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Author
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Topic: Skylab crew photography of S-IVB stage
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Fra Mauro
Member Posts: 1624
From: Bethpage, N.Y.
Registered: Jul 2002
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posted 04-10-2019 06:02 PM
   
Did the Skylab crews photograph the S-IVB stage when they reached orbit? |
NavyPilot
Member Posts: 36
From:
Registered: Nov 2015
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posted 04-10-2019 07:33 PM
These shots are attributed to SL-3: 1 | 2.Petaled configuration. |
minipci
Member Posts: 373
From: London, UK
Registered: Jul 2009
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posted 04-11-2019 07:35 AM
I like that you can see cables attached to the SLA petals. It's interesting to see that they appear not to be attached to the petal centerline, but are offset. Any particular reason for that? |
Fra Mauro
Member Posts: 1624
From: Bethpage, N.Y.
Registered: Jul 2002
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posted 04-11-2019 08:25 AM
It's interesting to see where the paint wore off during liftoff. I'm going to guess that photographing the stage wasn't required, accounting for no pics from the other two missions. |
minipci
Member Posts: 373
From: London, UK
Registered: Jul 2009
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posted 04-11-2019 09:14 AM
To my eyes it doesn't look like paint wear, but icing covering the paint. |
Skylon
Member Posts: 277
From:
Registered: Sep 2010
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posted 04-11-2019 11:35 AM
I forgot that the double jawed "Angry Alligator" remained on the S-IVB's that didn't carry lunar modules. Was this the case with ASTP as well, or were the adapter panels re-designed to separate away like they did on lunar missions to allow for docking with the Apollo-Soyuz Docking Module? |
damnyankee36
Member Posts: 37
From: Alamogordo, NM USA
Registered: Aug 2017
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posted 04-11-2019 01:45 PM
Speaking of the SLA panels, at what point during the CSM/S-IVB separation were they opened? Did the sequence differ for LM and non-LM flights, Skylab, or ASTP flights? |
LM-12
Member Posts: 3324
From: Ontario, Canada
Registered: Oct 2010
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posted 04-12-2019 05:17 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Fra Mauro:
I'm going to guess that photographing the stage wasn't required, accounting for no pics from the other two missions.
A few photos were taken of the Skylab 4 S-IVB in orbit. The SLA panels separated on the ASTP mission, as seen in photo AST-01-005. |
NavyPilot
Member Posts: 36
From:
Registered: Nov 2015
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posted 04-12-2019 04:34 PM
Like Apollo 7, the Skylab missions had no transposition and docking (T&D) extraction tasks, so retaining the panels meant less space junk.Neither did Apollo 8, but S-IVB-503N served as the flight test asset for the jettisonable panels, which then got used operationally on Apollos 9-17. ASTP had a T&D extraction task with the DM-2, so panel jett was warranted. |
Skylon
Member Posts: 277
From:
Registered: Sep 2010
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posted 04-13-2019 01:21 AM
quote:
Originally posted by LM-12:
The SLA panels separated on the ASTP mission...
Thanks for the image, and the website. I dug a little further through the pictures on the National Archives because I was always curious how the Docking Module, which was quite a bit different in dimensions from the Lunar Module, was stored in the SIV-B. I had never seen any photographs of the Docking Module during transposition and docking, or even launch processing. It looks like essentially a scaffold was placed around the Docking Module to keep it secure. |
Jim Behling
Member Posts: 1488
From: Cape Canaveral, FL
Registered: Mar 2010
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posted 04-14-2019 07:03 PM
quote:
Originally posted by damnyankee36:
Speaking of the SLA panels, at what point during the CSM/S-IVB separation were they opened?
At separation. |
LM-12
Member Posts: 3324
From: Ontario, Canada
Registered: Oct 2010
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posted 04-16-2019 08:12 AM
It looks like a roll thruster can be seen firing in S-IVB photo SL4-190-6960. |
John Charles
Member Posts: 342
From: Houston, Texas, USA
Registered: Jun 2004
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posted 04-22-2019 07:55 PM
quote:
Originally posted by NavyPilot:
Neither did Apollo 8, but S-IVB-503N served as the flight test asset for the jettisonable panels, which then got used operationally on Apollos 9-17.
Apollo 8/SA-503 was planned to carry LM-3 up until 4 months before its launch, when it lost the LM test flight D mission and gained the CSM to lunar orbit C-prime mission. Therefore, its SLA panels were intended to separate. |
Skylon
Member Posts: 277
From:
Registered: Sep 2010
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posted 04-26-2019 06:59 AM
I always thought the decision to have the SLA panels jettison panels was based on Apollo 7. As I understood it the crew was supposed to come in closer to the S-IVB to more accurately simulate the procedures for retrieval of a Lunar Module, but opted not to due to worries about coming in too close to the panels.Did that influence the decision to have the SLA panels jettison, or was that idea in place beforehand? |
Jim Behling
Member Posts: 1488
From: Cape Canaveral, FL
Registered: Mar 2010
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posted 04-26-2019 07:08 AM
Was in place before. Apollo 8 was already stacked when 7 flew. |
Jonnyed
Member Posts: 408
From: Dumfries, VA, USA
Registered: Aug 2014
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posted 04-27-2019 07:00 AM
quote:
Originally posted by minipci:
It's interesting to see that they [cables] appear not to be attached to the petal centerline, but are offset. Any particular reason for that?
First of all, really awesome photos of the S-IVB stage.This is a good question about the cable offset. I am not a NASA engineer (although I am an engineer) so I am just hazarding a guess. It looks as if the petal cables are offset so as to not run directly over the hinging mechanism at the direct center of each petal hinge at bottom. So perhaps a design effort to prevent some mechanical interference there? |
minipci
Member Posts: 373
From: London, UK
Registered: Jul 2009
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posted 04-27-2019 12:16 PM
Thanks, that sounds like pretty valid reasoning. I hadn't even thought about the hinges! |
Jonnyed
Member Posts: 408
From: Dumfries, VA, USA
Registered: Aug 2014
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posted 04-27-2019 03:05 PM
Additionally, once the spacecraft has entered the weightlessness of space, I presume some of the "earthbounded" concerns of properly calculating required leverage for opening the petals --alignment along centerlines in this case -- and other mechanical concerns engineers would need to "noodle with" on Earth become more "straightforward" because of "space physics", or physics in a vacuum. So the offset matters differently in space than it would on Earth. |
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