Apollo Expeditions to the Moon
MANEUVER TARGETING
The team also developed the techniques for flying the spacecraft and controlling
its trajectory. It had the primary responsibility for developing the programs or logic
used in the computers onboard the lunar module and the command and service module
as well as those in the Control Center. Except for rendezvous maneuvers, the Control
Center was the only source of maneuver targeting; that is, determining the exact magnitude,
direction, and the time for executing each flight maneuver. Bill Tindall, a truly
outstanding engineer, contributed significantly to this effort. Operations were planned
in detail before a flight. Plans were based both on everything working properly and on
the "what if" situations that might occur. The "what if" situations could not be carried
to the point of actually reducing reliability by introducing confusion or complexity
into the system. This was quite often a fine line to walk. Techniques also had to be
developed for monitoring all essential systems during critical mission phases. The
procedures, the techniques, the personnel, and an organization all had to be defined
and developed, a task of no small magnitude. Each landing demonstrated how well the
task was performed. Apollo 12 was a classic example, with an incredible pinpoint
landing some 600 feet from the Surveyor spacecraft that had previously landed on the
Ocean of Storms.
To conduct operations for the flights, four complete flight-control teams were
organized and used for all Apollo missions. Each team was headed by a flight director;
Gene Kranz, Cliff Charlesworth, Glynn Lunney, Gerry Griffin, Pete Frank, Milt
Windler, Neil Hutchinson, Phil Shaffer, and Chuck Lewis were all assigned this
responsibility during various phases of the program. To simplify the overall training
program, each team was assigned different events or activities. The individuals on
each team could thus devote their full attention and energy to developing proficiency
in accomplishing a few things, as opposed to having to cover an impossible spectrum.
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Standing at the rim of the Rio Grande gorge
near Taos, N. Mex., Apollo 15 astronauts Jim
Irwin and Dave Scott see a landscape remarkably
like the one they visited at the Hadley Rille
landing site on the Moon. Each Astronaut team
participated in a series of geology field trips to
acquaint them with the kinds of field observation
that would be most useful to lunar scientists,
the types of rock specimen they should particularly
try to sample, and the special problems in
working with their equipment on the general
terrain they would encounter.
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The team was responsible for developing the mission plans to demonstrate the
capability of the spacecraft, the systems, and the team to land a crew on the Moon.
A series of unmanned developmental flights was planned with well defined objectives
to be demonstrated on each flight. Apollo 7, the first manned flight, occurred in
October 1968, and the first flight to the Moon, Apollo 8, occurred two months later.
Even while Apollo 7 was flying, the Operations Team was performing simulations
and training for the Apollo 8 mission. As Apollo 8 was flying, training and simulations
were being conducted for Apollo 9, the first Earth-orbital flight of the LM and CSM
in March 1969. The next step, Apollo 10 - a dress rehearsal for
the first landing - was taken in May 1969. On this flight, on the far side of the Moon,
a fuel cell was lost and taken off line. The team had trained for
this contingency and reacted accordingly.
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