posted 02-11-2011 09:51 AM            

The first sequence seems to be from the S-II looking aft toward the S-IC. You see the S-IC separate and fall and then the intertank skirt fall as well. Then in the second sequence it seems to be from the S-II looking forward towards the S-IVB. You can see the single J-2 ignite and there are three stabilzation(?) motors firing radially.

posted 02-12-2011 06:42 PM               

The 2xx series did have three ullage motors; vs two onboard the 5xx.

posted 02-13-2011 06:10 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by mjanovec:
The cameras were housed in a container that jettisoned from the staged and were later picked up in the ocean.

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All these years I had assumed these crisp clips came from a video downlink. I figured that the dropping stages burned-up on re-entry so how else would these videos be obtained?

posted 02-15-2011 06:03 PM               

The S-II second stage with its five J-2 engines separated at an altitude of about 115 miles, well above the atmosphere. It too fell to the ocean about 2,500 miles downrange from the launch site but went through reentry forces and broke apart well before any parts impacted the water.

posted 02-16-2011 08:12 AM               

As far as I know, none of the S1-C stages from the Apollo missions have ever been located or photographed. Of course, it would be possible to do that...

I concluded that the S-1C boosters from Apollo 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, and 16 landed in roughly a 5 x 11 nautical mile area. The biggest unknown was how the boosters were tracked. After checking some documentation, I believe they were not really tracked at all; I think they used estimated theoretical impact locations based on flight models. However, if the boosters were fitted with C or S band radar xponders, then the location would be fairly accurate.

Granted, all of the boosters would have been reduced to wreckage with some large intact pieces, depending upon how they impacted the ocean. I would imagine they were tumbling during descent, as that seems to be what happens to these things once all the fuel is spent and they lose guidance. I imagine that many of the F-1 engine bells would have survived and at least some of them should be recognizable and capable of being recovered. Overall, the paint on the boosters should be intact as would be any lettering, as was the case on Liberty Bell 7. In addition, there will be long debris fields for each booster, with the heavier parts nearest the impact point and lighter wreckage farther down current.

posted 04-17-2016 11:13 AM            

There was a total of four recoverable film camera capsules carried onboard the AS-503 vehicle, all on the S-IC stage. Two camera capsules were located on the S-IC forward interstage at positions I and III looking forward to view S-IC/S-II first plane separation and S-II engine start. The two remaining camera capsules were mounted on top of the S-IC stage LOX tank at positions II and IV, and contained pulse cameras which viewed aft into the LOX tank through fiber optics bundles.

There were also two television cameras located in the S-IC base region to view propulsion and control system components.

Only one camera capsule, the LOX camera located at position II, was recovered. It is not known whether the other three camera capsules were ejected ...

The TV cameras provided good quality data.

posted 04-18-2016 12:15 PM            

Both television cameras will be mounted inside the thrust structure of the first stage.

A fiber optic bundle from each camera will split into two separate bundles going to lenses mounted outside the heat shield in the engine area. This will provide two images for each camera, or four for the system. The images will be tilted 90 degrees from vertical to give a wider view as two images appear on each cathode ray tube. Each lens will view the center engine and one outer engine, thus providing a view of each outer engine working in conjunction with the fixed center engine...

The TV cameras operate continuously from 55 minutes before liftoff until destroyed on first stage reentry.

posted 01-22-2019 06:21 AM               

"I figured that it had to be a ship assigned to the Atlantic in case there was a launch abort. I couldn't find an answer anywhere, but a little sleuthing revealed that Task Force 140 was deployed in the Atlantic for each Apollo launch and that several smaller ships were assigned to the AS-501 launch, including the USS Austin (LPD-4), which was the only one big enough to accommodate a helicopter. Do we know who actually retrieved the pods? Is the USS Austin a good guess?"

posted 01-22-2019 09:36 AM               

This NASA photo apparently shows the helicopter crew that recovered the Apollo 4 pods, seen on the deck in front of them.

posted 01-22-2019 10:28 AM               

On 4 November 1967 AUSTIN, assisted by a detachment of Navy helicopters, members of Underwater Demolition Team 21, and NASA representatives became part of the recovery force for the Apollo 4 Space mission. The actual recovery of the spacecraft was, as planned, in another ship's assigned area; however, AUSTIN provided valuable service by recovering two camera cassettes carried by the first stage booster which had taken excellent pictures of the flight during liftoff and first stage flight.

posted 01-25-2019 11:09 AM               

Here is a picture of the camera capsule predicted impact point, along with that of the S1C.