Apollo 8 transcript starting at 05 21 41 31 on Spacelog

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05 21 41 31
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Apollo 8, Houston.
05 21 41 34
Frank Borman (CDR): Go ahead, Houston. Apollo 8.
05 21 41 37
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Okay. I've got some weather and recovery force status and a couple of last minute items to run down any time it is convenient for you.
05 21 41 47
Frank Borman (CDR): Alright. It's convenient right now, any time.
05 21 41 50
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Okay. For the mid-Pacific, the general condition is good. You can expect cloud bases 2000 foot scattered, visibility 10 miles, wind 070 at 12, wave heights 4 feet, altimeter 2974. Sunrise will be 17:10 Zulu, and first light 16:49 Zulu. The recovery forces: ship will be Yorktown; the aircraft will be Airboss number 1 and 2, and Recoveries 1, 2, and 3. The estimated time to a target point: the ship is—Yorktown is on the target point, Airboss aircraft 15 minutes and will be on-scene commander. Recoveries 1, 2, and 3 are SH3 Alfas, and they go with the Yorktown, so they are at the target point. All of them have swimmers aboard. If the recovery aircraft do not hear from the spacecraft; they will go ahead and put swimmers in the water, and if you are in good shape and give them a call, then they will hold off on dropping swimmers until sunrise.
05 21 43 45
Frank Borman (CDR): Roger. Say again the sunrise and first light time for me, would you, please?
05 21 43 53
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): I say again, 8.
05 21 44 23
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Apollo 8, Houston. Notice the rather large middle gimbal angle. Over.
05 21 44 32
Frank Borman (CDR): Thank you.
05 21 44 38
Frank Borman (CDR): Would you say again the daylight time, please, sunrise, and first light.
05 21 44 44
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Okay. Sunrise is 17:10 Zulu, and first light is 16:49 Zulu.
05 21 45 01
Frank Borman (CDR): Thank you.
05 21 46 05
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Okay. Looking over the weather I gave you was—the 2000 foot scattered at the target point may have a 6000 foot broken layer above that. At the MAX lift point, you will have about the same thing, and altimeter is the same down the range. As you go further to the east, the weather should improve slightly; there is no problem with thunderstorms or rain showers in any of your recovery area.
05 21 46 42
Frank Borman (CDR): Very good; thank you.
05 21 46 51
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): The items that we still need will be a PRD reading as late as you can do it conveniently prior to a final stowage. And we don't have any numbers on the last crew sleep period. I'd like to verify that the secondary RCS was activated on all four quads. And I have about five comments on the entry checklist procedures to verify.
05 21 47 24
Frank Borman (CDR): It was activated on all four quads; that's correct. Our final stowage is completed. We'll read out the PRD's for you now.
05 21 47 35
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Alright. Thank you.
05 21 47 40
Frank Borman (CDR): The LMP's reads 0.64; I believe it's been that way throughout the flight. The CMP's reads 0.11, that's 1.11.
05 21 47 58
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Roger.
05 21 48 02
Frank Borman (CDR): Stand by a minute. Let me look at it closely. That's 0.11.
05 21 48 09
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Roger. 0.11.
05 21 48 11
Frank Borman (CDR): And the one I ended up with reads 3.10.
05 21 48 18
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Okay. Thank you.
05 21 48 37
Frank Borman (CDR): Okay. Go ahead, Ken. What else do you want to talk about?
05 21 48 41
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Okay. To make everybody happy, we can use an estimate of the number of hours sleep the people got.
05 21 48 52
Frank Borman (CDR): Just a minute, I'll give you that; I forgot. Bill Anders got about 5 hours, and Jim Lovell got about five, and I got about five and a half or six.
05 21 49 09
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Sounds good. Okay. We went through an exercise with the mockup on the preentry preparations, and we noticed that in the LMP's checklist on page S-12, when you go to top off the repress bottles, I believe it is a misprint; it should read the PLSS fill valve rather than the REPRESS valve, and we should be going to the FILL position as opposed to going to ON.
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05 21 49 47
Frank Borman (CDR): Roger. That's what we do.
05 21 49 51
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Okay. And on—go ahead.
05 21 50 01
Frank Borman (CDR): Go ahead. We agree that's what we do.
05 21 50 04
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Okay. On page E-7 of the entry checklist and under step 34, as long as you have panel 382 open, that's a convenient time to go ahead and have the evaporator water controls, both primary and secondary, to AUTO, and the suit heat exchanger for the secondary glycol to FLOW.
05 21 50 27
Frank Borman (CDR): Those items are already accomplished.
05 21 50 29
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Very good. On page E-9, when you are getting ready to transfer the RCS to the command module position, if you want to avoid having the engines fire as a result of attitude correction, you might want to take the manual attitude switches to ACCEL COMMAND or MINIMAL IMPULSE. And again on E-9 Alfa at step 41 Bravo, if you want to go back to attitude hold, bring your manual attitude switches back to RATE.
05 21 51 13
Frank Borman (CDR): What was that last step?
05 21 51 15
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Step 41 Bravo on page-E-9 Alfa. It's if you decide to use either MINIMAL IMPULSE or ACCEL COMMAND on page E-9, step 41 Bravo would be a good place to go back to RATE COMMAND.
05 21 51 31
Frank Borman (CDR): Okay. We do a purge or —
05 21 51 35
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Okay, fine. And —
05 21 51 39
Frank Borman (CDR): I didn't put all those control configurations changes on the checklist, but that's exactly what we did, used MINIMUM IMPULSE.
05 21 51 47
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Okay. Real fine.
05 22 00 51
Frank Borman (CDR): Houston, Apollo 8.
05 22 00 54
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Go ahead, 8.
05 22 01 07
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Apollo 8, Apollo 8. Go ahead.
05 22 01 11
Frank Borman (CDR): I'd like to confirm one item on the PAD message, please.
05 22 01 15
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Roger.
05 22 01 17
Frank Borman (CDR): Time to retro-drogues, reference you last time to drogues, please.
05 22 01 28
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Okay. I'll check that one out.
05 22 01 31
Frank Borman (CDR): And also, Ken, we are going to turn on our VHF now, about 4 hours before entry.
05 22 01 37
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Real fine. Thank you. I'll let you know when we pick it up.
05 22 01 41
Frank Borman (CDR): A Simplex.
05 22 01 42
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Affirm.
05 22 17 33
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Apollo 8, Houston.
05 22 17 35
Frank Borman (CDR): Go ahead, Houston.
05 22 17 37
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Okay. We have checked into your drogue time, and the number of 08:16 on your entry PAD is correct. We'll be giving you an updated entry PAD on the scheduled time of 143:30. At the same time, we'll be giving you an update of your state vectors for the LM and CSM. The midcourse correction number 7 was less than seven-tenths foot per second, and we will not execute it. You have a P52 scheduled at 143:30 which is not required. It's your option. However, if you decide to delete the P52, the CMC self-check and DSKY condition light test are still requirements. Over.
05 22 18 32
Frank Borman (CDR): What do you mean, they are still requirements? We weren't planning to do the CMC self-test.
05 22 20 53
Frank Borman (CDR): On that DSKY check . ..
05 22 21 07
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Apollo 8, Houston. That's my mistake on CMC self-check and DSKY condition light. That's an optional test. Over.
05 22 21 16
Frank Borman (CDR): That's what we thought, Ken. Gosh, if that's been working perfectly for 6 days, I don't see any reason to test it.
05 22 21 24
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): I agree.
05 22 21 26
Frank Borman (CDR): Thank you.
05 22 21 36
Jim Lovell (CMP): Morning, Ken. How's Houston this morning?
05 22 21 39
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Just fine. Nice and balmy.
05 22 21 44
Jim Lovell (CMP): Good.
05 22 51 28
Bill Anders (LMP): Houston, Apollo 8. Over.
05 22 51 31
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Go ahead, Apollo 8.
05 22 51 45
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Apollo 8, go ahead.
05 22 51 49
Bill Anders (LMP): I am just—It is my understanding that we are to bring up the secondary loop at 1 hour prior to SEP, isn't that right?
05 22 51 54
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): That is affirmative, about page Echo 9.
05 22 52 10
Bill Anders (LMP): Okay.
05 22 52 16
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): And Bill, … suggested if we have the water boiler going on the primary loop, that you—you might wait about 5 minutes or so before you initiate the secondary loop.
05 22 52 38
Bill Anders (LMP): Wait 5 minutes from what? From the time the primary loop starts or from 1 hour?
05 22 52 43
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): From the time the primary loop starts; this will give you a check to see if it had a chance to dry out or not.
05 22 53 04
Bill Anders (LMP): Oh, I am with you. Okay.
05 22 53 09
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): And for your information, we already have a VHF downlink. It's poor quality, but we do have contact.
05 22 53 22
Bill Anders (LMP): Okay. We haven't turned anything over to VHF yet.
05 22 53 25
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Okay.
05 22 53 27
Bill Anders (LMP): We tried to call you on the VHF though, Ken.
05 22 53 30
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Roger. I say, the quality is pretty poor; they may not be able to understand you.
05 22 53 36
Bill Anders (LMP): Roger.
05 22 56 59
Frank Borman (CDR): Houston, Apollo 8. Over.
05 22 57 01
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Go ahead, Apollo 8.
05 22 57 14
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Apollo 8, Houston. Go ahead.
05 22 57 17
Bill Anders (LMP): Ken, we got two things going here which make this suit heat exchanger flow a little different. One of them is we are not doing a coldsoak, and the other one is we are powering down the secondary loop prior to SEP. And I wonder if it is a good idea to have the suit heat exchanger only on a secondary loop in that case. And plus the fact that we haven't got any cabin heat exchanger.
05 22 57 45
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): I don't think that was the intent, Bill. What they had in mind, we have the suit heat exchanger on both loops; and if they got too cold, you could use the panel switching to shut down the primary loop through the heat exchanger. But in any event, you would always have something going to the suit heat exchanger. I recognize that we are going to be shutting down the secondary heat exchanger pre-SEP and then turning it back on prior to entry, but the idea was to have both primary and secondary loops on the suit heat exchanger simultaneously.
05 22 58 24
Bill Anders (LMP): Yes, my checklist doesn't reflect that. I think that's a good idea because we are a little suspect of our cabin fans and don't plan to use them.
05 22 58 31
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Roger.
05 23 01 54
Bill Anders (LMP): Houston, Apollo 8. Over.
05 23 01 58
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Go ahead, 8.
05 23 02 08
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Apollo 8, Apollo 8. Go ahead.
05 23 02 12
Bill Anders (LMP): Roger. What's Rod's estimate of our postseparation main bus voltage?
05 23 12 41
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Apollo 8, Houston. We will be making a handover from, Carnarvon to Honeysuckle at 15.
05 23 12 50
Frank Borman (CDR): Roger.
05 23 16 16
Bill Anders (LMP): Houston, Apollo 8. Over.
05 23 16 19
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Apollo 8, go ahead.
05 23 16 24
Bill Anders (LMP): I am still a little bit confused on that- on this activating the secondary loop. You indicated inactivating it at 1 hour or 5 minutes after the primary evaporator comes on the line. My checklist shows that the primary evaporator probably won't come on the line until we bypass the radiators. Have you got something else in mind I don't know about?
05 23 16 56
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Okay, Bill. We passed up an update some time back on page E-9 step 38 right at the beginning, and you have got a final GET drift check. And between there and the step 39 where it says terminate CM RCS preheat, that was the place we wanted to activate the primary loop by putting the glycol evaporator water switch to AUTO and the glycol evaporator steam pressure to AUTO.
05 23 17 41
Bill Anders (LMP): Roger. I don't expect it to boil, though. Do you?
05 23 17 45
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Okay, Bill. We are hoping that it will there. It looks like we will have had a stable attitude for sometime, and we anticipate that it will be warm enough to make it boil. That is the reason it's suggested if it is boiling, that you wait. If it isn't, go ahead and turn on the secondary loop.
05 23 18 04
Bill Anders (LMP): Okay. Well, that's where I was confused. I am waking up. Thank you.
05 23 19 08
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Yes, sir.
05 23 20 06
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Apollo 8, Houston.
05 23 20 09
Bill Anders (LMP): Go ahead, Houston.
05 23 20 11
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Okay, Apollo 8. We would like to update your LM state vector, CSM state vector, and target point. If it is convenient now, why, we will go ahead and do that if you will go to P00 and ACCEPT.
05 23 20 27
Bill Anders (LMP): Roger. P00 and ACCEPT.
05 23 29 20
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Apollo 8, Houston.
05 23 29 22
Frank Borman (CDR): Go ahead, Houston. Apollo 8.
05 23 29 25
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Okay. The loads are in and verified, and the computer is yours.
05 23 29 29
Bill Anders (LMP): Okay.
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05 23 29 30
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): You can take it back to BLOCK, and for Bill's information, latest guess from the main bus post-SEP voltage to 27.5
05 23 29 41
Bill Anders (LMP): Guess! You mean the EECOM's are guessing?
05 23 29 57
Bill Anders (LMP): At least, they are honest for a change.
05 23 30 02
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): That is more than you can say for the computers.
05 23 30 06
Bill Anders (LMP): Or the crew.
05 23 36 40
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Apollo 8, Houston.
05 23 37 00
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Apollo 8, Houston.
05 23 37 03
Bill Anders (LMP): Go ahead, Houston. Apollo 8.
05 23 37 05
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Okay, 8. We have an entry PAD for you.
05 23 37 10
Bill Anders (LMP): Good. Just a minute.
05 23 37 33
Bill Anders (LMP): Ready to copy, Houston.
05 23 37 38
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Okay. This will be the mid-Pacific, 357 152 359 146:29:00 268, plus 0813, minus 16503 065 36221 645 12122 36301 146:46:14 0028. The next block is November Alfa: D₀ 400 02 12 0025 0334 08 14 16 0590 312; Zeta Persei, up 165, right 34, up. Use nonexit EMS pattern, GDC align; primary star Sirius, secondary Rigel, roll 308, pitch 209, yaw 357; this entry will not involve P65. Over.
05 23 40 25
Jim Lovell (CMP): Houston, Apollo 8. Entry PAD as follows: mid-Pacific, 357 152 359 146:29:30 268 plus 0813 minus 16503 065 36221 645 12122 36301 146:46:14 0028, next block not applicable, 400 0212 0025 0334 0814 16059 312, Zeta Persei, up 165, right 35 up, use nonexit EMS pattern, backup alignment; Sirius, Rigel, roll 308, pitch 209, yaw 357, and we won't need P65.
05 23 41 37
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Okay, Apollo 8. I would like to verify sextant star shaft 0590, and the boresight star.
05 23 41 49
Jim Lovell (CMP): Roger.
05 23 41 50
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): The last one is right 34. Over.
05 23 41 56
Jim Lovell (CMP): Roger. Boresight star is right 34. And I have the sextant shaft; that's 0590.
05 23 42 03
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): That's correct, Apollo 8.
05 23 59 37
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Apollo 8, Houston.
05 23 59 50
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Apollo 8, Apollo 8, Houston.
05 23 59 56
Jim Lovell (CMP): Go ahead, Houston.
05 23 59 58
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Okay, Apollo 8. Can you tell us if you've done anything with your potable water? We've noticed our readout has gone from 100 percent down to 56 in the last couple of minutes.
06 00 00 17
Jim Lovell (CMP): We're reading about 50 percent right now.
06 00 00 22
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Roger. That correlates with what we see. Have you done anything to change configuration? Over.
06 00 00 44
Jim Lovell (CMP): Yes, we noticed the venting here, too, Houston.
06 00 01 10
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Jim, did you mean you could visually see it?
06 00 01 14
Jim Lovell (CMP): Yes, we're—oh, stand by, Ken. Bill just dumped urine, so that might have been urine we were seeing.
06 00 01 45
Jim Lovell (CMP): Bill just shut the potable inlet, Ken.
06 00 01 48
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Okay. Thank you.
06 00 04 44
Jim Lovell (CMP): Houston, Apollo 8.
06 00 04 47
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Go ahead, 8.
06 00 04 58
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Apollo 8, Apollo 8, go ahead.
06 00 05 01
Jim Lovell (CMP): Roger, Houston. We're still showing about 52 percent, and we had our switch on waste so we don't know whether it dropped from a higher value or not. Has yours been stabilized now?
06 00 05 15
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): That's affirmative; ours has stabilized now. It was reading full just a few minutes ago.
06 00 05 25
Jim Lovell (CMP): Roger. I don't think—we can't account for any sudden drop in water.
06 00 05 31
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Okay. We looked in the malfunction procedures, and number 28 doesn't reveal anything very startling.
06 00 05 42
Jim Lovell (CMP): Bill is looking there now.
06 00 08 53
Bill Anders (LMP): Houston, Apollo 8. Over.
06 00 08 57
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Go ahead, 8.
06 00 09 00
Bill Anders (LMP): Okay. I'm looking at malfunction 28, and it takes you to box 6, but I don't really think that's the problem because the waste tank quantity hasn't changed any. Over.
06 00 09 11
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Okay. I concur. We're watching the same thing.
06 00 09 15
Bill Anders (LMP): Look, we don't care about the potable tank, but we do about the waste tank, so just in case there is a problem somewhere, I'm going to shut the potable tank off and leave the waste tank inlet valve open. How does that sound to you?
06 00 09 29
Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM): Stand by. Okay, 8. We concur.

Spacelog Apollo 8