Spacelog Apollo 13

Okay.

Okay, Fred. We're going to try to refrain from calling you from now on, so that you can maybe get a couple of winks. We're getting a status around the room first, to see if anybody has any comments for you and, after that, we'll try to leave you alone for awhile.

Aquarius, Houston.

Aquarius, Houston.

Hey, Fred-o. Are you there?

All right, go ahead.

Okay. We polled the room. We don't have much for you. Only comments as follows: your consumables are looking good; your entry gamma right now is minus 6.01. We're expecting a midcourse of 2.81 foot per second which should be about 21 seconds of RCS.

Okay. It sounds good.

Okay, Fred. See you in the morning.

Roger.

Aquarius, Houston. Request you open the POWER AMPLIFIER circuit breaker and DOWN VOICE BACKUP, please.

Complete.

Roger.

Fred, are you sleeping?

Go ahead.

Fred, in a couple of minutes we're going to hand over the Honeysuckle, so there'll be—Our uplink will be terminated. We'll contact you when we get it back.

Okay.

After that, I've got a couple minutes of work for you.

All right. Go ahead.

Let's wait until after the handover.

Are you there, Jack?

Yes, I'm hearing you loud and clear. How me, Fred?

…

Okay. We want to get some ranging data on you for about 15 minutes. So close the POWER AMPLIFIER circuit breaker and go to NORMAL VOICE, please.

Okay.

Okay. You ought to have it now, Jack.

Okay. You're coming through good now, Fred. I've got three DELTAs to the checklist. They're minor changes. I'd like to pass them along now. One of them is to the CSM checklist. So if you'll pick that up, I'll give it to you.

Okay. Which one?

Okay. Stand by 1.

Is it the one Jack wrote them all in? The big long readout? He also wrote something in the G&N book.

It's in the big, long one he wrote out at about EI minus 02:30. EMS entry check.

Okay, Fred. The one I've got for you is at the end of power removal from the command module LM umbilical. And just for your information, after you go through that entire procedure and about the time you're ready to transfer to the command module, at that time, power will be removed from the umbilical, and it's okay to disconnect it. That is, after you've thrown the switches in the LM. Is that clear?

Roger. That's where I've got a remark here to check with you to see if it's all right to proceed.

Roger. And that would be just after, on panel 16, you opening ASCENT ECA CONTROL breakers.

Which step number is that?

The confusing thing is, Jack, where they told me to wait for MSFN GO before proceeding was that BAT 2 LOW VOLTS OFF/RESET, then ON.

Okay. That's still affirmative. We'll give you a go after waiting 5 seconds, and then down from there just a few steps, after you have opened the ASCENT ECA CONTROL breakers on panel 16, at that point, the umbilical is not powered, and it's okay to disconnect them should you care to do so.

Okay. After the last step then, I'm free to disconnect.

Right. And one other change we have is, shortly after that, where we're configuring for jettison, we have closed both the FORWARD DUMP valve and the OVERHEAD DUMP valve. And we don't want to get in a locked up position like that, so one way to get around it is to—After we close the FORWARD DUMP valve, turn the DESCENT OXYGEN valve off. Over.

Okay. After the FORWARD DUMP valve, add a step in that says the DESCENT OX valve, off.

Okay, Fred. That concludes the DELTAs. And perhaps you heard that our GAMMAs are still minus 6.03 and our DELTA-V will be a 2.8-foot-per-second RCS burn.

Roger.

Fred-o, we've got one more change we'd like to give you to clarify a question that Jack asked earlier. At EI minus 02:30 —

Okay. Hold on a minute, Jack. I meant to call Jack back down. I'm not familiar with the previous discussion.

Negative. This is on your checklist.

Okay. Go ahead.

At E mi—EI minus 02:30, during power removal from the umbilical, first thing we do is two steps with the CSM. We open the MAIN B, the LM POWER to MAIN B circuit breakers, and then there's a third step which says “Circuit breaker EPS SENSOR SIGNAL, MAIN B, open.” Just delete that step. Over.

Okay. Delete the third step.

And, Aquarius, for your information, as far as our water supply is concerned, including our plans for powerup, we have an additional 18 hours of water remaining from this point.

Okay. Eighteen hours of water remaining from this point, Jack.

Hello, Houston; Aquarius.

Hello, Aquarius. Go ahead.

Okay, Jack. This is Jim. I just want to make sure that you're filtering the changes to the checklist that come up to make sure that they're absolutely essential. When we learn our procedures, we can only do it one time, and we can't make changes at the last minute. We'd like to do the best, the safest way possible, but unless the changes are really essential, don't bother sending them up.

Roger. We won't. The chairman of the CPCB is still active, and one thing we're trying to do is to save you all the time we can between EI minus 02:30 and 1 hour.

That's affirm. That's a real important time.

Yes. For your information, Jim, I don't know whether you heard that originally, but that time from 2-1/2 to 1 in there has been run about three times, and it's pretty tight, so we've tried to weed out what we could, which isn't much, but I think the other message you might impress on Jack when you get around to alining that platform, don't try to get it down too neat. It doesn't have to be all that good. Just do a nice quick and dirty one, and that's going to be good enough anyway.

I concur. I think for reentry we don't have to have a real accurate platform, but I haven't told Jack that.

Roger. Hey, Jim, while you're up and things are nice and quiet, let me give you a couple of other things to think about. One specifically. I know none of you are sleeping worth a damn because it's so cold, and you might want to dig out the medical kit there around 01:35 or in that ballpark, and pull out a couple of Dexedrines apiece and try one about then, and another around 01:39 to 01:40.

Well, I hadn't brought that up. We might—We might consider it.

Okay.

Wish we could figure a way to get a hot cup of coffee up to you. It'd probably taste pretty good about now, wouldn't it?

Yes, it sure would. You don't realize how cold this thing becomes when it's in a PTC mode that's slowing down, and I just clocked the cycles on my … And it's about 11 to 12 minutes now, and the Sun is directly overhead, so it's shining on the engine bell of the service module and not getting down to the spacecraft at all.

Hang in there. It won't be long now.

Aquarius, Houston.

Go ahead, Houston.

Okay, Skipper. We figured out a way for you to keep warm. We decided to start powering you up now, and what we want you to do—what we want you to do is take your entry LM PREP checklist and start at the top where it says “BAT 5 NORMAL FEED on,” and then jump over as it says to your 30-minute activation, and do all of the 30-minute activation up to, but not including, the burn. You copy?