@S1-A.ARPA,@MIT-MC:kyle.wbst@Xerox.ARPA (05/15/85)
From: kyle.wbst@Xerox.ARPA RE:"CAN ANYONE TELL ME WHERE I COULD GET AN ACCURATE DESCRIPTION OF WHAT HAPPENED ON APOLLO 13.. MOSELEY@TI-EG.." ------------ See back issues of Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine for the most comprehensive writeup that should be available in most big libraries. If memory serves me well what happened is the following: One of the oxygen bottles in the service module (the part right behind the command module where the crew rides) exploded on the way to the moon and blew a big hole in the side of the craft. This disrupted the fuel cell power to the c/m so the fix was to climb into the attached lunar module and ride in it all the way around the moon and back to earth (thus aborting the lunar landing attempt). The L/M engines were used for mid course corrections as the gimballed service module engine and the GP/FPI (gimbal position fuel pressure indicator) display were out of commission in the command module. The ground had to radio up new info for the l/m guidance system to accomodate this unexpected configuration of it handling not only itself, but also the service module/command module stuff still attached to the whole rig. Upon approach back to earth, the crew climbed back into the command module and got rid of the l/m and the damaged s/m and used battery power to fire up the reaction control system on the c/m to orient it for proper re-entry which went well and commander Jim Lovell and crew lived. If the explosion had happened on the way back from a lunar landing, then they would have had no l/m attached to use as a "life boat" and they would have died. The oxygen bottle exploded because a new heater element used to boil off the gas from its liquid state and maintain pressure in the system was damaged during ground testing because the ground test documentation had not been updated and thus the new part was stressed. In space the stressed heater element (which was inside the gas bottle) broke down , sparked and the rest is history. Aviation Leak had very good pictures of the damage taken by the crew as they jettisoned the damaged service module prior to earth landing. The fact that they were able to survive this disaster is a tribute to the design philosophy of the Block II Apollo system which (unlike the earlier Block I design of ill-fated fire on the pad fame) allowed for virtual real-time system reconfiguration to meet certain contingencies. Earle Kyle.
henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (05/17/85)
> The fact that they were able to survive this disaster is a tribute to > the design philosophy of the Block II Apollo system which (unlike the > earlier Block I design of ill-fated fire on the pad fame) allowed for > virtual real-time system reconfiguration to meet certain contingencies. It's also a tribute to the paranoia of some of the early planners, who put their feet down hard and *insisted* that the LM and CM had to use identical computers. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry