Spacelog Apollo 8

Apollo 8, Houston.

Apollo 8, Houston. Over.

Apollo 8, Houston. Over.

Apollo 8, Houston. Over.

Apollo 8, this is Houston. Over.

Apollo 8, this is Houston. Over.

Houston, Apollo 8. How do you read?

Roger, Bill. We are reading you loud and clear now. We had an antenna problem down here. We had an unexpected switch of antenna, which probably caused your high gain to quit.

Roger.

Apollo 8, Houston. Over.

Go ahead,Houston. Apollo 8.

Roger, Jim. When we lost our antenna down here, we interrupted your tape dump, so we are in the process of doing some rewinding and continuing the dump, in case Bill is wondering what is going on with the tape recorder.

Apollo 8, Houston. Over.

Go ahead, Houston.

Roger. At 26 hours GET, we'll be switching our antennas back again at Madrid, and you can expect a glitch on your COMM system.

Roger.

Houston, Apollo 8.

Go ahead, Jim.

I noticed that you skipped the IMU alignment for about 26 hours because we were still asleep. Do you want to include that again, or do you think it is required?

Roger, Jim. We think it is going to be required prior to the next set of P23 sightings, and we're suggesting that it be put in at 27:45. We'll have a flight plan—a more complete flight plan update in here shortly.

Okay. Fine. We're in the process of having breakfast.

Apollo 8, Houston.

Go ahead, Houston.

The tape dumps are complete; it's rewound. You can go ahead and record in low bit rate if you …

Apollo 8, Houston.

Go ahead, Houston. Apollo 8 here.

Disregard. We were going to talk about the high gain, but you beat us to it.

Okay.

Apollo 8, Houston.

Go ahead, Houston.

Roger, Jim. We would like to take control of the tape for a few minutes to make sure that we got all that last dump. Over.

Okay. Stand by one.

Roger.

You've got it.

Thank you, sir.

Houston, Apollo 8.

Apollo 8, Houston. Go ahead.

Roger. I just noticed that I can hear those RTC's coming through on normal voice.

What does it sound like, Bill?

A little squeak.

Okay, Bill. This will be on page 2 dash 22 of your flight plan. For the command module pilot—I've already mentioned it to him—but at the top of the page, at about 27:45, actually, we would like him to do a P52, an IMU alignment, and then the P23 should be done as scheduled. Those four stars, Procyon, Regulus, Alphard, and Spica: we realize Alphard may not be too good a star, Regulus is about 3 degrees above the horizon, and Spica is at a 48-degree trunnion angle; so I guess what we are saying is if Jim has difficulty doing one set on each of those four stars, we suggest that he omit whichever one he is having difficulty with and pick it up by doing two sets on some other star that he likes. Over.

Roger. Understand.

All right. In the lower right hand corner of page 2-22, the passive thermal control attitude should read “pitch 224 degrees, yaw 020.”

Roger. Copy.

And on the next page, at about 29 hours, you can resume the normal flight plan. We would like to make one addition; at 29:30, add a waste water dump. Even though one is not really required at that time, we would like to get the dump out of the way so we can track you uninterruptedly without any dumping, you know, as we are coming up on midcourse correction number 3. Over.

Roger.

That's about all, Bill. You got any questions on this?

No, it looks pretty good. We've been saving up some water of our own to dump here, so that will work out all right.

Very good. And don't ruin Jim's optics.

Right.

Apollo 8, Houston.

Go.

Roger. We would like P00 in ACCEPT, please. We would like to send you up a P27. It's a LM state vector, going into the LM slot only, and we do not want you to transfer it over to the CSM.

Apollo 8. Houston. Did you copy?

Roger. You got it.

Okay. We got it. We're sending you a LM state vector, and we would like you not to transfer that vector over to the CSM slot.

Roger.

Apollo 8, Houston.

Apollo 8. Roger. Are you still planning an MCC 2 at 28 hours? Over.

Stand by one, Bill. Bill, negative. Now that midcourse correction number 2 has been cancelled. Its magnitude was less than 1 foot per second, so we decided not to do it. Over.

Okay. Thank you.

And you've got the computer again, if you go to BLOCK.

Houston, Apollo 8.

Apollo 8, Houston. Go ahead.

Are you still computing the pericynthian time of 6910.

Stand by. We will get an update for you.

Okay.

Apollo 8, Houston.

Roger. This is Apollo 8.

Okay, Bill. We just got your readout on your voice tape, and we will be back with you on it shortly. Over.

Okay.

Houston, I'm going to be doing my alignment at this time. I'm in a good position for viewing the stars.

Apollo 8, this is Houston with voice check. Over.

Houston, Apollo 8. Read you loud and clear now. How us?

Oh, good. Reading you loud and clear. One, two, three, four, five, five, four, three, two, one. Am I cutting in and out still? Over.

Nope. All the numbers are coming up nicely.

Okay. Thank you, Jim.

Apollo 8, Houston. We are going to switch antennas at 28:20. Stand by for our blitz.

Roger, Houston. And we will start passing thermal control, and we are maneuvering to P23.

Houston. Apollo 8.

Apollo 8, Houston. Go.

Roger. You copy high bit rate now for this P23?

Negative, Bill. We are getting low bit rate now.