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Author
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Topic: Addition of Apollo H, I and J-class missions
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DFBrunswick
Member Posts: 40
From: California, USA
Registered: May 2015
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posted 03-14-2017 10:25 AM
   
I was reading the books "Chariots for Apollo" and "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and learned the following: in September of 1967, the Manned Spacecraft Center outlined the sequence of Apollo missions that would get us to the moon, and they assigned an alphabetic letter to each type of mission, hence, the Apollo 'A' through 'G' missions. I believe this was the entire list of missions at the time. In other words, the chart only went up to the letter 'G'.Shortly thereafter, NASA began looking into missions that would follow the first lunar landing (the 'G' mission). And so the letters 'H','I' and 'J' were added to the sequence of missions. I have no idea when this happened. It must have been in 1968, but when did they revise the list and add 'H', 'I' and 'J'? |
DFBrunswick
Member Posts: 40
From: California, USA
Registered: May 2015
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posted 04-04-2017 02:29 AM
Does anyone know of a written source that states when the Apollo 'H' class and 'J' class missions were created? The original list of 'A' through 'G' missions was created in September of 1967. But the original list did not include 'H' class and 'J' class missions. Those were added later. |
Headshot
Member Posts: 1182
From: Vancouver, WA, USA
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 02-04-2023 12:26 PM
Chariots For Apollo, pg 364, mentions that around March 1969, all missions after the G mission would be referred to as H missions. The person mostly likely to have made this designation was George Mueller, although the wording of the paragraph is a bit convoluted.Then, around 23 May 1969 NASA was considering and planning what they referred to as exploration missions which included a lunar rover. These later came to be called J missions. Again, Mueller was mentioned, but no direct attribution was made. |
Headshot
Member Posts: 1182
From: Vancouver, WA, USA
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 02-04-2023 12:47 PM
On a similar note for this topic, I am looking for any sources with detailed description of the Apollo I-class mission.As far as I know, it was to be a manned, one-month lunar orbital mission flown in a polar orbit. There might have been equipment in the service module similar to the SIM bay equipment flown on Apollos 15, 16, and 17. Also mentioned was including a modified lunar module ascent stage, with a remote sensing instrument module attached in place of the descent stage. I never saw any other description of an I-class mission, except that the GLEP (Group for Lunar Exploration and Planning) alternate target list of 16-17 October 1969 listed Apollo 16 as being a candidate for an I-class mission on a March 1971 flight. Apparently the I-class mission concept was shot down quickly. |
dtemple
Member Posts: 762
From: Longview, Texas, USA
Registered: Apr 2000
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posted 02-10-2023 04:52 PM
I have never seen a reference to an "I" mission. Typically the letters "I" and "O" are not used by government entities as designations, such as by the military because they can be confused with the numbers "1" and "0." For example there were no aircraft designated F-4I; the "I" was skipped and the next variant was the "J." I have read of only Apollo missions "H" and "J" for post "G" flights. |
Headshot
Member Posts: 1182
From: Vancouver, WA, USA
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 02-10-2023 06:17 PM
One of the sources appeared in The Apollo Spacecraft: A Chronology, Vol. IV, Part 2 (D)-Recovery, Spacecraft Redefinition, and First Manned Apollo Flight. This book was published in 1975, hence the Apollo flight number references. July through September 1967September 20
MSC proposed to the NASA Office of Manned Space Flight a sequence of missions leading to a lunar landing mission. The sequence included the following basic missions: - A - Saturn V/unmanned CSM development
- B - Saturn IB/unmanned LM development
- C - Saturn IB/manned CSM evaluation
- D - Saturn V/manned CSM and LM development (A dual Saturn IB mission would be an alternative to the Saturn V for mission D)
- E - CSM/LM operations in high earth orbit
- F - Lunar orbit mission
- G - Lunar landing mission (like Apollo 11)
- H - Lunar landing mission (Apollo 12, 13, and 14)
- I - Reserved for lunar survey missions (not used)
- J - Lunar landing missions, upgraded hardware (Apollo 15, 16, and 17)
Memos, George M. Low, ASPO Manager, to distr., "Mission development and planning," Sept. 25, 1967; Low to Director, MSC, "Meetings with General Phillips and Dr. Mueller," Sept. 9, 1967; ltr, Robert R. Gilruth, MSC, to George E. Mueller, NASA Hq., Sept. 19, 1967; telecon, Ivan D. Ertel to John Sevier, Feb. 26, 1975. | |
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