW became unstable four hours later and the AGC failed modest pitch-over at a height of 146 m and an elapsed Mission 7 hr 13 min after that. On some later missions the time of 14 sec, reaching 52º from vertical by 198 m, 16 accomplished! Ascent Stage would be deliberately de-orbited on to sec after lift-off. The APS would shut down at 7 min 14 sec and an altitude just short of 18,300m, a distance behind the CSM of about 472 km) and a ΔV of 1,687 m/sec, having traversed a horizontal distance of 308.3 km) across the surface. The Ascent Stage would coast on up to an apocynthion of 81.4 km, some 180º around from the point of insertion, and thus on the far side of the Moon, at which point the Concentric Sequence Initiation manoeuvre would be conducted followed by the Constant Delta Height burn to commence the rendezvous process, establishing a constant height of 27.8 km below the orbit of the Apollo spacecraft prior to Terminal Phase Initiation. These now standard rendezvous manoeuvres had been well rehearsed on the two preceding missions. With lift-off occurring at 124 hr 22 min 0.78 sec and heightened levels of anticipation in Mission Control, Apollo 11 reached the final engineering test for the last untried segment of the programme. Events cycled off as
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the surface of the Moon so as to provide an impact, ABOVE used because Apollo 13 to which it was assigned failed causing shock waves to travel through the crust which Body language to land its crew on the Moon. The quarantine was testifies to would provide profiling data for the seismometers. the reclusive abandoned after Apollocopy 14. The MQF vans were used Trans Earth Injection occurred at 135 hr 23 min 42 demeanour of Neil later on UN backed quarantine services to disease- sec, a 2 min 31 sec SPS burn which achieved a projected Armstrong, locked ridden regions on the African continent. perigee at the Earth of 128.4 km instead of the nominal for life in an The last of the engineering verification flights was experience he will 37.8 km. This would have resulted in a close pass always dedicate over – only a qualified success because there were some through the tenuous outer layers of the atmosphere, to the teamwork anomalies to sort out and unexplained issues with the sending the spacecraft past the Earth. Consequently, the of NASA and the landing procedures which would significantly change first of the three Mid-Course Correction opportunities contractors. the way future missions operated. For the public at was taken up at 150 hr 29 min 57 sec with a 1.46 m/sec large it was “job done” but that was not the way NASA RCS thruster burn lasting 10 seconds which provided BELOW saw it. Apollo 11 had opened a window to really an acceptable entry angle of -6.51º. Inside the exciting possibilities and all the planning for extended After a trans-Earth cruise of less than 60 hours, quarantine living activities on the surface, including the use of a Lunar Subscriberquarters at separation of the Command Module occurred at 194 Roving Vehicle, was now seen to be justified. Humans hr 49 min 13 sec with entry interface 13 min 53 sec NASA’s Manned could land on the Moon. Of that there was no doubt. Spacecraft Center, later and splashdown at 195 hr 18 min 35 sec. But the Apollo 11 crew The big question remaining was the most important of the mission did not end there, although a flurry of rest and reflect all – did humans have the vision and the commitment triumphant celebrations attended the arrival of the over breakfast. to continue? SF crew on the deck of the carrier USS Hornet. Special quarantine plans made this a very different recovery, the divers sent to prepare the crew for collection tossing a Biological Isolation Garment (BIG) to each astronaut before closing the hatch again and waiting for them to emerge clothed in their quarantine suit. With an oxygen breathing system, the crew were transported to the hangar deck of the carrier from NASA LEFT AND ABOVE: where they walked to a Mobile Quarantine Facility (MQF), a converted Airstream trailer-van. This would be their home until they arrived at the Lunar Receiving Laboratory (LRL) for a planned 21-day stay during which they would be examined and monitored, just in case some alien life forms returned from the Moon had affected them. They were released from quarantine on 10 August. Four MQFs were provided, MQF-01 not being
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A very British contribution Recollections of an engineer working on Apollo 11's science experiments. by Keith M Wright FBIS IAA
n 1 August 1968 my family and I moved from 1966 along with 26 other British engineers who had Ann Arbor, Michigan to live in Titusville, been recruited copyby Bendix to assist in the development Florida. At the time I was a member of a BELOW and operation of ALSEP. Our small team comprised small team of Bendix Aerospace Systems The Apollo 11 our Site Supervisor, two engineers, of whom I was Division engineers and technicians who were experiment one, two technicians, one quality inspection engineer O package's laser to be responsible for the pre-launch operations for the and a locally recruited secretary. We would receive retroreflector Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP) at arrives at the extra support from Ann Arbor for when we powered the Kennedy Space Center. Kennedy Space up the ALSEP for software compatibility testing with We had emigrated from the UK to Ann Arbor in Center. Mission Control in the Manned Spacecraft Center
NASA Subscriber
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(MSC), Houston. We were also supported by a mass. The real capsule would be provided by the US NASA KSC Principal Engineer (PE), one other NASA Atomic Energy Commission for the actual launch. Our KSC engineer, a NASA Quality Inspector and a MSC The building activities were filmed for timing purposes but I never engineer (our contract for ALSEP was with NASA saw the results. MSC, Houston). was not ideal I then went through a pretty vigorous medical The ALSEP was made up of two sub-packages which check to qualify me as a “radiation worker” although would be stowed in the Scientific Equipment Bay (SEQ for us as its the alpha radiation which it principally produces is Bay) of the Descent Stage of the Lunar Module and original use easily shielded and it produced relatively low levels of a fuel capsule container (Fuel Cask Assembly) which neutron, gamma and beta radiation. was attached to the outside of the Descent Stage of the had been During these rehearsals I heard from our Project Lunar Module adjacent to the SEQ Bay. Manager, who was visiting, that they were having Sub-package 1 comprised a data sub-system and for the trouble qualifying the release latch of the fuel cask three deployable experiments. Sub-package 2 carried deployment mechanism. It would not remain latched a fourth experiment, a set of geological tools and a processing of during vibration testing. I casually suggested that what SNAP 27 thermo-electric generator which powered we needed was a bolt cutting mechanism. That’s what the data system and the experiments. The heat source hypergolic we ended up with, and I was to be responsible for the for the RTG was a plutonium-238 capsule which fuelled procedure to set it up, as well as for the procedure for generated 1,500 watts of thermal energy. The Fuel the rest of the assembly of the Fuel Cask deployment Cask comprised a cylindrical re-entry body and a spacecraft mechanism. deployment mechanism which housed the plutonium capsule during launch and transit to the lunar surface. ENTER EASEP The deployment mechanism allowed the astronaut to It was around this time that we heard the disturbing remove the plutonium fuel capsule from the Fuel Cask news that ALSEP was not going to be flying on Apollo for installation into the RTG. 11. Apparently, NASA had decided the deployment of ALSEP was too difficult an EVA task for the first PREPARATION mission as the capability of the astronauts to perform Our initial task was to set up our facility in the Hyper 2 complex tasks on the lunar surface was yet to be building at KSC. The building was not ideal for us as its determined. ALSEP took about three quarters of an original use had been for the processing of hypergolic hour to deploy. An additional factor was the decision to fuelled spacecraft. We adapted one of the test cells into reduce the number of Moonwalks on the first landing a class 100,000 clean room and the original control from two to one. room into our office with accommodation for our However not much later we were relieved to hear test and checkout computer. While this work was in that NASA still wantedcopy some simpler form of ALSEP process, our NASA PE decided we would need to start to be deployed on the lunar surface on Apollo 11. The the procedure for the loading of the ALSEP plutonium Bendix design for the simplified experiments, the Early fuel capsule into the Fuel Cask on the outside of the Apollo Scientific Experiment Package (EASEP), was Lunar Module late during the launch countdown. approved by NASA on 5 November 1968. To do this, he commandeered the third stage of the For simplicity, the EASEP retained the two sub- full sized handling model of the Saturn 5, a mock-up package configuration of the ALSEP. Sub-package of the Lunar Module and the Spacecraft LM Adapter 1 comprised the ALSEP data sub-system, two BELOW (SLA) in which the LM was stowed during launch. Arrival of the solar panels for power during the lunar day, a non- These were assembled in one of the low bays in the solar powered deployable Passive Seismometer experiment and a Dust Vertical Assembly Building (VAB). seismometer Detector experiment and was called the Passive Seismic We then proceeded to rehearse the operations that (left), with the Experiment Package (PSEP). Subscriberinstrument being we would have to do on the pad at around T-14 hours The seismometer was designed to observe natural checked out (right) prior to launch using our hardware and a mock up fuel prior to installation seismic events such as meteor impacts and tectonic capsule. These operations were critical as they would in the Scientific activity. This was accomplished by a triaxial long involve a hot fuel capsule of around half a critical Equipment Bay. period seismic sensor together with a short period NASA
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Following the deployment exercise, the EASEP would be powered up using a solar panel power simulator for the software compatibility checks with MSC Houston. The two radio isotope heaters would then be installed and the EASEP would be installed in the SEQ Bay of the Lunar Module.
DEPLOYMENT CHECKS The two EASEP sub-packages arrived by plane at KSC on 30 April 1969. Inspection of the recorders in the shipping containers confirmed that thermal and shock conditions during transport were well within limits. Due to the limited time which had been available for the design and manufacture of PSEP, its thermal control design was a significant compromise on that of ALSEP and thermal calculations were still being made at Bendix in Ann Arbour. It was not surprising therefore, that not long after EASEP’s arrival at KSC, we were informed that some modifications to the PSEP were necessary. These comprised the addition of a layer of second surface mirrors to the top surface of the PSEP base in order to give the electronics beneath additional protection from the heat of the lunar daytime sunlight and for the installation of an extra layer of Kapton insulation to the seismic sensor. The required materials seismic sensor. The long period sensors comprised two ABOVE duly arrived from Ann Arbor and our technicians set to
NASA swinging gate type seismometers while the long period The laser reflector work with the modifications. The sheet of Kapton from is moved to its vertical sensor utilised a modified LaCoste suspension. position aboard which the disk of insulation for the top of the sensor The short period sensor comprised a magnetic seismic Eagle. was cut, was discarded. I saw an opportunity and asked mass supported by a wire and six cantilever tapered if I could have it. The hole in the Kapton sheet now suspension springs. frames a picture of the PSEP package deployed on the The seismic sensors were mounted within a gimbal Moon and is incopy the possession of the BIS. ring which allowed the sensors to be levelled once the Following the installation of the modifications, experiment had been deployed on the lunar surface. the two experiment packages were then prepared for The seismometer was required to be deployed within the “Crew Compartment Fit and Function” exercise 15 degrees of level. A ball and cup level indicator was where the flight crew would go through the experiment provided to enable the astronaut to accomplish this. deployment activities with the flight hardware. Up until The delicate sensors were protected by a pneumatic this point, Don Lind, a NASA science astronaut, had caging mechanism during transport to the Moon. The been responsible for monitoring the crew interface Dust Detector was intended to measure any natural aspects of the experiments design. On 16 May 1969, dust accretion which could affect thermal control of Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Don Lind arrived at the electronics and experiments. It comprised three our facility and successfully completed the experiment orthogonallySubscriber mounted solar cells. deployment. In an attempt to ensure survival of the PSEP Apart from giving the crew the opportunity to electronics during the cold of the two week lunar night, BELOW familiarise themselves with the flight hardware, this The long period two radio isotope heaters were also to be installed. horizontal sensors also provided them with the opportunity to request These generated 45 watts of thermal energy each. on the passive small changes to help them with operations on Sub-package 2 carried a Laser Ranging Retro- seismometer. the Moon. A few “crew assist” labels were added reflector experiment (LRRR) which was designed to reflect laser beams transmitted from Earth back to their source. This comprised 100 “cat’s eye” corner reflectors each of about 2.5 cm in diameter. The objective of this experiment was to accurately measure the variations in the Moon’s distance from the Earth over a long period of time. The EASEP was manufactured and the experiments integrated at Bendix in Ann Arbor and then flown to KSC. The planned pre-launch operations for the EASEP at KSC comprised a damage and contamination receipt inspection followed by a “Crew Compartment Fit and Function” exercise which allowed the flight crew to go through the deployment operations that they would perform on the Moon with the actual flight hardware. They would have been using a training
model of EASEP in Houston up until that time. BENDIX
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as a result. It should be noted that to allow the deployment of the PSEP solar panels during this operation, a special support frame was necessary as the solar panel supports were not strong enough to allow for solar panel deployment in Earth’s gravity. The EASEP packages were now in their deployed configuration following the crew deployment exercise. At this time the PSEP was powered up for the software compatibility test and connected to the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston via the Manned Spacecraft Tracking Network antenna on Merritt Island. Following this successful test, and the mounting of the Radio Isotope Heaters , for which I was responsible, both EASEP sub-packages were ready for installation in the Lunar Module SEQ Bay. It was at this point that we signed the back of the solar panel stowage bracket. Due to the late delivery of the EASEP packages, we could no longer install them into the Lunar Module while the LM was still in the Operations and Checkout Building clean room, as planned for ALSEP. The LM was by now inside the Spacecraft LM Adapter (SLA) on top of the Saturn V on Pad 39A. The space available for the installation operation was very tight and the location was difficult to get to. Fortunately, this BENDIX eventuality had been taken into account, specifically in the design of the PSEP which would have to be launch pad apron at the base of the Launch Umbilical partially dismantled for transport and installation. ABOVE Tower to the inside of the Saturn V S IVB. Our two The laser reflector sub-package was smaller and The configuration technicians took over from there, taking the packages of the two science could be transported and installed without being packages in up the ladder to the 525 Level for assembly and dismantled. Access to the Lunar module was across the the Scientific installation. The PSEP installation involved breaking 280 ft (85.3 m) swing arm from the Launch Umbilical Equipment Bay. one of the cardinal rules for space hardware operations. Tower into the top of the Saturn V S-IVB third stage. The connectors betweencopy the solar panels and the PSEP From there, to get to the SEQ Bay, access was clockwise electronics had to be disconnected for transportation to for about 180 degrees around the work platform in the the 525 Level but could not be tested once reconnected S IVB Instrument Unit to an almost vertical two metre following reassembly for installation into the LM SEQ ladder which led to a work platform (designated the Bay. Nevertheless, we had confidence in the reliability 525 Level) which was adjacent to the LM SEQ Bay. On of the connectors. this platform the working space between the LM and Reassembly of the PSEP was completed without the inside skin of the SLA was about 70 cm. any problems and both the PSEP and LRRR were safely installed in the LM SEQ Bay. The assembled TO THE MOON! configuration of the PSEP and the LRRR and the close- My responsibility for the installation was the out configuration of the SEQ Bay were photographed transportationSubscriber of the EASEP Sub-packages from the as an engineering record. BRITAIN ON THE MOON NASA During the deployment test I jokingly suggested to Neil Armstrong that it might be an idea to attach a small UK Union Flag to the gnomon (an orientation sundial) on the Passive Seismic Experiment Package as Bendix Aerospace had recruited 27 British engineers to work on the ALSEP design and manufacture. This suggestion was, of course good heartedly rejected. I did though manage to get Armstrong and Aldrin’s signatures on a map of the Moon on the Sea of Tranquility. Once the astronauts had left our facility, our NASA supervising engineer suggested that it might be an idea to put our signatures on the hardware as a record of our support to the first Lunar landing mission. Our team was very small, only seven people including two NASA engineers. It was decided to sign the back of one of the two loose solar panel brackets which held the solar panels folded during the launch and flight to the Moon. The front of each bracket was coated with white thermal paint but the back of the bracket was anodized aluminium. We all signed, using a ball point pen. A non- conformance report was then written as the bracket had been contaminated with the ink. The bracket was then cleaned with isopropyl alcohol and inspected. The scratches of our signatures could still be seen. Mine comprised my signature together with "UK" and a small drawing of the Union Flag. The decision (it's called a “disposition”) was then made that as the bracket would be discarded on the Moon and the scratches would not affect the bracket's operation Solar array brackets for the seismometer are discarded, one the bracket could be used as it was. That bracket now lies to one side of the deployed carrying the Union flag. PSEP at Tranquility base and contains an image of the UK’s Union Flag.
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LEFT it did on Earth and was much more easily disturbed. Dr Garry Latham After several goes the PSEP was finally levelled and the (left) studies seismometer experiment turned on. tracings of the PSEP was deployed on 21 July and operated until flapping solar 27 August except for during the lunar night, which arrays. lasted from 3-18 August. The experiment successfully measured a large number of both short and long period events over a thermal operating range of 4º C to 93º C. The design specification for the seismic As a sensor was actually 42º to 62º C. The higher operating temperatures were principally due to the compromised consequence thermal protection design which had had to be adopted for PSEP. Some of the seismic events which were of the lower detected originated from the astronauts' activities and lunar gravity, from venting gases and from thermal distortion of the Lunar Module. the ball was On 1 August 1969 the first returns from the LRRR were received through the 120 inch telescope at the taking about Lick Observatory in California. Later in the month returns were also received by the 107 inch telescope at two and a half the McDonald Observatory in Texas and through the 60 inch telescope at the Air Force Cambridge Research times as long Laboratory in Tucson, Arizona. The McDonald to settle as it Observatory remained the primary data acquisition NASA station for the LRRR experiments which were also did on Earth flown on Apollo14 and 15. Buzz Aldrin’s removal of the two EASEP packages While Apollo 11 demonstrated that scientific from the Lunar Module and the subsequent experiments could be successfully deployed and deployment of first the LRRR and then the PSEP on operated on the lunar surface, a number of lessons were the lunar surface went pretty well as planned except learned. The principle lesson was that the experiments for when it came to the levelling of the PSEP. The ball needed to be deployed much further away from the and cup level indicator worked very well on Earth but Lunar Module. This was because the LM itself on the Moon, with its one-sixth Earth’s gravity, the ball generated events which could interfere with the BELOW copy refused to settle. What had been forgotten was that the EASEP deployment scientific measurements and the exhaust from the LM ball acted like a simple pendulum. completed as ascent engine endangered the thermal integrity of the The equation for the period of a simple pendulum Aldrin stands by experiments. Some thermal control degradation of the is 2Pi times the square root of the pendulum length the seismometer, PSEP was observed following the lift off of the LM with the laser over g, g being the local acceleration of gravity. As a retroreflector ascent stage at the end of the Apollo lunar surface consequence of the lower lunar gravity, the ball was between that and mission. Overheating ultimately resulted in the taking about two and a half times as long to settle as the flag. shutdown of PSEP during the second lunar day. SF
NASA Subscriber
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Faltering decisions Why did the Soviet Union leave it so late to mount a response to America’s Apollo challenge? The answer lies in the expert use of deception.copy by David Baker
t the beginning of the 1980s I was BELOW Russia offered its Proton launcher for sending privileged to begin a decade-long The Hotel National INMARSAT satellites to geostationary orbit but where the writer association with Soviet military, industrial spent time the problem was not only in the quantity of US and space-related organisations and to acquiring a unique components. To create a global market for INMARSAT participate in discussions which gave me insight into Soviet satellites, operators had to acquire the finance and A space strategies a unique opportunity to debate the origins of the insure the risk. Both needed validation and verification Soviet space programme and share thoughts with of the 1960s. of technical capability with hardware which was key playersSubscriber in that effort. Bear with me while I relatively unfamiliar to risk assessors in the West, place this in context as it needs explanation. where the finance would be raised. Officially, I was in Russia to help define the challenges faced by INMARSAT – formed in 1979 as a maritime parallel to INTELSAT – regarding its participation in satellite launches; unofficially, I set about researching the origin of the Soviet Moon decision through the contacts I was able to make. The two founding signatories of INMARSAT were the UK and the USSR which, at the time, were the world’s largest maritime countries. The organisation was founded to enhance safety at sea and to seek seamless communication for sailors. With headquarters in London, INMARSAT worked on the basis that member states could bid for launching satellites and it was appropriate for the USSR to want to get launch contracts. But there was a problem. The United States prohibited the launch by Soviet rockets, satellites manufactured in America, or satellites that incorporated a certain percentage of equipment built in the USA and back in the 1980s most did have a quantity of US components.
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Almost 40 years ago it framed a requirement that ABOVE their impeccable English and courteous manner. My sent this writer on a search for ways to help bring Succeeded hotel, a former Imperial residence for foreign guests by Lyndon B. the USSR out of the cold and ended up giving him Johnson (right) called the National, was opposite the Kremlin. My an insight to the Soviet interpretation of John F. as President after business was about space activities and on this first visit Kennedy’s shock challenge to send humans to the his assassination, I was briefed by Soyuzkarta, the Soviet cartographic surface of the Moon. Kennedy’s organisation responsible for the distribution of maps determination to and atlases outside the USSR, and Glavcosmos, one THE PRIPET MARSHES get to the Moon Subscriberbecame ever more of the “civilian” space organisations pressing for My first visit to Moscow was in winter when snows focused before international cooperation. were deep, the air was steel grey and whiskers froze like finally stimulating Salyut 7 was the talk of the town and I was rapidly pine needles. I insisted on flying Aeroflot, in a Tu-104 a response from immersed in the nuances of Soviet engineering with where first class was far cheaper than an economy the USSR. its completely different approach to defining problems ticket from a Western airline. Parked away from the and finding solutions practised in the West. These terminal at Heathrow, the Russian jet was ringed by reinterpretations of engineering principles were key police, a cordon sanitaire that prevented unauthorized to what I was to pursue in parallel with meetings at Soviet crewmembers moving to and from the aircraft. Soyuzkarta and Glavcosmos, at the Soviet Ministry of Up the steps and into the forward compartment where Defence, and during visits to Szvyozdny gorodok, more a KGB guard kept surly watch, it was very easy to feel …the air was commonly known as Star City, not far from Moscow. the difference in the world I was leaving and the one I It was at Star City that I met General Vladimir was about to visit. steel grey and Shatalov, who had commanded the Soyuz 4 mission But flying out over the frozen wastes of the Pripet which performed the world’s first docking of two
LEFT: VIA DAVID BAKER / ABOVE RIGHT: NASA RIGHT: ABOVE / BAKER VIA DAVID LEFT: Marshes provided chilling reminder of the challenges whiskers crewed vehicles when it met Soyuz 5 in January 1969 faced by the German Wehrmacht as they pressed their and it was there that I was shown around the complex barbaric assault east in June 1941, and by the stoic froze like pine by Alexei Leonov. Both were powerfully impressive Soviet troops as they retook these lands more than men with high status in the Soviet space programme; three years later. Battlegrounds over which lay the dead needles one in overall charge of cosmonaut training, the other in their millions. From the air on the winter day, it was the first man to leave his spacecraft and float freely in a fitting reminder of the price paid for national hubris. space and candidate for a Moon mission that never When I landed I was met by an official car and a happened. KGB driver, those on special duty being picked for Almost 40 years ago, I felt high drama in my
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presence there: the drive (with my KGB car and background is needed. minder!) off the main route out of Moscow and into a I had read technical reasons why the Russians had pine-tree cutting ending in two successive pill-box and I was shown started their space programme, we had been briefed barrier posts, the expanse of Star City suddenly opening on the political objectives and the polarising influence up into a wooded clearing. So much had happened facilities of national Soviet heroes, paradoxically within a here and, in the very early 1980s, so very recently the country where the cult of personality was supposedly cosmonauts had planned to be the first humans on where there diminishing. I had seen many papers, popular and the Moon. But it had not been so. And why was that? was a academic, exploring the sequential steps taken for It was with these thoughts in mind that I set about Russians to launch forth into space and I had been the business of trying to find out the reasons for the palpable told about the push for Soviet hegemony and about Russians waiting so long to set their sights on the Moon. the links between ballistic rockets and space launch sense of vehicles. It all sounded convincing but it was not MIND THE GAP really very close to the truth – imagined interpretation By the end of the 1970s we already knew that prior to openness and through Western intelligence informing uncertainties 1964 the USSR had not made the Moon landing an with half-baked conclusions. official government objective. But why? Kennedy had none of the On answering the question over the Moon goal, made his announcement in May 1961 and NASA had cloistered, people I spoke with seemed to focus on two significant issued all the contracts by the end of the following year. areas: their perception of the nature of the American I was determined to find out. tight-lipped political machine since 1945; and their interpretation The opportunity came not through published of the character of President Kennedy. The Russian works, either in Russia or in the West, nor in official resistance I interpretation of the Moon decision was based files. But as most things do in Russia: during informal on three shock alarms bells that rang in America and congenial conversations and spontaneous banter, had expected following the end of World War Two: the bomber-gap many debates enduring long into the night (one in the myth, the missile-gap myth and the space-gap myth. mayhem of a boisterous Georgian restaurant) and all These three episodes in turn defined for the Soviet over a lot of vodka to lubricate memories and smooth Union a cascade of precipitous actions which revealed the tongue! a nation desperately in fear of another Pearl Harbor I found the Russian scientists and engineers eager moment, where in December 1941 the United States to talk, at the research font of TsAGI, Russia’s Central had been attacked without warning, propelling the US Aerohydrodynamic Institute – essentially the broad into the war. equivalent of the then UK Royal Aircraft Establishment The bomber-gap myth came about in 1955 when (RAE) – and at several manufacturing “machine intelligence reports indicated a massive escalation in building” facilities including Antonov, Tupolev and the number of jet bomberscopy in the Soviet Air Force. This Ilyushin. I was shown facilities where there was a had amused the Russians because it was a fabrication of palpable sense of openness and none of the cloistered, their own making, a perfect example of maskirovka, the tight-lipped resistance I had expected. These were men masterful art of military deception. Western military and women eager to talk, to share their history and attaches at the July 1955 Tushino airfield display their knowledge and they knew why I was there. And counted 28 Myasishchev M-4 jet bombers whereas in they loved that I was curious. fact there were no more than ten; the Soviets had flown But there was an enthusiastic exchange of opinions, BELOW that number around the same circuit, the other side of a truly genuine desire to explain their actions, why The Myasishchev the looping flight path being out of sight to the invited they had followed certain lines of research and why M-4 which guests, thus making it appear that a large number were they had decided so late on meeting the American sparked the already under construction. challenge. The answers were truly shocking. Not in bomber-gap myth From this display intelligence officials determined Subscriberby deceiving US the sense that they were absurd or brutal but that they analysts over that the Russians would have 800 of these new jet were totally unexpected. And the answers went back to Soviet production bombers by 1960. In fact the aircraft was a failure, long before John F. Kennedy became President. A little levels. poor on performance and ineffective as a bomber
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deployment, supporting a US Air Force “wish list” for up to 10,000 ICBMS.
OBSESSION AND OVERBURDEN When I went to the USSR I had seen a draft copy of Desmond Ball’s seminal work Politics and Force Levels, in which he examined the way the political guidance of defence strategy ran through the veins of international dealings and that there had been concerted efforts to persuade Kennedy not to go down the alarmist route and bind himself to a “missile gap” scare. Kennedy became obsessed with suspected Russian hegemony and Soviet duplicity over peace initiatives as early as 1958, attaching himself to the deterrence philosophy of Albert J. Wohlstetter from the RAND Corporation, defined in its Report No R-266. I had ABOVE & LEFT never met Wohlstetter but for one brief period had An early Atlas worked with Hermann Kahn and knew about this launched from Cape Canaveral controversial view of a second-strike nuclear force held in August 1958. in readiness awaiting retribution. America’s most The geopolitical direction of the American powerful ICBM space programme was a key part of the strategic at the time had orientation of both the Gemini and Apollo missions. only one-third the throw weight To understand how they evolved requires a deep of Russia’s R-7 understanding of their place in the Cold War. But (left) – a second first, back to Wohlstetter. To achieve a second-strike point of deception required a massive “overburden”, a strike capability that prompted a massive US above that held by the enemy, in theory at least response to what proscribing the need for a superiority in strike power. was wrongly That appealed to the Democratic Party candidate. perceived as a Kennedy directed his 1960 election team to missile gap. absorb Wohlstetter’s philosophy into the campaign, compounding public fears that the Russians were BELOW copy Recovery of a spy out-producing American missile deployments. They satellite film pod. did this by insisting that a superior force – not merely Later flights would equivalence – was essential to prevent the USSR from prove the US had achieving second-strike capability. Because the US a big advantage in ICBMs, as was already absorbing second-strike into their nuclear Kennedy had been warfighting strategy, they assumed it was so in Soviet
BELOW LEFT: VIA DAVID BAKER / RIGHT: TASS / ABOVE RIGHT: USAF / BELOW RIGHT: USAF RIGHT: / BELOW USAF RIGHT: ABOVE / TASS / RIGHT: BAKER VIA DAVID LEFT: BELOW told a lot earlier. thinking. We learned later that at the time it was not
because it could not reach the United States and get back to a friendly airfield. But as a deception it worked. TheSubscriber US built more than 3,700 Boeing B-47 and B-52 jet bombers as a counter before they realised the duplicitous nature of the display. In December 1957 several weeks after the launch of Sputnik I and the first test flights of the R-7, which was also Russia’s first ICBM, a US National Intelligence Estimate determined that the Soviets could have 10 such missiles on alert as early as mid-1958. This estimate was inflated several times both deliberately by the Air Force to justify its expanding requests for US ICBMs and by politicians to suit partisan causes such as bigger defence budgets. By 1960, when the US presidential election was in full swing, the truth was known but suppressed by Kennedy. During briefings, the candidate was advised that perceptions about the Eisenhower administration limiting missile production and so endangering the US were false and that inflated claims over Soviet superiority were mischievous. Kennedy persisted in his assertions and no doubt gained additional votes by this, although there is no substantive way of knowing that. Kennedy declared that if was elected he was amenable to funding a massive increase in ICBM
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but that they adopted it later when they perceived ABOVE To assuage concerns with an American launcher of over-production of US ICBMs was confirmation that Funded by the even greater capacity was a prudent political move to a Eisenhower this was what the US was planning – the possibility of a administration, domestic electorate. first strike to survive a second. von Braun’s Saturn Addressing that public concern with a political I knew this had worried the Soviets and I wanted to I was the answer solution, the only boost to the NASA budget provided find out if it was linked to their psychological warfare Kennedy sought to by the incoming administration in early 1961 was to used for the bomber-gap and missile-gap panic by Russia’s monopoly accelerate development of the Saturn I. This was von Subscriberon big rockets and creating the perception of a “space-gap” threat, the space launchers. Braun’s clustered booster which would eclipse the third act of maskirovka. Wohlstetter was offered a high Soviet capability only when employing a cryogenic, post in the Kennedy administration in return for his high-energy upper stage. But that was going to guidance but, to his credit perhaps he never accepted. take some time to achieve. Under the conservative Nevertheless, all this concern over missiles and development and operations plan, the German deterrence fed directly into Kennedy’s desire to shape Kennedy was engineers cautiously assigned the first four Saturn I national strategy so as to counter the eclipsing effect launches to ballistic flights carrying only dummy upper of expanding Soviet achievements. It had been the not about to stages. At the very least it would be late 1963 before the shock of Sputnik 1 that had brought criticism to the powerful Saturn I with its cryogenic S-IV upper stage Eisenhower administration and Kennedy was not about let that would achieve parity with Soviet lifting power and put to let that “Pearl Harbor moment” happen on his watch. heavy weights into orbit. When he entered the White House in January 1961 “Pearl Harbor Kennedy refused to support NASA’s bid for a successor HUBRIS BEYOND PARITY to the one-man Mercury spacecraft, declining to fund moment” How did the Russians regard all of this? They knew the proposed three-man Apollo. Instead, responding to happen on his a lot about what the Americans were up to and the general awareness that Russia’s R-7 which had been underpinned an exhaustive and overt intelligence used to send the Sputniks into space had more than watch operation by gathering trade and general aerospace three times the payload capacity of America’s Atlas literature from the “open” culture of American ICBM, Kennedy sought parity in power. Reasoning society which provided vast quantities of detailed that “payload” would translate into “throw weight” information. NASA had been built on the edifice of when used for offensive purposes, the powerful Soviet public dissemination for all its policies, programmes rocket galvanised popular attention and universal fear. and projects, fully informing the public and,
30 Vol 61 August 2019 SpaceFlight SPACE HISTORYSLUG consequentially, any interested foreign power. In my discussions with Russian space engineers I was impressed by the minute detail of NASA projects acquired in the 1960s through “friendly” groups in the West, learned bodies, scientific societies and advocacy groups for all aerospace matters. Organisations would routinely supply liked-minded fellow travellers with all the open literature they wanted and that provided a great deal of soft intelligence. Overlain with covert intelligence, the USSR acquired a comprehensive picture of planning and of tempo in the American space programme and from an early date they believed it to be reactionary rather than proactive in setting goals and targets. This important synergy between what they observed to be happening and what they derived about American political culture merged trends observed throughout the Second World War. In my discussions with scientists and engineers who had been at senior levels in the 1960s and 1970s there was a mischievous disbelief that in analysing Russian moves NASA / LEFT: IMAGES MOLNIYA BELOW: the Americans had not interpolated observed national psychology with political decisions in Western analysis ABOVE the call for parity. It was, they believed, a Wohlstetter of Soviet programmes. Carried aloft by solution in a technological race – overbuild to ensure the first stage They were fascinated how easy it was to panic of Saturn I, the superiority. The Russians who mused to me over these Western opinion, how fickle was public reaction there cryogenic S-IV actions were greatly surprised that Kennedy, so fresh and how febrile was the attitude toward anticipated upper stage into office and already failing in his political decisions “Pearl Harbor” moments, expected but shockingly provided parity (the debacle over the Bay of Pigs fiasco being but one) with Soviet lift and his inability to get bills through Congress, should unanticipated. The Russians expressed this to me capability, but only through examples: quickly seizing on space “firsts” to from January 1964. gamble his presidency and his political reputation on pull America toward major expenditure on projects what they interpreted to be an absurd challenge. and programmes to appease public fear; teasing NASA BELOW I was told that they believed Kennedy had sought into making a major commitment (recommending Soviet movers and power through its essence and not because of what to Kennedy a Moon landing goal) in response to shakers in space: it enabled, thatcopy he understood the power of rockets Gagarin when he became the first human in space; and Sergei Korolev to quicken the pulse and impress the uninitiated. He encouraging paranoia through fear of nuclear attack. (centre) and to would be happy, they said, if American launchers his left, Soviet The Kennedy Moon decision of late April 1961 and Defence Minister achieved parity with theirs. And they believed that he the formal announcement a month later, demonstrated Marshall Radion would not wish to push the American economy toward to the Soviets, they said, that hubris had trumped Malinovsky. an expensive and high risk endeavour. But they Subscriber
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were convinced that, when declared as a national RIGHT accessed only after a small peep-hole in a very thick goal, public opinion would upset the ambitious Moon The first Saturn door verified the legitimacy of my KGB “minder” and I capable of landing plans. This was crucial to why the Russians delivering a his expectant guest. considered the Moon goal an unachievable challenge at heavy payload to We were there to meet some of the old guard from that time in the evolution of the space programme. orbit, SA-5 on its the very early days of the space programme. Not the They cited as evidence the way in which newspaper pedestal at Launch scientists and engineers but political philosophers who columnist Joseph Alsop had, singlehandedly in 1958, Complex 37. knew the real reasons why they had turned first in one convinced the public that by 1963 the Russians would direction and then in another. It was there, delicious have 2,000 ICBMs to America’s 130. In reality, by that Georgian wine flowing amid table-dancing men date the Russians had only 96 ICBMs of which six (women were not allowed the indignity of dancing on were the R-7 that required 24 hours to make ready for tables!) that I got my answers. launch, to America’s 631. A combination of Atlas, Titan A special department closely linked to Soviet and Minuteman. The Russians knew these figures but embassies around the globe monitored public opinion their bluff paid off and the US overbuild continued. in foreign countries, about attitudes and directives in And so it was Kennedy’s Moon decision – overbuild to The Moon the United States and about why certain decisions were achieve superiority, but for its own stake and not for being made. They knew they had seduced the Americans any sustained capability. decision was, first into massive over-expenditure on bombers, then The Moon decision was, they said, the product of they said, the on missiles and again on establishing a programme to an open society run amok. And their maskirovka was outpace Soviet achievements in space. The targets the working to perfection. During our discussions they product of an Americans thought they were racing to match were the traced a linear path from the bomber-gap myth to the product of maskirovka and nothing more. missile-gap myth to the space-gap myth. But they had, open society When Kennedy gave Saturn additional funds they said with conviction run clear out of enticements they believed they had been correct in assuming that when America decided to leapfrog space stations run amok the new President would be satisfied with matching and flights around the Moon with a landing the clear payloads capabilities; when he announced the Moon objective. A circumlunar flight would come only as a decision it completely changed polarities and suddenly part of the development path leading to humans on the Russians were reacting to a proactive US initiative. the surface and not as an intermediate step in its own I learned that night that Soviet engineers and some right. In that, they said, they had been wrong-footed scientists had called for a Moon programme to put by the Americans. And in an unexpected way. But cosmonauts on the surface but there had never been a how, and why? political directive to follow that route. Maskirovka had now come back to bite the hand that delivered it. VOLTE-FACE For a while therecopy was a determination to assess the It was not at Star City that I found the answer. There, possibilities: that America could actually achieve this; the engineers, managers and cosmonauts were BELOW that perhaps they themselves could beat NASA to the significantly removed from the political and ideological NASA’s Rocco Moon; or that none of that was theirs to pick up. With philosophy that ruled high-level determinations Petrone gives their own direction taking precedence so as not to be about their objectives. Intensely focused on their President Kennedy taunted by the Americans into a failure – should they assignments, test schedules and operational routines, a briefing on the come second in a race they had never wanted – was it Saturn I during they left the politics to others. It was necessary to dig the latter’s visit to even logical to take up the challenge? These political deeper, and in other places to find the answer. And that Cape Canaveral in philosophers, in everything but name, in that Georgian takes usSubscriber to a boisterous night in a Georgian restaurant, November 1963. restaurant on a rainy night in Moscow, laid it all out. LEFT AND RIGHT: NASA AND RIGHT: LEFT
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They said that they believed that when Kennedy saw the power of the Block II Saturn I, achieving parity with Soviet rockets that he would be satisfied and pull back from the ultimate challenge. Somehow, they were never fully convinced that he meant to go through with a lunar landing and the President’s invitation to the USSR at the United Nations in September 1963 to “go to the Moon together” (SpaceFlight Vol 61 No 7 p 30) only served to consolidate that view. He was, they decided, looking for a way out. In his visit to Cape Canaveral on 16 November 1963, Kennedy saw the fifth Saturn I which was about to put a heavy payload in orbit to match the Russia capability. He appeared satisfied and while some interpret his enthusiasm for a latter-day conversion to the new Space Age, many, including the Russians I spoke to who had seen that on American TV, interpreted his delight as satisfaction that the job had been done. America had its super-booster. Everything else was superfluous. But the Russians missed a trick and, returning the favour there was a little nugget of information that I could surprise my Russian hosts with. I told them that on 10 October 1963, Congress approved legislation prohibiting the United States from cooperating with the USSR over a manned Moon landing. My hosts shrugged with the universal response: “It didn’t matter.” Several views were expressed about America’s capacity to get to the lunar surface, half of my group claiming they believed they could not – the others trusting in NASA American industrial capabilities to get the job done, that they would. ABOVE – reversed the deception, turning it on its practitioners, The volte-face in Soviet thinking – at least at the SA-5 lifts off and from 1965 America played a more significant role on 29 January very top – came after Kennedy was assassinated on 1964, vindication in disrupting Sovietcopy plans and bending them fully to 22 November 1963. At this date there was little solid of Kennedy’s the Moon challenge. It was now too big a challenge to substance in American achievements. More than six commitment to ignore and maskirovka had been reversed. But it was months previously Gordon Cooper had flown NASA’s accelerate the too late and had too few resources. last Mercury mission. In space for 34 hours, he was the heavy lift capacity There was one last puzzle. Why had the USSR of American space fourth American to orbit the Earth. By the end of the launchers. assigned too few human and material resources? As year the Russians had put six people in orbit, including usual in Russia, the answer provided a solution to a the first woman, and achieved two simultaneous flights different question. With every major decision in the of Vostok spacecraft. Russia held the endurance record manned space programme approved by the military, the of almost five days in space. NASA’s two-man Gemini potential damage a Moon race could incur on Soviet was in serious development but it would be two years defence needs prevented their full commitment. And before itSubscriber carried astronauts into space while Apollo was so, in the end, it failed. But whereas NASA foundered probably no earlier than 1967. …a game when trying to extricate itself from the cancelled The Russians believed that with Kennedy’s death, Apollo programme in the early 1970s, the Russians had and the flight of the complete Saturn I (SA-5) on 29 played with diversified and built a base which would qualify them as January 1964 which placed a mass of almost 18 tonnes a desirable partner bringing unprecedented expertise to in orbit, Apollo would be seen as too expensive, too high risk, a the International Space Station. uncertain and too high a risk. They were convinced fear that As we left the Georgian restaurant I was reminded the programme would be cut along with approaches how it all began, with maskirovka, a game played with of extended cooperation – moves from the US that tables could high risk, a fear that tables could turn and reverse the started right in the opening weeks of the Kennedy fortunes of the players. Which is why the Russians administration. But that was not to be and the mood turn and were late in recognising that now, in stimulating a start hardened. Succeeding Kennedy as President, Lyndon to the Apollo programme in response to their own Johnson, the architect of NASA’s legislative journey reverse the achievements, they had stepped too far and from 1964 through Congress and the man who had managed the were playing to an American tune. Moon decision in a disinterested White House, was not fortunes of I had just one final question left: could they have about to preside over its cancellation. the players eclipsed Apollo had they started three years earlier with Kennedy’s visit to Cape Canaveral and the SA-5 sufficient resources and facilities? Oh yes, they said, launcher was pivotal to a hardening Soviet conclusion and slapped me on the back: “But we would have that they had pulled American objectives away from welcomed you when you finally arrived, with excellent their original intention and that they had set it upon Georgian wine!” SF a diversionary path from which the US programme would stall and lose direction. The shock of the new – (Excerpted from a forthcoming book and copyright to David the stoic determination of Americans to see it through Baker)
34 Vol 61 August 2019 SpaceFlight SPACE MEMORABILIA Marking time for COSMONAUTS Based in Grenchen Switzerland, the FORTIS watch company was founded in 1912. Their official cosmonaut chronographs remain reliable equipment for ISS crews and the watch has even been tested for a manned mission to Mars. by Philip Corneille
ORTIS (from the Latin for “strong”) was The first cosmonauts of the 1960s were mostly established by Walter Vogt and thanks to selected from the corps of Soviet military jet pilots a cooperation with John Harwood, the and used military time pieces. Upon graduation at Englishman who invented the automatic the Air Force pilot school, young officers received Fwristwatch movement, started to produce a simple 33 mm Sturmanskie (Navigator) pilot’s this ground-breaking movement commercially. watch, or later a rugged Strela (Arrow) mechanical Exactly twenty-five years ago, FORTIS was chronograph produced exclusively by the 1st selected as the official chronograph maker for all Moscow Watchcopy Factory. Although these standard Roscosmos cosmonauts. watches were not specially commissioned, each The first wristwatch in space was worn by a timepiece performed flawlessly and remained in space dog named Chernuchka (Blackie) aboard the BELOW service until the late 1970s. Sputnik 4 spacecraft launched on 9 March 1961. FORTIS Official Cosmonauts The Poljot (Flight) chronograph with 3133 Chernuchka’s time piece was a simple Pobeda chronograph pictured floating movement based on the Swiss Valjoux 7734 in the Cupola observatory “Victory” watch made by the Petrodvorets watch module of the International was the last standard cosmonaut watch, even NASA factorySubscriber in Saint-Petersburg. Space Station. worn by crewmembers of the Intercosmos
SpaceFlight Vol 61 Agust 2019 35 SPACE MEMORABILIA
programme. Towards the end of the Soviet era, to Russian cosmonauts Aleksandr Viktorenko,
these watches were marketed in the UK under the FORTIS Yelena Kondakova and German astronaut Ulf brand Sekonda, although today’s Sekonda has no Merbold. The Soyuz TM-20 mission (Mir-17) was connection with any Russian watches. the first to officially carry the chronograph. By the 1980s Russian cosmonauts had been However, in July 1994 these watches had testing a number of watch brands, among which already been issued to the Soyuz TM-19 crew was the Omega Speedmaster chronograph which (Mir-16) consisting of commander Yuri in 1965 was selected by NASA as the official Malenchenko and flight engineer Talgat flight-qualified time piece for manned space Musabayev, who tested the chronographs flight missions (Spaceflight Vol 59 No 5 p 178). during two spacewalks totalling 11 hr 7 min However, by then the wristwatch market was in September 1994. dominated by cheaper battery-operated quartz The first FORTIS cosmonaut’s timepieces and the Elektronika 52b series with chronograph had a steel 38 mm case with Liquid Crystal Display became a favourite of long black dial coated with Tritium illumination duration crews on the Salyut-6, 7 and Mir space hour markers. They were powered by the stations. Lemania 5100 automatic movement, which With the upcoming 1994 Shuttle-Mir was later replaced by the Valjoux 7750 automatic programme and with a view to future enlargement movement with a quick-set date in a 42 mm of the Mir space station requiring spacewalks, steel case, which gave the timepiece a more tool the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) watch look and feel. Award-winning for the had tested a few Swiss watch brands with a developmental work performed on automatic precision automatic movement. They preferred a ABOVE watches in space, the FORTIS Official Cosmonauts Current steel version 638.10.11 self-winding chronograph to ensure continuous FORTIS Official Cosmonauts models exclusively bear the Roscosmos logo on operation without a spacesuit-clad cosmonaut Chronograph – a veteran of their solid case backs. having to wind the watch. The FORTIS the high velocity centrifuge at In May 1995, the Mir-18 crewmembers the Gagarin Training Centre in chronographs were tested using the high velocity Star City near Moscow. Vladimir Dezhurov and Gennady Strekalov centrifuge at the Gagarin Training Centre and officially tested FORTIS chronographs during a the timepieces withstood loads up to 12g from series of spacewalks outside the Mir space station three different angles with no negative effects. totalling 19 hr, confirming that the FORTIS Furthermore the watches were pressure tested in a Cosmonauts chronographs were durable and wide range of temperatures (-200° C to +100° C). versatile wristwatches. Between July 1994 and June In October 1994, the FORTIS chronograph 2000, thirteen expedition crews stayed aboard the was announced as the official choice for all BELOW Mir space stationcopy and clever marketing combined crewmembers who graduated from the Yuri EuroMir 94 with German with correct agreements determined that the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre. During the Ulf Merbold was the first FORTIS Official Cosmonauts chronographs are international crew to use the EuroMir 94 graduation ceremony, General Yuri FORTIS Official Cosmonauts considered the watches with the most “weightless” Glaskow presented the first FORTIS chronographs chronographs. hours in space!
FORTIS AT THE ISS With the onset of the International Space Station (ISS), FORTIS was determined to remain a loyal partner of the Russian Space Agency and renewed its commitment to supply specific tool watches Subscriberfor cosmonauts. In 2001, FORTIS CEO Peter Peter received the “Blue Planet Star”, a medal of honour for the commitment to the continuous improvement of mechanical chronographs for space travel. Roscosmos requested an alarm for the watches and FORTIS found a solution to integrate that into the automatic Valjoux 7750 movement. The first watches were produced in 1998, just in time for the ISS era. FORTIS also took part in the development of a global radio synchronization signal in cooperation with the European Space Agency (ESA). In August 2001, Expedition 3 cosmonaut Vladimir Dezhurov carried a FORTIS Cosmonauts chronograph aboard Space Shuttle Discovery STS-105 to the ISS. On 8 October 2001 Vladimir Dezhurov and Mikhail Tyurin conducted a 5 hr spacewalk using for the first time the Russian Pirs airlock and docking port. It was the first ISS spacewalk without a Shuttle present. From 2004 onwards, on the final day of their Soyuz qualification exam, cosmonauts and flight
ESA participants were presented with the new B42
36 Vol 61 August 2019 SpaceFlight SLUG ROSCOSMOS
Official Cosmonauts chronograph. The overall ABOVE cooperation with ESA and China yielded important In 1995 the Mir-18 crew tested sturdy design featured a black dial with large the FORTIS chronographs data on the physical, psychological and social effects super-luminova coated hands and indices beneath during five spacewalks of long-term, close-quarters isolation missions. an anti-reflective coated sapphire crystal, allowing totalling over 19 hours. In February 2018, the Austrian Space Forum, perfect readability, even in absolute darkness. in partnership with international research As FORTIS celebrated 10 years of cooperation organisations, undertook a four-week Mars with the Russian space programme, their analogue field simulation mission in the Arabian impressive space proven chronographs were well Chronographs were Desert in Oman. Again, FORTIS was selected as on their way to reach 100,000 orbits aboard 25 the officialcopy timekeeper, supplying the chronographs space missions. In 2009, a short movie shot by tested using the for all crewmembers who conducted experiments the ISS Expedition 19 crew showing cosmonaut in the fields of engineering, planetary surface Gennady Padalka experimenting with a FORTIS high velocity operations, astrobiology, life sciences, geophysics chronograph was awarded with the bronze and geology. pyramid during the ITVA industry film festival. centrifuge Anno 2019, FORTIS is justifiably proud to In April 2011, ISS expedition 27 cosmonauts celebrate 25 years of Official Cosmonauts Andrei Borisenko and Aleksandr Samokutyayev Chronograph time pieces for the Russian space celebrated the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s programme. The Grenchen based company is Vostok 1 flight, wearing the latest FORTIS Official looking to the future as FORTIS is ready to take its BELOW Cosmonauts wristwatches. Attired in Russian Sokol suits, space credentials to a whole new level by equipping In 2012 FORTIS celebrated its centenary, Expedition 27 cosmonauts space-farers for the challenges of human travel SubscriberAlexander Samokutyayev SF highlighting their long-standing relationship with travel to the Moon, Mars and beyond! and Andrey Borisenko give Roscosmos supplying both the steel and titanium the thumbs up wearing their case versions of their mechanical watches on FORTIS wrist watches. The author thanks Ed Hengeveld for his kind assistance. the wrists of ISS crewmembers. Moreover the FORTIS B42 titanium Official Cosmonauts Alarm chronograph not only became the world’s first NASA COSC certified mechanical alarm chronometer, but also the first of its kind to be approved for space travel, a true testament to the skill of FORTIS master watchmakers. A chronograph is an additional function (a "timer" complication for mechanical watches) while the term chronometer is used to highlight the high precision certification by an official test organisation. As several space agencies and commercial ventures are considering a manned space mission to Mars, the Russian Academy of Sciences set up the MARS 500 psychosocial isolation experiment intended to simulate a 520-day Mars mission. FORTIS watches were chosen to supply the chronographs for the real-time experiment, which in
SpaceFlight Vol 61 Agust 2019 37 REVIEWS MULTI-MEDIA
The latest books, films, TV, models and games for space enthusiasts of all ages
SPACE MODELS One Small Step e finally reach that momentous event RIGHT Selection of Lunar Module of July 1969, when Apollo 11 landed kits. From back, left-right: on the Moon with Neil Armstrong and Vista Replicas’ 1:32; Buzz Aldrin, not forgetting Michael Monogram diorama and Revell (original) in 1:48; Airfix, W Collins remaining in lunar orbit in the in 1:72; Dragon in 1:48. Command Module. But it is the Lunar Module (LM) that gets centre stage this month. FAR RIGHT The first Monogram box for its As far as the kits were concerned, most model 1:48 scale Apollo 11 diorama, companies opted for producing the whole Apollo 1970. With the latest 50th anniversary, the kit has been spacecraft and kits with the LM included have already issued nine times. been noted in previous articles. So here we are with just the Lunar Module. Airfix never made an accompanying CSM in 1:48 As previously detailed, Revell produced the whole but Monogram made one in 1:32, a different scale to Apollo configuration in 1:48 scale and a smaller scale its 1:48 LM. It is because of these differing scales that kit in 1:96, the latter kit going on to form the top of the specialist “garage” companies also looked at the Revell’s giant 1:96 scale Saturn V. But both were made LM in a larger 1:32copy to match. The major one here was during the boiler-plate stages of design and although a small British company, Vista Replicas that made both kits showed the correct overall shape, many of the LM in 1:32 from resin, white metal and other the precise details were lacking. specialist materials. It doesn’t have the fine details of Interestingly the first lone LM kit had a British the Monogram kit but these are the sorts of things connection, as it came from Airfix. Issued in 1970, that could be added by the dedicated modeller. The kit the box-art still showed the original boiler-plate – and in fact the whole one-man operation – has long colours of black and white. However the kit was more BELOW been out of business, although there have been a few The Revell kit on its newer detailed than the Revell issue, and given the kit is still alternative base. You get the other attempts at producing large-scale LM kits for available it holds up pretty well. You get the Lunar flag and one Moonwalker. the modeller. Nowadays they tend to use 3D Printing Module itself, two astronauts, four of the six pieces of equipmentSubscriber carried by Apollo 11, and a circular base. You also get a separate erectable S-Band antenna. Not used for Apollo 11, but very useful if you are building Apollo 12 onwards. This kit has been issued and reissued over the
years, with little change to the contents. However for THE IMAGES: AUTHOR the 40th Anniversary the kit had a complete makeover (with some assistance from this author). Airfix had also made a set of astronaut figures, which included a Lunar Roving Vehicle, in somewhat crude form, but recognisable. So the LM kit was re-boxed, with a new larger lunar surface, the set of astronauts and a sheet of gold foil. The combined kit has been reissued for the 50th anniversary. The other LM kit of that time also arrived in 1970, from Monogram in 1:48 scale and with this you also get a “Moon base”. But this time Monogram supplies all six pieces of equipment, what was known as the Early Apollo Surface Experiments Package (EASEP), as it included a minimum number of pieces: the seismometer, laser reflector, solar wind experiment, US flag and the stereo and TV cameras. The base was also neatly pre-etched with the hard lunar shadows.
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original box. Oddly, it is only the Monogram kit that features all the equipment set out on the lunar surface, including the Apollo 11 astronauts. The Airfix kit comes second with four. The Revell original LM only ever came with a lunar surface, of which over the years there were two shapes, and a single Moon-walking astronaut figure. A second was included, but without a PLSS, so had to remain in the LM. The second base however did include a Stars and Stripes. Most strangely however are the new Dragon kits: the 1:48 scale LM, which Revell- methods, though these are really for the expert BELOW Germany has reissued, has no base and no figures, Four earlier issues of the modeller, cost far more than injection equivalent and Airfix 1:72 scale LM and while the 1:72 diorama does at least have a base and aren’t generally available anyway. (bottom) the basic Airfix LM two well-detailed figures but the only “equipment”, is There were a number of other model companies with base, two astronauts and the flag. Given it was issued 40 years after the event, four pieces of equipment, plus that delved into Apollo. As with the CSM, many the erectable antenna first and photoscopy are widespread, this is strange. SF formed part of the whole assembly. Heller in France used on Apollo 12. Mat Irvine FBIS did this in 1:100 scale, though this has variously been quoted as “1:96” and invariably assumed to be the Revell kit. It isn’t, though it was similar and possibly a copy, but with different tooling. Heller issued the kit in three forms – the complete craft, the CSM (as mentioned last month) and the Lunar Module by itself. This was also issued by Lodela in Mexico and, similar to the CSM, by Revell Germany, in 2012. Other, primarily Japanese companies made their ownSubscriber LMs including Marui, Doyusha and Nikken. While that county’s best-known name, Tamiya, made a Lunar Module in 1:70 scale to go with its CSM.
VARIATIONS All the above date from around the time of the Apollo missions but in recent years a new batch of Apollo kits has come onto the market from Dragon in Hong Kong. It has produced kits of the LM in 1:72 scale, both as stand-alone dioramas on the lunar surface and combined with the CSM. With the “Apollo 11” tag, this was titled Lunar Approach. It also made the LM in 1:48 scale. Specifically for the 50th anniversary, Airfix has reissued its LM in the same packaging as for the 40th. Revell Germany has reissued five kits: the giant 1:96 Saturn V; 1:96 Apollo Craft, the ex-Monogram 1:32 CSM and the 1:8 scale Apollo Astronaut on the Moon. It has also reissued a 1:48 scale LM but this is not its own original boiler-plate kit but the more recent Dragon kit in a Revell box. For the US market however, Revell has reissued the Monogram 1:48 scale diorama kit, based on the very first packaging of the
SpaceFlight Vol 61 August 2019 39 REVIEWS
SPACE MOVIES
copy A film that defies expectations he story of Apollo 11 is an epic one, told new angles on the famous walk along the corridors countless times before. Its white-clad to the crew transfer van, Armstrong smiling and heroes, Armstrong, Collins and Aldrin, waving to the press corps, to a foot level view of the are now figures of legend. So the question astronauts as they made their way across the access T is how do you tell the story in an original arm to be strapped into the Command Module. way, given a half century of analysis and media Further on, a lovely moment as Mike Collins scrutiny?SubscriberIt has been said made a dry comment that caused a ripple of This was the task that faced Todd Douglas laughter across the hundreds of consoles in launch Miller in his film to mark the 50th anniversary of that in a thousand control, momentarily breaking the tension. And the mission and he has answered the question by through to the thunderous liftoff into the blue unearthing footage never before seen in public. years’ time the Florida sky, again in the finest detail, thousands of Much of this work was carried out by UK-based faces peering upwards in the blinding sunshine, a archivist Stephen Slater, who has trawled through only name that will million witnesses to history. thousands of hours of NASA footage. The results be remembered And so the film goes on through the story, are stunning. beautifully told from every angle. The blue and It was not what I was expecting as I entered from the 20th white jewel of Earth receding from view to a tiny the cinema. My expectations were low and I felt disc. The unbearably tense landing, the first step, somewhat sceptical. But within seconds I was century will be that the Moonwalk, the liftoff and rendezvous, and the transfixed. This is Apollo 11 sharp and bursting return to Earth. There are even a few seconds of with colour, captured in the highest definition. The of Neil Armstrong footage from inside the quarantine facility as the power of the film also lies in its simplicity. There astronauts enter, then finally the blur of the ticker is no narration and just a countdown clock for the tape parades and the world tour. critical events. It has been said that in a thousand years’ time The film begins with frame filling shots of the only name that will be remembered from the the crawler transporter as it makes its way to 20th century will be that of Neil Armstrong. Well, the launch pad as if filmed yesterday. Footage of here is the film by which to remember and the astronauts being suited up is familiar but the celebrate the achievement of Apollo 11, a definitive images are cleaned and sharpened to give a new visual record and a fitting tribute to a heroic period vibrancy. There were some wonderful details, from in history. SF Colin Philp
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PRINTED BOOKS GAMER'S CORNER with Henry Philp Apollo for juniors Apollo 50…in Kerbal! ith introduction by Helen Sharman, this little book has been produced in a cooperation between UCLan (University for Central Lancashire) Wand the British Interplanetary Society, with further help from several BIS volunteers. Aimed at the higher pre-teen years, it uses basic Despite this being the August issue of NASA PR material to tell the story of Apollo 11. SpaceFlight, it’s reaching you just in time for the It consists of a set of descriptive spreads 50th anniversary of the first humans on the Moon. identifying the separate steps of the mission while A perfect milestone, then, to pay homage to the asking basic questions regarding operational Apollo 11 mission in Kerbal Space Program! methods which it then attempts to answer – and it Blast off To the Moon As explained in previous articles, KSP is not a does that very well.Although its intended audience by Ralph Timberlake, perfectly realistic spaceflight simulator – the is junior, the book provides a “go-to” reference Nathan Trail, Gill Norman planets are 1/10th scale, and the Moon (called much as the original NASA Press Kit did 50 years and Jenny Heller the Mun in the game’s universe) is in a zero- ago. But this book has the advantage of hindsight UCLan Publishing, inclination and an eccentric orbit around its and little side-bars doubling as captions add a available in paperback parent body, Kerbin. Nevertheless, Kerbal is reflective dimension while in other places it adds from Amazon adequate for our task here – building a launch information unavailable to the general public at the ISBN 9781912979011 vehicle roughly analogous to a Saturn V, and time; such as, just what the President would say if £7.54 using it to loft a tiny lander to the Kerbals’ nearest the crew had been unable to return to Earth. 40 pages neighbour in space. A satisfyingly grown-up little book which, for its Ever since the official “Making History” price, is arguably the best value of any book expansion arrived last year, with a whole host of covering facts about this historic flight. Do not historical-style parts, it’s been rather easy to dismiss it as being applicable only to its target build a Saturn V in the game. There are a range of audience. I challenge anyone, of any age, not to rocket parts available to build all three stages, as learn something from it! SF David Baker well as a Command/Service Module and Lunar Module. Ascopy said above, the universe of KSP is simplified in comparison to real life, meaning that it’s not possible to include some of the intricacies All in one of the real mission, such as the early shutdown of the centre F-1 engine to limit acceleration and ig books can hide a lot of wasted words! vibrations, or the ullage motors needed to settle This one by veteran space journalist David the propellant in the S-IVB's tanks before the Whitehouse does neither. Trained as an trans-lunar injection burn. astrophysicist at Jodrell Bank, the author brings a direct and personal experience In KSP it takes only 500 m/sec of ΔV to get from B low orbit to the surface of the Mun (our Moon of the space programme, a close-up commentary written with the easy style of a conversational analogue), unlike the real Lunar Module, which Subscriberneeded approximately 1.87 km/sec of delta-V to dialogue as though musing over snippets recalled with a friend. And because of that it is a very easy land. In the accompanying image you will see page-turner. Based around a lifetime of gathering that I accidentally came down above a steep stories, many told directly to the author, this single slope and unlike Neil, who had the propellant volume tells a lot about the people of Apollo, both margin to seek out an alternate landing site, I Apollo 11 – The was forced to make a landing with the danger of managers and astronauts, and also about the entire Inside Story space programme surrounding lunar exploration. the spacecraft tipping over! by David Whitehouse Fortunately, Whitehouse avoids trying to explain Happy Apollo 50 to everyone, and let’s hope the technology and the operational detail; those Icon Books that we’ll soon be able to celebrate another have been covered elsewhere. But it does provide an ISBN 9781785785122 spectacular leap, perhaps for the first humans on almost unique access to potted biographies of key £12.99 Mars, or another destination! players written in a chatty “I was there” approach which is both endearing and apposite – since, as David points out, only 20% of the worlds current population was alive at the time. Not quite sure it warrants the title but that is in its favour. It is not myopic in focus and puts its stories within a universal setting, gathering together the thoughts of many rather than the few. I really like this book. A “dip-into” indulgence or a sustained read, it fulfils its mandate on both counts. SF David Baker
SpaceFlight Vol 61 August 2019 41 SATELLITE DIGEST Satellite Digest 559 Satellite Digest is SpaceFlight’s regular listing of world space launches using orbital data from the United States Strategic Command space-track.org website. Compiled by Geoff Richards
Spacecraft International Date Launch Launch vehicle Mass Orbital Inclin. Period Perigee Apogee Notes designation site (kg) epoch (deg) (min) (km) (km) Dragon CRS 17 2019-025A May 4.28 ETR Falcon 9FT 10,000? May 6.58 51.64 92.65 408 410 [1] AFOTEC 1 2019-026A May 5.25 Mahia Electron 1 May 7.50 40.02 94.60 500 511 [2] SPARC 1 2019-026B 10? May 5.35 40.02 94.53 494 511 [3] Harbinger 2019-026E 150 May 5.55 40.02 94.58 498 511 [4] Beidou DW45 2019-027A May 17.66 Xichang Chang Zheng 3C 4,600 May 28.75 1.85 1,435.98 35,773 35,799 [5] RISAT 2B 2019-028A May 22.00 SHAR PSLV-CA 615 May 22.15 37.00 95.60 550 558 [6] Yaogan 33 May 22.95 Taiyuan Chang Zheng 4C 2,700 Failed to reach orbit [7] Starlink 2019-029A May 24.10 ETR Falcon 9FT 227 May 26.24 53.00 93.25 434 443 [8] Starlink 2019-029B 227 May 26.24 53.00 93.24 434 442 [8] Starlink 2019-029C 227 May 26.24 53.00 93.25 434 442 [8] Starlink 2019-029D 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.24 434 442 [8] Starlink 2019-029E 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.54 450 454 [8] Starlink 2019-029F 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.37 443 445 [8] Starlink 2019-029G 227 May 26.91 52.99 93.54 450 455 [8] Starlink 2019-029H 227 May 26.91 copy53.00 93.24 434 442 [8] Starlink 2019-029J 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.25 434 442 [8] Starlink 2019-029K 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.27 436 442 [8] Starlink 2019-029L 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.51 449 453 [8] Starlink 2019-029M 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.35 442 444 [8] Starlink 2019-029N 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.25 435 442 [8] Starlink 2019-029P 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.24 434 442 [8] Starlink 2019-029Q 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.25 435 442 [8] Starlink 2019-029R 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.29 438 442 [8] StarlinkSubscriber 2019-029S 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.24 434 442 [8] Starlink 2019-029T 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.25 434 442 [8] Starlink 2019-029U 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.52 449 454 [8] Starlink 2019-029V 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.34 442 444 [8] Starlink 2019-029W 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.24 434 442 [8] Starlink 2019-029X 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.26 435 442 [8] Starlink 2019-029Y 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.24 434 442 [8] Starlink 2019-029Z 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.29 439 442 [8] Starlink 2019-029AA 227 May 29.74 53.00 93.25 434 443 [8] Starlink 2019-029AB 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.24 434 442 [8] Starlink 2019-029AC 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.28 437 442 [8] Starlink 2019-029AD 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.54 450 455 [8] Starlink 2019-029AE 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.25 434 442 [8] Starlink 2019-029AF 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.26 435 442 [8] Starlink 2019-029AG 227 May 29.74 53.00 93.26 435 443 [8] Starlink 2019-029AH 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.24 434 442 [8] Starlink 2019-029AJ 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.24 434 442 [8] Starlink 2019-029AK 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.24 434 442 [8]
42 Vol 61 August 2019 SpaceFlight SATELLITE DIGEST
Spacecraft International Date Launch Launch vehicle Mass Orbital Inclin. Period Perigee Apogee Notes designation site (kg) epoch (deg) (min) (km) (km) Starlink 2019-029AL 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.25 434 442 [8] Starlink 2019-029AM 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.24 434 442 [8] Starlink 2019-029AN 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.24 434 442 [8] Starlink 2019-029AP 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.24 434 442 [8] Starlink 2019-029AQ 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.24 434 442 [8] Starlink 2019-029AR 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.28 437 442 [8] Starlink 2019-029AS 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.24 434 442 [8] Starlink 2019-029AT 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.24 434 442 [8] Starlink 2019-029AU 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.24 434 442 [8] Starlink 2019-029AV 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.25 434 442 [8] Starlink 2019-029AW 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.24 434 442 [8] Starlink 2019-029AX 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.24 434 442 [8] Starlink 2019-029AY 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.24 434 442 [8] Starlink 2019-029AZ 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.24 434 442 [8] Starlink 2019-029BA 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.24 434 442 [8] Starlink 2019-029BB 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.54 451 454 [8] Starlink 2019-029BC 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.25 434 442 [8] Starlink 2019-029BD 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.25 434 442 [8] Starlink 2019-029BE 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.42 445 448 [8] Starlink 2019-029BF 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.24 434 442 [8] Starlink 2019-029BG 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.36 443 444 [8] Starlink 2019-029BH 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.53 450 454 [8] Starlink 2019-029BJ 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.52 449 454 [8] Starlink 2019-029BK 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.55 451 454 [8] Starlink 2019-029BL 227 May 26.91copy 52.99 93.51 449 453 [8] Starlink 2019-029BM 227 May 26.91 53.00 93.52 450 453 [8] Kosmos 2534 2019-030A May 27.27 Plesetsk Soyuz-2.1b-Fregat-M 1,480 May 27.77 64.79 676.18 19,129 19,156 [9] Yamal 601 2019-031A May 30.74 Baykonur Proton-M-Briz-M 5,422 May 31.60 17.81 753.96 6421 35,712 [10]
NOTES
1. Dragon freighter spacecraft, ISS Mission SpX-17, built and Pumpkin Supernova bus for USAF and FMV (Försvarets materielverk launched by SpaceX as part of NASA’s CRS programme for transport or Defence Materiel Administration) carrying a star-tracker camera toSubscriber ISS with 1,517 kg of internal cargo including new experiments (supplied by Sweden) for space situational awareness, a software- and the RED-EYE satellite to demonstrate inter-satellite defined S-band radio (ASR, supplied by USA) and new avionics communications for DARPA and 965 kg of unpressurised cargo: systems for performance test. OCO 3 with two cryo-cooled infra-red imaging spectrometers for 4. Harbinger, a technology and Earth survey satellite built using an atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentration and a third for oxygen S-class bus by York Space Systems for the US Army carrying an concentration as calibration and STP-H6 with eight experiments ICEYE X-band synthetic aperture radar all-weather imager for Earth including an X-ray communication system (XCOM) and a star observation, a laser communications system and a FEEP thruster for tracker (NISTEx II). Launch vehicle first stage landed in the Atlantic orbit control. Ocean on the Of Course I Still Love You barge 22 km downrange. Spacecraft, including a return capsule from the Dragon CRS 12 5. Beidou, or Compass G8, is a navigation satellite using a CAST DFH- mission, captured by the ISS arm May 6.46 and docked at the ISS/ 3A bus. Mass quoted above is at launch. Satellite is located over Harmony nadir port May 6.56. OCO 3 was transferred to Kibo EF and 80°E, apparently replacing Beidou DW4 (G3). STP-H6 was transferred to ELC1. They were replaced in Dragon by 6. Radar Imaging Satellite is an Earth survey satellite for ISRO SCAN and CATS experiments. carrying an X-band synthetic aperture radar for all-weather Earth 2. Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center or Falcon ODE imaging. (Falcon Orbital Debris Experiment) technology development 1U 7. Yaogan Weixing 33 Earth observation satellite, possibly similar to Cubesat built by the USAF Academy for AFOTEC carrying two Yaogan Weixing 29, built by SAST with an imaging radar payload deployable stainless steel sphere tracking targets, masses 0.3 and for military purposes. Launch vehicle third stage failed. 0.03 kg, to measure atmospheric density and calibrate space debris 8. Set of sixty communication satellites built by SpaceX, each tracking methods. carrying transponders for communications and an autonomous 3. Space Plug and Play Architecture Research CubeSat is a collision avoidance system. First batch in planned Starlink technology development 6U Cubesat built by ÅAC Mictrotec using a broadband system. Satellites are manoeuvring to 550 km
SpaceFlight Vol 61 August 2019 43 SATELLITE DIGEST
operational orbit, but four satellites (029J, 029AA, 029AG, GLONASS constellation and planned to manoeuvre into slot 12 to 029AQ) have problems and have not manoeuvred. First stage, replace Kosmos 2436 (Uragan-M 723). that previously flown on eighth Iridium launch, landed on theOf 10. Telecommunications and direct broadcast satellite built using a Course I Still Love You barge 621 km downrange. SpaceX have not Spacebus 4000C2 bus by Thales Alenia Space for Gazprom. Mass announced individual names for the satellites yet. quoted above is at launch. The satellite will be located over 49°E, 9. Uragan-M (758) navigation satellite replenishing the GLONASS replacing Yamal 202, to provide a service to Russia, southern Asia, system, built by ISS Reshetnev. Launched into orbital plane 2 of the North Africa, Europe and the Middle East. ADDITIONS AND UPDATES DESIGNATION COMMENTS DESIGNATION COMMENTS 1989-077A FltSatCom 8 (USA 46) was manoeuvred off station at second period by May 31. 15°W April 30 and is drifting to the east. 2018-068A Haiyang 1C was declared operational May 7. 2002-057A NSS 6 was manoeuvred off station at 95°E May 17 and 2018-084K Gama Kyubu (AUTCube 2) is this object, not 084H as is drifting to the west. It has possibly been retired. given in Satellite Digest 557. 2004-024A Telstar 18/APSTAR 5 began drifting westwards off 2018-094 Tianzhi 1 is now identified as 2018-094A, Shiyan station at 138°E early May and manoeuvred to a faster Weixing 6 is 094B, Tianping 1A is 094C and Jiading 1 is westward drift May 31. 094D. Tianping 1B is confirmed as 094E. 2010-064A Zhongxing 20A was manoeuvred off station at 130.1°E 2018-099 2019-099J, 099U and 099W are three 1U Cubesats for May 20 and was relocated at 126.4°E May 27. the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command 2010-065A HYLAS 1 was manoeuvred off station at 13.8°E May 16 named SPAWAR-CAL-O, SPAWAR-CAL-R and and is drifting to the west. SPAWAR-CAL-OR, each with reflectors to calibrate 2011-032A Tianlian 1-02 was manoeuvred off station at 166.9°E optical (O) and radar (R) tracking systems and May 5 and was relocated back at 171°E May 10. mass probably 1 kg. Centauri 1 is now identified as 2018-099BD. SNUSAT 2 is confirmed as 2018-099AA, 2011-074B Luch 5A was manoeuvred off station at 165.8°E May 6 SNUGLITE as 099AC and Eaglet 1 as 099AJ. and was relocated back at 167°E May 21. 2018-110A Tongxin Jisshu SW3 manoeuvred off station at 59°E 2012-040A Tianlian 1-03 was manoeuvred off station at 16.8°E May 20 and is drifting to the east. May 15 and was relocated back at 20.4°E May 17. 2018-112B Yunhai 2-06 has manoeuvred to its operational orbit. 2012-061A Luch 5B was manoeuvred off station at 16°W May 27 Add orbit: and is drifting to the east. May 23.01 50.02° 100.77 min 795 km 805 km 2014-037H TechDemoSat 1 deployed drag sail following 2019-007A SGS 1/Hellas Sat 4 has reached geostationary orbit completion of planned operations May 31. over 39°E, co-locatedcopy with Hellas Sat 3. Add orbit: 2014-043B GSSAP 2 (USA 254) has reversed drift from westward May 28.35 0.05° 1,436.00 min 35,762 km 35,811 km to eastward, according to amateur trackers. 2019-010A,B OneWeb 0012 and 0010 have manoeuvred to their 2014-076A Hayabusa 2 descended from its 20 km station to 50 m operational orbits. Add orbits: above Ryugu May 15, but aborted attempt to descend further to release target marker over new SCI crater May 5.85 87.90° 109.45 min 1,201 km 1,204 km due to laser altimeter problem and returned to 20 May 26.79 87.89° 109.45 min 1,201 km 1,204 km km station by May 17. Repeated attempt May 29, 2019-020A-D O3b FM20, FM19, FM17 and FM18 have manoeuvred to descending to 10 m, releasing target marker May 30.10 their operational orbits. Add orbits: and returning to 20 km May 31. May 9.43 0.05° 287.80 min 8,063 km 8,069 km 2016-050A JCSat 16 was manoeuvred off station at 136°E May 27 May 9.34 0.05° 287.79 min 8,052 km 8,080 km and is drifting to the west. May 9.83 0.05° 287.80 min 8,062 km 8,069 km 2016-065ASubscriber Shi Jian 17 was manoeuvred off station at 93.7°E May 6 and is drifting to the east. May 9.49 0.05° 287.80 min 8,062 km 8,070 km 2017-082B Tsubame conducted its first period of using ion 2019-021A Arabsat 6A is now stationed over 30.5°E, co-located thrusters to counter drag in a 271.5 km orbit from with Arabsat 5A. Add orbit: April 2 to May 11 and manoeuvred to 250 km orbit for May 5.89 0.03° 1,436.06 min 35,776 km 35,799 km
INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION ACTIVITY RECENTLY DETAILED ORBITAL DECAYS International Object name Decay There was the following orbital manoeuvre of ISS during May, Designation boosted by Progress MS-10. 1997-082B Iridium 46 May 11.87 Pre-manoeuvre orbit: 1998-010C Iridium 54 May 11.22 May 23.69 51.64° 92.64 min 408 km 410 km 1998-067LP Phoenix May 8.7 Post-manoeuvre orbit: May 23.97 51.64° 92.74 min 410 km 418 km 1998-067LT SHARC May 4.0 End-of-May orbital data: 1998-067LW CSUNSat May 5.4 May 31.89 51.64° 92.74 min 408 km 418 km 1998-067MU Toki May 3.2 1998-067MV GhanaSat 1 May 22 1998-067MW Mazaalai May 11.7 1998-067MX BRAC Onnesha May 6.7 1998-067MY Nigeria EduSat 1 May 13.2
44 Vol 61 August 2019 SpaceFlight copy Subscriber SLUGSOCIETY NEWS
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Society Fellow David Shayler kicks off the 39th Sino-Russian Technical Forum at BIS HQ in London. SubscriberLOOKING TO THE EAST The Society gets together once again for the GEIR ENGENE IMAGES: annual running of its Sino-Russian Forum.
THE 39TH ANNUAL EVENT of the longest-running rocket engine programme and other topics varied series in the British Interplanetary Society’s calendar from space archaeology and cultural heritage to was held at the Society headquarters in London on Chinese space philately. An overview was also given 1-2 June when this year’s Sino-Russian Technical of Soviet Science and Technology exhibitions in New Forum explored a wide range of topics. York and London during the Cold War. An interesting They related to current Russian and Chinese space perspective on the unique and somewhat mysterious programmes and looked back at some historic Soviet “troika” mission of Soyuz 7, 8 and 9, whose 50th space achievements of the 1960s and 70s. As with anniversary is this autumn, was obtained by viewing other forums in recent years, the agenda has been it through the coverage in the UK press at the time. expanded to include presentations on the fast- Delegates looked forward to next year’s major growing Indian space programme. Some Japanese milestone of the 40th annual forum. A fuller lunar space flight projects were also reviewed. illustrated report of the event will appear in next The keynote Oleg Sokolov Memorial Paper gave issue of SpaceFlight. SF delegates an in-depth look at the Soviet nuclear Ken MacTaggart
46 Vol 61 August 2019 SpaceFlight SOCIETY NEWS Saturn enthralls PRESENTING HER Generators (RTGs), which LECTURE at the BIS on 20 were essential to power the June, Dr Kanani told us that the spacecraft – sufficient solar project, begun in the 1980s and cells would have been too ending in 2017, re-wrote the heavy. textbooks and the information The spacecraft made fly-bys gleaned may take fifty years to of Saturn’s moons, and observed analyse! the amazing “hexagon” at the An astrophysicist by north pole of Saturn. The planet training, Dr Sheila Kanani is has fifty moons, including Pan the Education, Outreach and and Daphnis, the “shepherd Diversity officer for the Royal moons” which orbit within one Astronomical Society, and of the rings and keep the rings teaches GCSE Astronomy, as in shape, the weirdly shaped well as being a television Prometheus and Pandora, the presenter. As a research porous Hyperion, the ridged scientist, she used computer Iapetus, Enceladus, with its software to analyse data from magnetic anomalies, and the the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft, amazing “co-orbital” moons and so was well-qualified to tell Janus and Epimetheus, which us about it and its mission. swap orbits every four years! The names of two The Huygens probe took astronomers were united in this two-and-a-half hours to land mission: Huygens built a special on Titan, which is bigger than telescope to observe Saturn, Mercury, and has seas, clouds, and discovered the moon Titan; and rain of liquid methane, Cassini discovered the ring-gap taking amazing pictures during The Royal Astronomical Society's Dr Sheila Kanani with Alistair Scott. known as the Cassini Division. descent. The probe was named after By 2015, the manoeuvres Cassini, and the Titan lander performed had used up fuel, moon, it was decided to guide emotional moment. carried aboard it after Huygens. and Cassini had a limited life. it into Saturn. For the scientistscopy Dr Kanani’s enthusiasm was The launch, by Titan The probe could have been and engineers working on palpable, and we were all IVB/Centaur in 1997 drew left orbiting Saturn, but in it, Cassini-Huygens was a enthralled with the wonders of protests due to the on-board order to avoid the possibility of career-long project, spanning this miniature solar system so Radioisotope Thermoelectric contamination if it crashed on a 35 years, and so this was a very far away. SF Griffith J. Ingram Moonlanding 1 ON 13 JUNE DAVID BAKER’S latest talk miniaturisation for its day, and was a Subscriberconcerned the technicalities of actually machine literally hardwired for a purpose. It landing on the Moon. He began by making could recover from “overloads”, and large the point that Apollo 11 was not, as might “mainframes” on the ground could perform be thought, the culmination of the calculations. A magnetic tape device was programme, but “the ultimate test flight”; used to record voice transmissions – two the proof that landing on the Moon was decks, recording 24 hours per day. possible with Apollo, paving the way for The technique of landing on the Moon later scientific missions. employed a “Hohmann ellipse” transfer David began by saying that the Flight from orbit to surface. There was no Plan, a continuously adjusted schedule, was “autoland” – manual landing was crucial to compiled in reverse order; the lift-off from avoid surface obstacles. On Apollo, the the Moon was the riskiest part of the Lunar Module Pilot was in fact a systems mission, with no back-up. Corrections were engineer, whilst it was the Commander performed by voice and pen, and the Flight who actually flew the LM.It was planned Plans themselves were compiled by from the first that the LM should have the typewriter; Apollo 13 was an excellent capability to push Apollo back to Earth if so example of how these crucial documents required and the velocity change capacity of were updated “on the fly”! the LM was designed accordingly – a wise We say nowadays that the Apollo precaution, as proved by Apollo 13! Guidance Computer was less powerful, and David’s talk gave us a vivid picture of just far more bulky, than a mobile ‘phone. how difficult the lunar landing was, and the However, this is unfair; the computer magnitude of its technical achievement. SF David Baker: painting a vivid picture. aboard Apollo was a marvel of Griffith J. Ingram
SpaceFlight Vol 61 August 2019 47 SOCIETY NEWS
BIS LECTURES & MEETINGS MEMBERSHIP NEWS
APOLLO 11– MOON LANDING 17 July 2019, 7.00pm VENUE: BIS, 27/29 South Lambeth Road, London SW8 1SZ Coming home! Jerry Stone continues his series of ever-popular Apollo lectures with a celebration of the first lunar landing. APOLLO 50 CELEBRATION 20 July 2019, 3:00pm–6:00pm and 6:30pm–10:00pm VENUE: BIS, 27/29 South Lambeth Road, London SW8 1SZ ALISTAIR SCOTT ALISTAIR What were you doing on this momentous day 50 years ago? Share your thoughts and celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing with the BIS. Members and up to two guests each are invited to the BIS in London for afternoon tea, to reminisce, explore the headquarters and then stay on for an evening reception at 6:30pm with discussions, short talks and a slide/video presentation timed to match the Apollo 11 Landing 50 years ago. Please Register online and "donate" on arrival. Afternoon Tea , £5.00; Reception, £15.00. 74TH ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 27 July 2018, 1 pm VENUE: National Space Centre, Leicester R.A. Smith's grandchildren (left to right): Nigel, Danielle Hughes, Neville and Vincent. Please note the change of venue. Admission to the AGM is open to Fellows only but all Members are ON 3 APRIL FOUR GRANDCHILDREN of the late Ralph A. Smith welcome to join the discussion after the formalities visited the British Interplanetary Society to reconnect with the conclude around 1.15 pm. Please advise in advance if collection of artworks that now grace the walls of HQ as a reminder of you wish to attend (attendance to this part of the that great man’s contribution to spacecopy advocacy. afternoon is free). The AGM will be followed by the BIS Born in 1905, Ralph said that he designed his first spaceship at the Summer Get-together at the same venue; tickets are age of 17 before going on to bequeath a major collection of line drawings and artwork capturing contemporary impressions of space free but you MUST register on our website, as we are travel and the machines that would carry humans throughout the inner limited for numbers. solar system. His work is seminal and as such provides a lasting record SPACE DAY of just how advanced the BIS was in studies relating to rockets, 6 October 2019 spacecraft, space suits and habitats in orbit and on the Moon and Mars. VENUE: The Hive, Sawmill Walk, The Butts, Worcester WR1 3PD Ralph Smith’s work was a landmark representation of the work of Call for exhibitors! Book a free stand at this popular BIS others as well as of his own concepts and they exist today as important West Midlands event during World Space Week. Email steps toward the first human forays beyond Earth. As such, it was [email protected] Attendance is also free especially significant that four grandchildren – Nigel, Danielle, Neville and there’s no registration. Please join us if you can. and Vincent – were able to visit the Society’s London HQ and to connect with another world-famous astronautical artist, David A. Hardy. APOLLO 12 – A PINPOINT LANDING Ralph’s son, A. H. Smith worked on rocket propulsion and lived in 20 November 2019 7.00pm Huntsville, Alabama. He spent some time at the NASA Marshall Space VENUE: BIS, 27/29 South Lambeth Road, London SW8 1SZ Flight Center where he worked for Boeing on the Saturn V guidance Following the triumph of the first manned landing on the system. Moon, the next mission had a more specific goal – the The work carried out by Ralph Smith was an underpinning element in unmanned Surveyor 3 which landed on the Moon in placing the BIS at the forefront of national and international April 1967 and the aim was to land close by and recover organisations pursuing theoretical studies into the science and parts of it. engineering of space flight and his art can be seen at the BIS along with published books carrying his illustrations. Ralph was instrumental PUTTING ASTRONAUTS IN IMPOSSIBLE in reforming the activities of the BIS after the war and much of his LOCATIONS post-war illustration was empowered 27 November, 9.30am by his lasting friendship with H. E. Ross. Ralph served as Chairman of the NEW MEMBERS VENUE: BIS, 27/29 South Lambeth Road, London SW8 1SZ Society 1956-57 before he succumbed A total of 14 new While the human exploration of the Moon and Mars has to a coronary thrombosis and died on members this month – 11 been extensively examined, serious technical 14 February 1959. consideration of the rest of the solar system has been The Society was privileged and from the UK, 1 from largely ignored. This one-day symposium is designed to honoured to have some of his family Germany, 1 from the USA explore the limits of where human exploration can go in visit the place where Ralph is and 1 from Switzerland. A the solar system and how to overcome the challenges remembered with affection and very warm involved. honoured as one of the great advocates welcome to you all! of space travel. SF David Baker
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