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Author
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Topic: Steering the Saturn V into orbit manually
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kennedyone
Member Posts: 26
From: Garrison Iowa 52229
Registered: Jun 2009
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posted 12-26-2009 11:26 AM
   
I read in the book "First Man: The Life of Neil Armstrong" that it was operational on Apollo 11 if something happened during launch he would be able to steer his spacecraft into orbit manually. |
Kite
Member Posts: 1027
From: Northampton UK
Registered: Nov 2009
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posted 12-26-2009 04:38 PM
To quote from Andrew Chaikin's book Voices from the Moon [a Christmas present] Gene Cernan's words were, "You almost wish you had a guidance failure at liftoff. Because I knew I could've flown that big Saturn V into orbit goddamn near as good as the computer." This suggests that they really could take control. |
Proponent
Member Posts: 59
From: London
Registered: Oct 2008
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posted 12-27-2009 01:41 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Kite:
This suggests that they really could take control.
ISTR reading somewhere that the ability to fly the Saturn manually existed from Apollo 10 onward.
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moorouge
Member Posts: 2486
From: U.K.
Registered: Jul 2009
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posted 12-27-2009 05:51 AM
Don't know if this helps, but it would appear that steering was not a consideration during the first stage -Henry Spencer from SP Systems wrote - Could be worse. LC-39 was laid out with possible failures in mind, of course, but one thing that hadn't occurred to the site designers was that a five-engine rocket could have significant engine-out capability. This may not sound worrisome, but combine that with the fact that the Saturn V first stage did not use closed-loop guidance -- it just followed a preprogrammed tilt schedule, rather than trying to maintain a specific trajectory -- and problems appear, because that means that the thing drifts sideways if an engine fails. Plus, of course, it climbs more slowly with one engine gone. As a result, the ground path of the theoretical impact point was described as "quite a strange curve". And if it happened to be engine #3 that failed, the strange curve passed quite close to the VAB... meaning that the VAB would be within the debris footprint if the thing then had to be destroyed for some reason (e.g., another engine died). |
moorouge
Member Posts: 2486
From: U.K.
Registered: Jul 2009
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posted 12-27-2009 06:34 AM
A full discussion of manual control of the Saturn V launch vehicle can be found in NASA Technical Note D-4481.So, were the crew able to fly a Saturn into space - the short answer is 'no'. Were they able to make minor corrections to the inertial guidance system - yes they were. Does this count as 'flying' - that is for you to decide. |
capoetc
Member Posts: 2286
From: McKinney TX (USA)
Registered: Aug 2005
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posted 12-27-2009 08:58 AM
I asked Gene Cernan about this, and he said that in the event of an inertial guidance failure, he could use the manual hand controller to fly the Saturn V into orbit. Of course, flying it into orbit really means keeping the rocket within a specific corridor during orbital insertion. Kinda like the manual adjustments one might make to keep their car on the freeway -- a little bit left and right, but not off-roading across the corn fields on the way to work. NASA Technical Note D-4481 seems to confirm this comment. |
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