posted 02-24-2017 08:59 PM               

I thought that pre-launch was handled mainly by the team at Kennedy Space Center, with Houston taking over after the rocket cleared the tower. The Wikipedia page would indicate that I'm mistaken in that belief.

So, I guess my questions are:

1. Am I wrong or is Wiki wrong?

2. If I'm wrong, then what exactly did the Launch Director and the team at Kennedy do?

posted 02-24-2017 10:38 PM               

Throughout the pre-mission period, the flight director oversaw the the mission control, network, and team readiness, and provided the flight operations Go NoGo at the reviews preceding the start of the launch countdown.

Now 5 minutes, 52 seconds and counting. We're on time at the present time for our planned lift-off of 32 minutes past the hour. Spacecraft Test Conductor, Skip Chauvin, now has completed the status check of his personnel in the control room. All report they are Go for the mission, and this has been reported to the Test Supervisor, Bill Schick. The test supervisor now going through some status checks. Launch Operations Manager Paul Donnelly reports Go for launch. Launch Director Rocco Petrone now gives a Go. We're 5 minutes, 20 seconds and counting.

I established my personal cutoff for killing auto sequence at launch minus thirty seconds. My risk judgement told me that the MCC must suffer a crippling failure before I would call the launch team with a NoGo at this point, terminating the automatic launch sequence.

posted 02-24-2017 11:26 PM               

Flight controllers at Houston are monitoring pre-launch and initial launch
operations, but once a vehicle is in motion with all engines running, flight control of that vehicle is handed off to the Mission Control Center team in Houston.

I think what Kranz is referring to in his book is true, however, it would certainly have to be an extreme consideration that would allow his flight control team to halt a countdown of a liftoff-launch call.

If the flight control team had a major equipment malfunction(s) of some kind and the team could not properly perform their mission functions, the launch could be halted and delayed until everything was up and running properly.

Take for instance if right before a launch was to occur, the MCC in Houston had lost all of its electric power (for some reason) and with no backup emergency sources available. That would certainly be a good explanation to halt a liftoff with an urgent call to the center director or launch director at Kennedy.

posted 02-25-2017 08:33 AM               

Houston would, obviously, play a role, since, like Ken mentioned, a launch would be bad if they were having problems.

But to say that they led it still rings false with me, as does the list of participating flight controllers (which supposedly makes up the Apollo 13 list, in order), since it leaves off Launch Control. That it only mentions the Launch Director in the context of the shuttle (and goes out of the way to contradict it in the Apollo section by saying "In the Apollo program, the launch status check was initiated by the Flight Director, or FLIGHT") is a pretty big red flag with regard to accuracy.

To be clear, I don't doubt that there was a poll done in Houston pre-launch, as it wouldn't make sense for there not to be, but I see it as more of another cog in a larger machine (based in Florida), rather than the end all be all that the Wikipedia article is portraying it as.

posted 02-25-2017 10:33 AM               

The Apollo launch team would somewhat mirror the shuttle launch team in the wiki article.

Here are good links about the launch team:

• Apollo 11 Launch Team
  
• Apollo 11 Firing Room Manned By 450 Personnel
  
• The People Who 'Lit the Candle'

posted 02-25-2017 10:48 AM               

Kranz would have authority to halt a countdown to launch if anything had to do with his team's MCC's mission support responsibilities and operations, even at the last 30 seconds or so.

But then so would many other people of the teams they represent at Kennedy's launch control.