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MIT Institute Archives & Special Collections. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. News Office (AC0069)

From the Office of Public Relations Massachusetts Institute of Technology FOR RELEASE TO A.M. NEWSPAPERS Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 OF SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1969 Telephone: 864-6900, extension 2701

Astronaut James A. Lovell, Jr. , navigator on the Apollo 8 flight to the moon, will be in Cambridge Thursday (February 13) to address students and staff at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where the Apollo guidance system was developed. Appearing with the astronaut will be Mr. Christopher C. Kraft, who, as director of flight operations for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Manned Space- craft Center at Houston, Tex., is the chief ground controller for all manned space flights. Astronaut Lovell, who is a captain in the U.S. Navy, and Mr. Kraft will be at M.I.T. Thursday to take part in a special Apollo convocation for M.I.T. students and staff. The convocation will be at M.I. T.'s Kresge Auditorium from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p. m. M.I. T. President Howard Johnson will preside at the convocation. Other convocation speakers will be Dr. Charles Stark Draper, founder and director of the M. I. T. Instru- mentation Laboratory which is responsible for the Apollo guidance work, and Mr. David G Hoag, an associate director of the Laboratory who directs the Laboratory's Apollo work. Captain Lovell will illustrate his talk with color slides and color motion pictures which he and the other members of the Apollo 8 crew - - Col. Frank Borman and Lt. Col. William Anders -- made during their flight. The illustrative pictures show views of the moon and the earth made during the voyage out and back, scenes of the lunar landscape made while the Apollo 8 was in orbit around the moon, and scenes made inside the spacecraft showing crew members at work. The convocation will be televised live and in color by WGBH-TV Channel 2. Color television monitors will be located in the Sala de Puerto Rico at M. I.T.'s Student Center to

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accommodate overflow crowds from among the M. I. T. community. In addition, WGBH-TV expects to rebroadcast the convocation program by videotape at a time to be announced later. Earlier Thursday - - from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p. m. - - Lovell and Kraft will take part in a special assembly at Kresge Auditorium for staff members and employees from Instru- mentation Laboratory. Dr. Draper will preside at that meeting. In his talks at M. I. T. - - particularly in the talk before the Instrumentation Labo- ratory work force -- Captain Lovell is expected to present a first hand report on the operation of the guidance-and-navigation system on the moon trip. The M. I. T. Laboratory not only designed and developed the on-board guidance- and-navigation system hardware for Apollo, but also has continuing responsibility for pro- gramming the guidance computer portion of the system for each Apollo flight and for training astronaut crews in use of the system and programs. Moreover, M.I.T. engineers at the Laboratory and at Apollo centers throughout the U. S. support NASA in installation, checkout and test of all systems and, during missions, back up ground controllers at Houston in the use of the system in space. On the flight to the moon, Captain Lovell's special assignment as navigator was the operation of the M.I.T. guidance system. In preparing for the mission, he made his last visit to the M. I. T. Laboratory (at 75 Cambridge Parkway) only 10 days before the Apollo 8 launch for a final practice session with the Laboratory's Apollo spacecraft. NASA, in post flight analysis, described the operation of the G & N system during the flight as "phenomenal." The spacecraft landed in the Pacific Ocean at the end of the half million mile round trip less than one-third of a mile off the programmed target point. Captain Lovell drew commendations from NASA for his expert use of the system during the flight. He operated the system's space sextant and scanning telescope, its computer programs, and its inertial measurement unit with such skill that he became known among his colleagues at Houston as "the man with the golden hands. " At one point on the flight toward the moon, Col. Borman poked good-natured fun at

Captain Lovell and at his skill with the M. I. T. system. Colonel Borman told capsule com - municators not to praise Captain Lovell too much. "We've got to spend four more days up here with him and already he's talking about going back to M. I. T. as a professor, " Colonel Borman told the ground. Captain Lovell will conclude his visit to M. I. T. Thursday at a small, private dinner at the home of President Johnson.