Spacelog Apollo 8

What was it, 40 shots at four birds?

Oh, negative, Frank. I'm 100 percent, one bird per box.

Houston, Apollo 8.

Apollo 8, Houston. Go ahead.

It appears that we did a grave injustice to the food people. Just after our TV show, Santa Claus brought us a TV dinner each, which was delicious, turkey and gravy, cranberry sauce, grape punch; outstanding.

Houston, Apollo 8.

Apollo 8, Houston.

Apollo 8, this is Houston. Over.

Roger. We've got an awful lot of these stars to mark on now, Mike, and they were having some concern about the PTC. Will you let us know if we stay in one position too long, or if we have to knock off and do some PTC?

Will do, Frank.

Apollo 8, Houston. We are monitoring your temperatures. The quads all look good. We will continue to do so, and we expect no difficulty with them during the P23 work.

Thank you.

Our highest tank temperature now is C.

Apollo 8, Houston. Over.

Apollo 8, this is Houston. Over.

Go ahead, Houston.

Roger, Bill. We would like to talk about your high-gain antenna sometime when you get a minute.

Okay. Just a second, Mike.

Houston, Apollo 8. About the high-gain antenna.

Okay, Bill. We think it would be an extremely worthwhile thing to find out how it operates in the AUTO REACQ mode, and we propose running a test on it in that mode from 109 to 111 hours GET. Over.

Okay. We'll do that.

Okay. I have about a —

We'll try it on the way out.

We have a detailed procedure which we can read up to you anytime you're ready.

Go ahead.

Okay. We suggest the start time 109 hours GET, stop time 111 hours, and you'll be in a PTC. We're requesting a left roll rate, which we notice that you've been preferring, a left roll rate of 1 revolution per hour, and this is in your present PTC attitude (i.e., pitch 10 degrees, 010 degrees, and yaw 45 degrees). The procedure is this: step 1, stop at roll angle 150 degrees; acquire—this is step 2—acquire in MANUAL mode; three, switch to AUTO NARROW BEAM; four, make sure tracking in AUTO mode then switch to AUTO REACQ mode; five, position the high-gain antenna —

Wait a minute, Houston.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Okay. Whoa, whoa. Standing by.

I'm still starting.

Okay. Make sure tracking in AUTO and then what?

Make sure tracking in AUTO, and then switch to AUTO REACQ mode. Over.

Okay. Will do.

Okay. Step 5, position high-gain antenna pitch and yaw control to predicted earth's rise angles, and those angles are yaw 50 degrees, pitch minus 40 degrees. Over.

Okay.

Okay. Two more steps. Step 6, remain on high-gain antenna in this mode for two REV's. Do not switch to OMNI anytime during these two REV's, and maintain mode configuration of voice and data. We expect loss of track should be no more than 15 minutes per REV. Over.

Roger.

And the final step, 7, if any problem arises, go back to your initial gimbal angles of 10 degrees pitch, 45 degrees yaw, and 150 degrees roll; reacquire and go to AUTO mode. Over.

Yes, I guess there ought to be a step 4A which says start roll again, right?

That's affirmative. Excuse me there, that's affirmative.

Okay. If—let's see, if we—I don't understand your last comment. If we get into a problem, you want us to go back to 150 degrees roll?

Well, all we want you to do is go ahead and reacquire in the AUTO mode, Bill. And it looks like that would be one way of doing it. But all we're saying is, you know, if you want to talk to us about something, or you have my other problems, or you don't like the way it looks, anything at all, just go ahead and reacquire in the AUTO mode.

Roger. Thank you. We copy.

We have a few more stars to get, and then we'll give it a try.

Apollo 8, Houston. Over.

Go ahead, Houston.

Roger, Bill. We got a bunch of tapes of some of your favorite music down here. You be interested in hearing a little background on the S-band?

Go ahead.

Houston, Apollo 8.

Apollo 8, Houston. Go ahead.

Roger. For some reason, we suddenly got a PROGRAM 01 and no attitude light on our computer.

We confirm that.

Stand by one, Jim. We're working on a procedure for getting you cranked back up again.

Apollo 8, Houston.

Go ahead.

Okay. Jim, while we're working on this procedure, we'd like to know did you select 01, and you get a VERB 37 ENTER, 01 ENTER?

Let's see, I'm not too sure, Mike. I might have done that, yes.

Okay.

We have star 01 coming up, now that might have been the reason.

Okay. We understand. Why don't you just hold what you've got on your DSKY, and we'll be with you shortly.

Apollo 8, Houston.

Go ahead.

Roger. Could you or Bill give us a better OMNI antenna, please?

Apollo 8, Houston. Over.

Go ahead, Houston. Apollo 8.

Okay. Frank, our procedure is to select P00, and from P00 go to P51, and get a platform alignment. After you've done that, we will send you up a P27, a REFSMMAT, and then you can do P52 REFSMMAT options. Then you'll be back in business. Over.

Okay, Mike. Thank you.

Houston, this is Apollo 8.

Houston, Apollo 8.

Apollo 8, this is Houston. Go ahead.

Apollo 8, this is Houston. Say again. Over.

Okay. We've completed a P51 now. You want us to try a P52, or you want us to wait till we can put a REFSMMAT in?

Stand by one, will you, please, Frank?

Roger.

We're putting together a P27 load for you now, Frank; that's the reason for the delay. We just want to make sure we don't overlook anything before we send it up to you.

Okay. We'll just sit tight then. We've got a good P51. We'll just wait till you put in a REFSMMAT, and then, of course, we'll fine align over to that, right?

That's right, that's exactly right. Just stand by.

Mike, this is Frank again.

Go ahead.

I suggest that we go ahead while you're doing that, do a P52 here; and let it do an automatic and just tweak this up. Jim had to use Rigel and Sirius, and they're pretty close together. And although we got a zero difference for the star angle, that might not be a bad idea just to try a 52 here.

We'd rather not do that, Frank. Stand by one.

Alright. We won't do a thing.

Frank, we feel that procedure that you're talking about is really not required, and it's sort of wasting your time. You'd still have to—upon completion of that, we'd have to send you a new REFSMMAT, and you'd have to go ahead and do P52 to that REFSMMAT in addition. Over.

We understand that. Go ahead. We'll wait for your REFSMMAT.