Spacelog Apollo 8

Okay. Fine; thank you very much.

We are going to do—Houston—future maneuvers for P53 in a lower—slower mode of AUTO maneuver. Essentially, we are going to load the DAP with 11101 to save fuel.

Roger. That will be a 11101 DAP load.

Roger. We are going to try to save fuel that way.

Good show.

With respect to the window, Houston: the windows 1 and 5 have moderate haze on them. Satisfactory for visual observation, but possibly not for photography. Windows 2 and 4 are clear. Window 3 is almost opaque. Over.

Okay. Thank you.

And how is battery B looking to you?

Apollo 8, Houston. It looks like it may take another 6 hours on this battery B charge. It turns out that the charge rate is less than what we are getting on our ground curves, but it is still above the Apollo 7 curves, and it looks like it is going along now in good shape. And I would like to have verification that the timeline leading up to the midcourse correction was satisfactory from your point of view.

Roger. Seemed quite satisfactory.

Okay. Thank you. And we will stay off the loop until you give us a call.

Roger. You don't bother us, but our replies make a lot of noise.

Okay.

Houston. Apollo 8. How do you read?

Apollo 8, Houston. Go ahead.

Apollo 8, Houston. You're very weak. You got the proper OMNI?

Houston. Apollo. How do you read?

Loud and clear, Bill. Go ahead.

Okay. I'm just wondering how your tracking's doing.

Okay. We're still tracking you. We don't have any firm solutions, yet.

Okay. Things looking nominal up here. How about down there?

Okay. The systems basically look good, Bill. We're going to be coming up on a cryo fan cycle period in another few minutes, and you can go ahead and do that when you get ready.

Okay.

Houston, Apollo 8.

Apollo 8, you called?

Roger. We're showing RAD OUT temp on fuel cell 2 would be about 90 degrees, and on 1 and 3 it would be slightly lower—maybe 75 or 80 degrees. About an hour ago you wondered about fuel cells performance; it looks like 1 and 2 are lower in performance than 3. Over.

Roger. We show the same numbers on your outlet temperatures and thought that was a sensor failure. We've been watching the thing and we'll keep you advised of anything we see.

Okay.

And on the performance, you're right—they are not quite the same, 1 and 2 are a little bit lower but all of these are sitting within the ballpark.

Roger. Fuel cell 1 has shown slightly a proportionately higher H₂ flow than O₂ flow all day long.

Okay.

I'm showing 0.062 H₂ and 0.48 O₂.

Roger. We'll take some CAL curves on those.

Okay. These things look reasonable to me and we'll keep looking at them. Our RAD OUT shows about 0.43 as opposed to your 0.48 on the oxygen, and we'll keep an eye on the CAL curves and just sort of watch it for you.

Okay. Thank you.

If you'd like to set up some kind of a COMM check or specified time like every 30 minutes or so on these quiet periods, that would be okay with us. Might help to let us know that we're still in business.

All right. Just give me a call every now and then.

Apollo 8, Houston. How about a COMM check, and did you get that fuel cell purge—correction, the cryo fans ON?

Roger. We've had the cryo fans ON each for about 3 or 4 minutes.

Okay. Real good. We weren't real sure that's what we were watching, and you're coming through loud and clear.

Apollo 8, Houston.

Go ahead, Houston. Apollo 8 here.

Okay, Jim. Got an update here to the flight plan. You've got the 16:55 star visibility check, and what we've got on that looks like Navi is still our star, and the numbers associated with that are roll 102.6, pitch 328.9, yaw 346.3. That gives you a shaft and trunnion of zero. And if you think you can—if you think you can do something with this, why we would like to go ahead and give it a try and see if we can either verify it or maybe we'll both learn something if we verify it if you can do it with Navi.

Now the attitude is good, Houston, as far as not having glare on the optics, and it might be a certain amount of data adaptation is required here.

Apollo 8, Houston.

Apollo 8, Houston. Over.

Apollo 8, Houston. Over.

Go ahead, Houston. Apollo 8 here.

Apollo 8, this is Houston. I've got a new PTC attitude for you when you finish P23. Give you a better look at the earth. Over.

Roger. Ready to copy.

Okay. Pitch 224, yaw 20.

New PTC is pitch 224, yaw 20.

Affirm.

Houston, Apollo 8.

Apollo 8, Houston. Go.

Apollo 8, this is Houston. Over.

Apollo 8, Apollo 8, Houston. Over.

Apollo 8, Apollo 8, Houston. Go ahead.

Roger. We are taking our time going to this new P23 attitude; going to Navi is quite a ways away from the attitude we need for P23. I have a correction to make on 20—on Navi after getting dark adapted; you can pick out Cassiopeia and you can pick out Navi itself. It is difficult to see what stars are around. We still have quite a bit of particles that are floating with the spacecraft, especially when we move the optics and shaft. It seems to throw off a lot of particles.

Roger. We copy that. What's your spacecraft lighting situation inside now?

We have the center window—the round window covered, and we have—the other windows are opened.

Apollo 8, Houston.

Go ahead, Houston.

Apollo 8, Houston. While you're maneuvering for your P23, we have an update for DELTA-H for you if you're ready to copy.

Roger. Stand by.

Roger, Houston. You say you have a DELTA-H update for us? Just what do you mean?

Roger. DELTA horizon update.

Roger. Go ahead.

This is as a result of your P23 calibration; the update follows: VERB 24, NOUN 01, ENTER 1354, ENTER all balls, ENTER 214 50 ENTER; comment: continue to mark on the horizon destination that you've used previously. Your marks are looking very good.

Roger. DELTA-H update as follows: VERB 24, NOUN 01, ENTER 1354, ENTER all zeros, ENTER 214 50 ENTER. Understand those are two octal numbers.

That's affirmative; both octal.

Roger. When do we get the maneuvers here? I'll go out on 23, and I'll put these in; then I'll continue.

Okay.

Apollo 8, Houston. There's no requirement for you to leave P23; you can enter those right now if you want to.

Houston, are we in low bit rate now?

Apollo 8, Houston. You're in high bit rate.

Roger. We'd like to record you this P23 stuff.

Okay.

How about commanding low bit rate record FORWARD.

Roger. Low bit rate, record FORWARD.

All right, Houston. Have you sent those commands yet?

Apollo 8, Houston. They have been sent.

All right, Roger. Thank you. I am on the other side, too lazy to go over and get it.