Topic: Apollo-Soyuz: rollout and mast installation
heng44 Member
Posts: 3728 From: Netherlands Registered: Nov 2001
posted 09-22-2010 10:06 AM
The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) Saturn IB rollout to the launch pad, took place on March 24, 1975. The rollout operation usually started early in the morning.
The launch umbilical tower didn't fit inside the Vertical Assembly Building (VAB) with the lightning mast, so it must have been put on top of the tower after it had left. Is it possible that rollout started in the afternoon of March 23, at which time the lightning mast was installed, and continued in the early morning of March 24?
Ken Havekotte Member
Posts: 3792 From: Merritt Island, Florida, Brevard Registered: Mar 2001
posted 09-22-2010 07:07 PM
I was there that morning on March 24, 1975, when the last Apollo-Saturn rocket was transported to Pad 39B. First motion started at 8 a.m. with a hard-down on the pad just after 3 p.m.
If I recall, which I am pretty much certain, the lightning mast attached to the top of LUT-1 was installed earlier just after the vehicle had cleared the high bay of the VAB before another "motion" would begin the long 7-hour rollout trek.
heng44 Member
Posts: 3728 From: Netherlands Registered: Nov 2001
posted 09-23-2010 12:14 AM
Thanks very much, Ken. Ed Kyle pointed me to a document stating that the lightning mast was tested on March 23, so it now seems pretty certain that the Saturn was rolled out a day early to install and test the mast.
Ken Havekotte Member
Posts: 3792 From: Merritt Island, Florida, Brevard Registered: Mar 2001
posted 09-23-2010 04:18 PM
I do recall seeing some pics of the fiberglass mast being installed atop LUT-1, and yes, it was an all-day operation on March 23 as the booster's Launch Escape System had been installed a day earlier on the 22nd. I remember seeing work platforms and support structures housing the lightning rod near the top of the VAB above High Bay-1.
Blackarrow Member
Posts: 3693 From: Belfast, United Kingdom Registered: Feb 2002
posted 09-23-2010 05:06 PM
That lightning-conductor at the top of the launch gantry was not just for show: the "Orlando Sentinel Star" reported on 11th July, 1975, that the launch stack had been struck twice by lightning, without ill-effect.
heng44 Member
Posts: 3728 From: Netherlands Registered: Nov 2001
posted 09-24-2010 05:12 AM
It is odd that I have never seen any pictures of the lightning mast being installed.
LM-12 Member
Posts: 3907 From: Ontario, Canada Registered: Oct 2010
posted 12-29-2013 10:53 PM
This fantastic footage of the ASTP rollout from Mark Gray begins with images of the ASTP stack just outside the VAB doors. The lightning mast is attached. The sun is in the east, so it was early morning.
It looks like the stack was rolled back to the VAB doors from its position in the posted photograph taken the previous afternoon.
LM-12 Member
Posts: 3907 From: Ontario, Canada Registered: Oct 2010
posted 01-01-2014 04:31 PM
The lightning mast is mentioned in a KSC news release dated March 2, 1975:
The new look will first be apparent shortly after the transporter moves the mobile launcher with the 224-foot-tall space vehicle just outside the floodlighted eastern face of the Vehicle Assembly Building at 2:00 a.m. on the morning of March 24.
There will be a five-hour pause at this point as KSC workmen lower and secure an 80-foot-tall fiberglass lightning mast into a circular slot on a platform above the hammerhead crane at the top of the launcher.
The mast will be lowered from a steel framework structure (dubbed variously "the laundry chute" and "bird cage") overhanging the top of the 456-foot-high door leading to the outside from High Bay 1.
At 7:00 a.m. — mast firmly in place — the transporter will begin the move to Pad B, on the rim of the Atlantic Ocean five miles to the northeast.
LM-12 Member
Posts: 3907 From: Ontario, Canada Registered: Oct 2010
posted 08-21-2015 12:07 AM
After the ASTP launch, the lightning mast had to be removed from ML-1 before the Mobile Launcher could enter the VAB.
Photo KSC-76PC-0351 was taken during the Bicentennial Exposition event at the VAB in 1976. ML-2 is parked outside the VAB. ML-1 is behind the VAB doors in High Bay 1. The lightning mast can be seen outside the VAB in the steel framework structure above the High Bay 1 doors.
The lightning mast affixed to the VAB can also be seen in photo KSC-76P-0124.
LM-12 Member
Posts: 3907 From: Ontario, Canada Registered: Oct 2010
posted 08-22-2015 09:13 PM
The lightning mast can be seen above the HB-1 doors in this 1976 aerial photo of the VAB. ML-3 (on right) is being dismantled. S-IC stage at bottom center.
The black arrow is pointing to the VAB itself.
Ken Havekotte Member
Posts: 3792 From: Merritt Island, Florida, Brevard Registered: Mar 2001
posted 08-23-2015 01:55 PM
Just came across this topic again, and behold, I finally did locate a NASA photo (#108-KSC-75PC-145) depicting the final step of the lightning mast insertion into its support structure atop MLP-1 on March 23, 1975.
Rohan Member
Posts: 17 From: Melbourne, Victoria Australia Registered: Jul 2015
posted 08-24-2015 05:56 AM
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the lightning mast placed atop the LUT on ML-1 for the ASTP mission is different from the lightning masts on all the other missions. Why did NASA decide to change the lightning mast for this mission, at the very end of the LUT's use?
Robert Pearlman Editor
Posts: 52040 From: Houston, TX Registered: Nov 1999
posted 08-24-2015 07:30 AM
NASA SP-4209, "The Partnership: A History of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project" describes the then-new lightning mast installed atop the LUT:
One of their major concerns was the possibility of thunderstorms and lightning strikes before and at the time of the launch. July was the worst time of the year for both at Cape Canaveral.
...a lightning strike had long been a worry, one that had been reinforced by the twin bolts that had struck Apollo 12. To combat the effects of such a strike, the KSC team had installed a larger lightning rod atop the launch tower. This 25.6-meter fiberglass mast was designed so that the ground wires would not come any closer than 15 meters to the mobile launcher structure, thus eliminating the arcing of electrical current from the wires to the structure of the spacecraft.
The lightning mast used atop the LUT for ASTP later was installed atop Pad 39B for the space shuttle program.
LM-12 Member
Posts: 3907 From: Ontario, Canada Registered: Oct 2010
posted 08-24-2015 08:37 AM
quote:Originally posted by LM-12: The lightning mast affixed to the VAB can also be seen in photo KSC-76P-0124.
Other VAB photos indicate that the lightning mast was removed from that location (above the HB-1 doors) sometime between July 1976 and April 1977.
LM-12 Member
Posts: 3907 From: Ontario, Canada Registered: Oct 2010
posted 10-20-2019 05:14 PM
Prior to the ASTP rollout, there was a lightning mast test with the boilerplate spacecraft. The launch operations processing schedule included these steps:
SV ML PREPS FOR LIGHTNING MAST FIT CHECK
POS CT & ML MOVE PREPS
MOVE ML TO INSTALLATION POS
ML LIGHTNING MAST FIT CHECK
RETURN ML TO HB-1
BP-30 DESTACK
S/C ERECT
The spacecraft was stacked on March 19, 1975. Rollout was on March 24.
LM-12 Member
Posts: 3907 From: Ontario, Canada Registered: Oct 2010
posted 03-09-2024 02:46 PM
quote:Originally posted by heng44: ...so it now seems pretty certain that the Saturn was rolled out a day early to install and test the mast.
This ASTP photo seems to show that earlier rollout, based on the lighting. The building seen is the Launch Control Center.
posted 09-22-2010 10:06 AM
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