Spacelog Apollo 8

Understand. And you are maneuvering to PTC. That's fine.

Well, I would prefer to do that, but we will —

Apollo 8, Houston.

Go ahead, Houston. Apollo 8.

Roger. We would like to hold off on the passive thermal control until 7 hours GET and, in the meantime, to get as many more P23 marks as we can, starting with the first star and doing two sets of three marks each, and then going to the second star we gave you. And concurrent with that, if possible, we would like Bill to run this high-gain antenna checkout if Lovell's attitude is compatible with that.

Okay. But they have not been to date. We are almost to the passive thermal control attitude now, and Jim is just halfway through taking his suit off.

Roger. Understand.

We'll have to hold off for a minute here.

Roger, Frank. And the reason for this is the horizon calibration requires a number of points to give you good data for the onboard NAV coming on.

Roger. We understand. We will be right back with you; just have to wait a minute here.

Roger. Thank you.

That failing to separate from the S-IVB kind of fouled us up a little.

Houston, Apollo 8. How do you read?

Apollo 8. Go ahead.

Roger. We are standing by. Are you about ready for the high-gain antenna trial?

Okay. Just a second; we will check on that. Then are you in a position where you can go back to the star sightings?

Well, we will be, but we can't until Jim gets ready.

Okay. We will stand, and you give us a mark on that. In just a second, I will check on the antenna. Okay. It looks like we are ready to go on the high-gain antenna check. And we can either go with commands called out from the ground, and you can monitor it, or you can be talked through it, whichever you prefer.

Well, stand by. I guess we are not quite in a proper attitude yet.

Roger.

Houston. Apollo 8.

Houston, Apollo 8.

Apollo 8, Houston. Did you call?

Roger. There is the high-gain antenna on wide auto.

Houston, Apollo 8.

Go ahead, Apollo 8.

Are you getting the results you want from our high-gain antenna?

Apollo 8, Houston. Affirmative. We are getting your data, and we may have a beam width change, but stand by on that.

Alright. We're standing by. Jim's about ready to go back to the P23.

Roger. We have a GO until 7 hours on the start of the PTC.

Roger. Seven.

Houston, Apollo 8.

Go ahead, Apollo 8.

We're on the PTC mode now waiting for Jim, and I noticed that out my window now I can see Orion very clearly, even though the sun is bright in the other window.

Roger.

It almost pained me to say that, but it's true.

Roger.

Speaking of the windows, the number 5 window is getting pretty well obscured and the number 3 window is unusable.

Roger. Understand; number 3 is unusable and number 5 is obscured. Can you make out any definition at all, or do you have a target to look at?

Well, I can see the sun. Wait till it comes around the earth, and I'll give you a better hack on that.

Okay.

Apollo 8, Houston. We're going to go ahead and try to dump your tape right now. Circuit margins aren't too good at our present configuration. We're going to take a look at it. If it doesn't work, we may have to dump it again at a later configuration.

Houston, Apollo 8. We're maneuvering back now to do another P23.

Roger. Thank you.

Apollo 8, Houston.

Go ahead, Houston. Apollo 8.

Okay, Apollo 8. I'd like to fill you in on things we're thinking about doing in the next couple of hours, first chance you get there.

Go ahead.

Okay. In relationship to the midcourse correction, we'd like to put that one off until about 11 hours, and it will be approximately a 25-foot-per-second burn. The reason we're delaying the burn time is to allow for better tracking as a result of the 7-1/2-foot per second you put in on the separation. We'd like to take a little more time to look at the tracking data. And the dispersions in your correction aren't going to be growing very fast here. What we'll do then is to delete the NAV sightings that occur about 09 plus 10 in the flight plan, and this will be getting us back on to the normal flight plan sequence. So we'll go ahead and finish the P23, and the 7-hour limit on that P23 is due to the range limits on this test. Over.

Is due to the what did you say?

The 7 hours on the P23 problem is due to the fact that we want to get these sightings in at a certain range. Over.

Roger. Understand.

If you have any comments on that proposal, why, go ahead and pass them down, and we'll feed them in.

No, I think that's fine. We need to get out of the suits and get something to eat here too.

Roger. Looks like we'll be back on the flight plan by 11 hours. We'll be holding up on the updates and PAD's because of the later burn.

Houston, Apollo 8.

Go ahead, Apollo 8.

Roger. I believe we have the S-IVB in sight. It would appear to be tumbling, and every once in a while, we are getting very bright reflections from it off the star, off the sun.

Houston, 8. Are you getting the data from the P23?

Stand by one.

Affirmative, Apollo 8.

Apollo 8, Houston.

Go ahead, Houston. Apollo 8.

Roger. We're copying your P23 progress. FAO advises that it looks like you are finishing your first star, and we'll need one more set on the second star, and this 7-hour cut-off isn't that firm, so we would like for you to go ahead and complete the second star if you can.

We're on the last setting of the second star right now.

Okay. Real fine. And we've got a—it's about time for a cryo fan cycle.

Okay. We'll do them one at the time for about 4 minutes on each of them.

Roger.

We've got the cryo fan on in H₂ tank number 1.

Roger, Bill.

Houston, Apollo 8. We've just got finished taking two sets, six sightings on Sirius, and one set on Procyon.

Roger. I understand that's six on Sirius and one on Procyon.

Two sets on Sirius, one set on Procyon.

Roger.

And we're maneuvering now to PTC attitude.

Oh. Roger, Apollo 8.

Apollo 8, when you get a chance down in the lower equipment bay, it looks like you're using the floodlights in the dim 2 position, and that one is a time-limited item. We would like for you to do your standard running in the dim 1 position. Over.

Roger. Just turned them off.

Okay. Anytime you have them on, running dim 1 position is preferred to the LEB.

Thank you.

Houston. We have the cryo fan on—the number 1 H₂ tank was on at 07:01. You can give us a hack when you want it—when you're ready for it to be turned off.

Wilco.

Okay, Apollo 8. You can terminate that one and go to the other tank.

Roger.

Okay. O₂ gage number 2 is on.

Roger.

Houston, Apollo 8.

Go ahead.

Are you having any problem on the ground with your COMM?

Negative. You're coming in loud and clear.

Okay. We seem to be breaking lock intermittently up here once in a while.