.

SKYLAB NEWS CENTER

HOUSTON, TEXAS

CHANGE OF SHIFT BRIEFING

JOHNSON SPACE CENTER
AUGUST 9, 1973
5:33 PM CDT

PARTICIPANTS:

DON PUDDY, FLIGHT DIRECTOR

RICIIARD KOOS, EREP OFFICER
AMOS CRISP, PAO

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PAO Okay, we're ready for the evening change-

of-shift briefing. We have with us Flight Director, Don
Puddy and EREP Officer Richard Koos and we will begin as
usual with a statement from Mr. Puddy.
PUDDY Okay, well I don't want to change the
format any so we'll mention the old spacecraft temp first,
it did drop down to about 74 degrees this morning and as
predicted rose up a little bit when I left over there a
few minutes ago it was right around 74-1/2 degrees. And
we're still predicting that we are going to have a small
decrease in the temperature on the daily basis. As far as
the 02 leak that was reported to you a couple of
days ago, although we know no specific corrective action
that was taken other than the fact that we did ask the crew
to check a few of the areas in the spacecraft that we know
are known small leak sources such as the MO92 vents the TAL
area such as this and they checked and reported that they
could find no leak each. Whatever they did must have cleared
it up because for the last two days there was been no
detectible leak rate. As far as today is concerned, there
were not any new anomalies that I'm aware of and if you've
been able to monitor the air to ground at all today especially
during the EREP pass I think you got a real - good indication
of the spirit and morale of the crew. I think they are coming
way up on the efficiency curve and you can see that reflected
in their comments because we're still throwing them a pretty
healthy flight plan each day and they're getting that plus
a few other items done. Today we did accomplish our 6th EREP
pass and I'll let Dick speak about that in a minute. Also
we did have today one of the coordinated sounding rocket
launches this was the - what we call the HCO CALROC it's
associated with the SO55 scanning spectrometer experiment.
It was launched at 17:31 GMT today from White Sands, that's
a black brant sounding rocket which carries a package although
smaller it's essentially the same type of instrument that we
have onboard Skylab. And it reached an altitude of 177-1/2
miles and I think between the time of launch and payload
sep was somewhere around 8 minutes. We have already
recovered the pointing film from that particular rocket and
it appears that the pointing of the package on the CALROC
itself was exactly where we wanted it and we did accomplish
onboard in the same tlmeframe pointing with the SO55
experiment. We feel llke we have a real good calibration
there. One of the detectors is didn't work as planned
but we certainly got sufficient data from this rocket
and its payload package to give us a real good feel as to
how the SO55 experiment degradation has been if any and we'll
have to look at the data before we can determine that. As you prob-
ably also were aware today at around 15:47 Z, we had a M2 flare
which is the biggest that we've had during this mission time
/_ frame. It proslsted from rise to fall for about 12 minutes
 SL-III PC44A/2
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and of course the crew caught it and had full operations

of all the experiments to cover that particular flare.
When I say an M2 flare I guess the only thing from a stand-
point that y'all be interested in is that it did have
associated with that X-rays as well as those things we can
see visibly. The flare that we had the other day, on
August 7th, was a C class flare; lasted for about 21 minutes
which meant that it was slower hut not as violent and that's
one reason it was slower since it wasn't as violent and did
not [lave with it any of the X-rays. We also accomplished
some other ATM viewing tod_y. And ran as per our plan we
discussed with you some malfunction procedures - -

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PUDDY - - and ran as per our plan that we've dis-

cussed with you some malfunction procedures. Basically today,
however, these fell in terms of running a RATE GYRO scale
factor manuever, which was scheduled earlier this morning,
but we have postponed it until later this evening, just so
it would fit in a little bit better with the increased ATM
operations that came about as a result of the flare in the
CALROC. We're also doing some of the overage food transfer
and trying to kept let the crew catch up on some of this
monumental load of paper work that we've been shipping them.
So they're doing some checklist updating tonight. That's
about it from the standpoint of today's Flight Plan. Let
me let Dick give you some feel for how EREP went today.
KOOS Well, let's see - I brought this map along
to show you where pass - what areas a pass covers. It started
over Montana and North Dakota and then went across the
United States over Cape Hatteras, North Carolina and then
down over the Atlantic was primary part of the pass. We
did extend the pass for another experiment, corollary experi-
ment, S063, who is also operated by the Science Pilot during
the whole period we're in ZLV attitude. The - let's see.
The weather we had was very _ood over to the first part of -
very clear over the first part of the pass to Wisconsin. We
- crossed a front, the front that has been going through the
Midwest, In northern Illinois and Chicago area, and that
was one of our objectives. Then as you - as the pass went
over towards the east coast, where the weather - clouds that
went from - broken and to scattered and was projected to be
clear over Cape Hatteras. That's where we had 191 site for
the crew. It was ... Sound. We had - and then we had
out in the Atlantic, there was kind of a special
thing. It was a new requiremant for us to study the - to
make a study or take some data so that people can assess the
potential of for monitor of ... in space. The sargassum
weeds - on the Sargassum Sea. This area, well, it's about
approximately 20 degress north to 30 north and from 35 to
65 degrees west. And this weed comes to the surface and
there it comes together in clumps or in long, long rows -
50 to i00 feet and a few meters wide. And our - we asked
the CDR viewing with the viewfinder tracking system to see
if he could see any color changes or differences in the
water. Of course, that part of it wasn't. Just an opportunity
we're trying to make the best of. Our big thing was to take data
with 190A and spectrometer. Let's see some of the other
objectives were in Ohio and central Ohio. The states very
interested in - in assessing environmental quality and
surveying the agricultural, forestry resources and land use
patterns. There are similar objectives in West Virginia
SL-III PC44B/2
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KOOS plus their interested in studying the, the

effects of strip mining in that area. And of course, in
the coastal area, there's there's North Carolina is inter-
ested in studying the distribution of sediment in the estuaries
in the coastal area. It was a very successful pass. There
in terms of numbers, I guess, we had about 17 task sites
the last count. And they were working in the - verified
weather to see if - to check that count late this afternoon.

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(CONT'D) - fine weather to see if the check

that count late this afternoon.
PUDDY Okay.
PUDDY Let me tell you a little bit about
tomorrow. Tomorrow's crew day off and as you probably well
aware of the crew did offer to do an EREP pass and also
quite a bit of ATM, however, we've elected to let them take
a little bit of advantage of what most people call a day off
so we've lightened up their schedule quite a bit and there's
not a EREP pass each of them is going to get their standard
Saturday night shower we have some general housekeeping
tasks the old biocide wiping. We are running one of our
procedures on one of the refrigerations systems if you'll
remember we had some contamination and we did have a problem
right at the end of Skylab I where the refrigeration systems
looked like they - excuse me Skylab 2, I don't want to add
to that confusion. At the end of Skylab 2 where right before
during the deactivation period and right before we stared
the entry the refrigeration systems didn't look llke they
were acting properly of course subsequent that they have been
performing. The secondary loop though we do feel have some
contaminations in one of the valves we have developed a
procedure where we feel like we can flush that contamination
out and make sure we got a good backup loop there. So we
;- are going to accomplish that. And in the continuing saga
of Arabella, I just wanted to show you what Arabella's cage
looks like. So I brought it with me tonight and this is
the little box that the spiders come in. And I'm going to
get myself in trouble here because I don't know all that much
about this but anyway, there are two places up on top and
you're continually hearing about the water, well this is the water
container and it just got _ little device here that says put the
water container right in here. So you just throw that in there
and the spider has water and here are the two riles that
contain the spiders and since you don't want the spider to get
out, first thing you do is Just take spider number i and I
probably picked number 2, I did. Well anyway, spider number
1 which is Arabella, once you do that you just release this
clip and that's what they were talking about when they were
tapping on the vile and then Arabella goes in the cage and
so far let's see if I can restruct reconstruct for you
what came about on that. The first day Arabella wouldn't
come out of the vile at all, and the second day we beat on it
a little harder and she came out and the third day, she
started some webs and if I'm not mistaken one of those webs
actually ended up with a few of the what I call the longerons
or the long stringers end up on the glass, of course when
Owen went up there to take a look at it he decided that and
this is the way we normally do it this is Just Velcro.
He decided that he'd open this up a little bit and as a
 SL-III PC44C/2
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consequence of that he broke one of those stringers. Well

and we've already discussed a couple of nights ago that the
spider does respln the web each day. As far as I know and
can determine today - am I to high above the mike- okay as
far as I know the spider eats only the central portion of
the web leaves the longerons, but when we broke the iongeron
that was on the glass the spider said hey I've had enough
of that and from that time forward there have not been any
attachment points on the glass. I guess she got the message
real quick you know we might open up that door again and
destroy his web. So he wasn't too happy about that. He is
on his third web and tomorrow we plan she - correction
(laughter) far - far - be it for me to get into that subject.
Tomorrow we plan to go ahead and take some DAC photography
of Arabella, and also plan a little TV. Of course we have
up until this time also -

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PUDDY of Arabella and also play a little TV.

And of course, we have up until this time also shot some
Nikon photography. The whole experiment was supposedly Just
to have the spinning of three webs, but I think the crew is
very interested in this one and I know a lot of people down
here have been. So I would have imagine that the experiment
will go on for quite some time and last night we got talking
about feeding the spider a little filet and a question was
asked weren't those all cooked. And the answer is yes they
are cooked to about medium. But they still think that
Arabella may be able to to cope with that and if not
one of the lastest suggestions is that we might had Just
a little bit of blood left over from some of the MIIO
experiment, and (laughter) we may give Arabella a little
taste of that to see how she reacts to that. So anyway we're
continuing on with that experiment with great vigor. I Just
thought that you'll might enjoy to see the hardware from
that. Another experiment - another - by the way you might
be interested in having the - this is one of the student
investigators and that is Judith Miles from Lexington High
School in Lexington, Massachusetts that is the PI on that
particular experiment. And I probably really get out of
my field on this one. I'm already out of it but get further
out. This is ED-32 which we got on the shopping list for
tomorrow. And standard thermos Jug wrapped with tin foll
to make llke it's a lot more space busy. And this is
normally heat sink that would be used to - to keep the -
package from getting too warm during the launch phase. It
is stored in a - a food jar, and if we could continue on
we have a little package that looks like this. And in this
package we have essentially three (you got to be trained
to do this) you got a - three little plates. That contain
some antibodies. And these antibodies are from a goat. And
we also have some syringes and the object of the experiment
is to take these antigens which are from humans and to
inject them into this gelitan antibodies and to watch the
formation of more or less a - opaqueness, as the reaction between
the antigen which is really a foreign body and the antibody
develops. And we figure that this would probably occur
over a 24-hour period. And to compare this type of thing
with what we see here on earth, which gives a real good
feel for the reaction between these two in the amount
of immunology that you would expect in in zero g as opposed
to one g and somewhere here I have a - that particular
experiment is from Todd Melster, who is with Bronx High
School of Science, in Jackson Heights, New York. We will
be taking a - some Nikon photography of these particular
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PUDDY pazticular plates after they have been

injected Just to get some idea of the halo that grows. We
expect to see that halo in a very short time frame. So
anyway that's the hardware from a couple of the experiments.
The only other thing, I brought along that you might be
interested in Just havln@ a gross feel on. Mere is a
H-alpha photograph of the Sun and the flare that occurred
today was over here associated with active region 85 and you
can see this light area in here and that is the dark spot
there. You can all come up later and take a closer look at
that, is where the flare did occur, just to give you a
relative location. And I think that is about my data dump,
so why don't we open it up for questions. And be kind on
some of these things.
GROUP (Laughter)
PAO Okay, Howard Minited.
QUERY What time would the TV be of the Arabella
tomorrow?
PUDDY Well that the let me say on a crew day
off, we're certainly

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QUERY - - of Arabella tomorrow?

PUDDY Well the - Let me say, on a crew day off,
we're certainly not going to be pushing for any specific
tlme. Right now, we have it scheduled around 15:20 Z,
around 10:20 local. However, this is going to be placed
on the video tape recorder. It is not going to be real time
TV. So it'll probably a day or so before - before that's
released. Shouldn't say released, before we've got it and you
can get a hold of it.
QUERY What was your thinking behind, essentially
getting them a day off tomorrow, instead of letting them go ahead
and do EREP and ATM like they wanted to? The doctors have some
say on that?
PUDDY Oh, absolutely not. There was certainly
no reason that the - medically speaking that that was a
chosen alternative. It's just I don't know how yon all
feel after you've been going at pretty hard for a couple
weeks, but we know how the crew feels. We feel fairly
certain that they would continue to pound themselves and do
the maximum everyday that they possibly could, as long as
we allowed it. And we, we know we've got some good, lone
hard days coming up, and they're not working what we call
just an average work day, as you're well aware of. They're
getting up early in the morning and going until late in the
evening and as opposed to Skylab II, which is long enough
_ for a person to push themselves, we're asking these guys
to do it twice as long - a l_ttle over twice as long. So
it was more or less a ground elected decision that said,
look, it's time we slow down on this thing a hlt and let
everybody catch their breath. We think we're coming up
very fast on that efficiency curve. And there Just wasn't
that much significant that we could gain tomorrow from an
EREP pass. At the same time, it looked llke the crew was de-
sirous of doing a little ATM work and we're certainly not
going to say if you want to do the ATM work, we've got - we got
several pads - We'd build a shopping llst of various items
that they can do, which could completely fill up the today,
from the science standpoint. And it's been upllnked to
them, you know, it's your option as but far as the - anything
per se that had a specific, absolute schedule attached with
it, where there were no if, ands, or buts. You know, you
had to meet a deadline. We've tried to preclude that.
When they get up, they can kind of do what they want to.
and they can kind of amble into it. If they don't get it
done, no big deal. If they get more done than we had
planned by using some of the shopping lists items, that's
great. But whatever makes them feel comfortable.
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PAO Warner.
QUERY I have two questions. Don, on their day off,
can they sleep long, or would they wake up at 6 o'clock?
Would they get a wake call at 6 o'clock again? And the
second question for Dick about the sargassum weed. Do I
understand you correctly, you said, "this was a new experiment
and knew you request when was that put in and by whom?
KOOS Well, it was new to us, it wasn't - I guess, the
PI from Lewis Research Center in Ohio and he's Dr. - I hope
I'm pronouncing this right_ Dr. Hsu, Hsu, Lewis Research Center
in Cleveland, Ohio. Now, _'m not sure - now to us, that's
new because it hadn't been in our - in our plans but I think
it's probably being in the - in the propose stage for some time.
Not new to everybody here at NASA.
QUERY Now does it have a number?
KOOS Task site number? No, I don't- it doesn't
have as such, no.
PUDDY As far as your question on crew wake up time,
it's still scheduled at the nominal time. They'll probably
discuss that right before they go to bed tonight and if they
elect to sleep late, we're going to be the first ones to
concur. They were up a little earlier this morning and
expected because of the EREP pass. So, there's no problem
there's - nothing - Like I said, there's nothing real big
"-- that's pushing them. We did - the first item that you would
consider of semi time consuming is setting up for an ATM pass
that's scheduled to occur about 14:15, I believe it is. But
here again, all that can be adjusted in real time.

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(CONT'D) i450 1 believe it is. But here again
all that can be adjusted in real time so if they want to sleep
late so be it.
PAO Tom Belder?
QUERY Don do you know anything about the second
flare that smaller flare that Owen caught at about 5:15?
PUDDY No, that was after I got off the console
I did hear that they caught another smaller one I think it's
in the C class as opposed to the M class. It's much the same
type of thing we saw back on August the 7th. I do know that
we are expediting trying to get that data back in and Ed
Gibson, who I'm all sure you are familiar with is probably
going to come over the Control Center tonight and more or less
sit down and discuss with Owen just exactly what they have
been able to determine, based on his comments and based the
ground observations of these flares and it's something that
you might want to either listen to or read the transcript
on in the morning. He's going to be over sometime before
they go to sleep tonight; exactly when l'm not sure.
PAO Mr. Benedict?
QUERY Anything further on the QUADS, Don, on
the troubleshooting on the QUADS?
PUDDY No, no, I think that's more or less status
quo right now. I haven't that's been worked of course hy
off line teams and there's been no change in the basic philosophy
that you've been briefed on.
QUERY Is there a general feeling over there
about which way it's going to go? Is there going to have to
be a rescue mission or is everybody feeling fairly confident
that they're going to be able to come back with the ship they
got up there?
PUDDY No, I think that's still under investigation
and hadn't been firmly decided one way or the other. I think
we'll probably be looking at the both cases and investigating
both cases - you know - it's one of these things where you
continue to collect data and try to refine Just exactly what yon
think went wrong. But I really can't give you any words any
additional words on that subject right now that I feel will be
straightforward enough to be valid in the next couple of weeks.
It's - I guess you can say our posture is one that we're really
not super concerned one way or the other and in other words I
don't think it will be a disaster one way or the other. Wetre
Just trying to gather the data they got which is the best
course of action and go from there.
PAO Mr. Budter?
QUERY I take it they are still going on with the
preparation of the rescue vehicle at the Cape at this time?
PUDDY Oh, certainly, certainly. Of course now
as you are also well aware that the preparation of that particular
command module would have gone on anyway in preparation for
/_ Skylab 4 and while you're really talking about - as far as
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converting it into a rescue vehicle the addition of -

some additional couches for the additional crewmen and
of course it is being done on a more expedited schedule
but yes, the preparation is continuing. We will be ready
if a rescue mission is called for.
PAO Mr. Benedict?
QUERY And looking ahead of the schedule as a
result of the late EVA have you set a date for the second
EVA yet?
PUDDY Well, we really haven't. I think this
will be of course a lot of this is paced by Just exactly
how much daily ATM operations we get into and I think we
are going to have to wait a few days and see how the daily
ATM viewing is going how much Owen wants to get in personally
and we're certainly not restricting him from that. He's
got quite a bit of lee way there because of the late start
so I think that is just going to be dependent on the -
how fast he shoots up the film.
PAO Mr. Butes?
QUERY Coming back to the rescue vehicle or
SL 4 vehicle rescue respectively when is the rollout scheduled
now?
PUDDY Let me think, I believe if I remember
those figures right, that rollout is scheduled for August 13th,
- it hasn't really changed and I - hate to start quoting
numbers off the top of my head and I may have it with me.
No. I don't. I don't remember the exact time frame it
was scheduled but I beleive it is somewhere around
October 13th, and it was capable of being launched somewhere
between the fifth and fifteenth of September.
QUERY You said October now, October 13,
August 13.
PUDDY August, I mean I'm sorry. And capable
of being launched somewhere in the September 5th to 15th time
frame.

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PUDDY In August, I mean, l'm sorry. And capable

of being launched somewhere in the September 5th to 15th time
frame.
QUERY Dick, on the - when's the next EREP pass
scheduled now, will it be Saturday and what will it be?
KOOS Saturday, right now we have two scheduled
for Saturday. We will be over track 6 which crosses the
western part of the United States and will go through Arizona
and Mexico and South America and will also do track 13. Which
will be in the Far East and will come down in a - descend over
Australia and will cover part of Asia.
SPEAKER And I wouldn't throw that piece of
paper away.
PUDDY The rescue pad flow schedule the latest
one I have was that we would move to the VAB around the
10th of August, and we would move to the Pad the 13th of
August, running the flight zeadiness test around the 24th of
August time frame and launch readiness somewhere in the
5th to 15th time frame.
KOOS I might add, those are the two passes
that we have forecast for Saturday. Tonight is when we
make the final input for scheduling those up. And then
Sunday we have track 20 which is in the western
part of the United States al_o and it goes through White
Sands over near E1 Paso and it comes down close to Brownsville
and across South America. Plus the lunar cal will follow
that.
QUERY How long does it take you to analyze
the data that you get from these EREP passes? In other
words when will we know what exactly you are seeing, have
you found anything from the last - the last mission that
we should know about?
KOOS Well, actually they are in process of
distributing the data to the science community know. The
people who participated in the program. And a - I don't
know, it's up how fast is determined by what kind of data
that you have, I think. If you are using data like S190 or
you are using photography of course it's readily apparent what
the data is. It's a little longer to process S192 and
manufacture that, or put it in a form like this, where you
actually get an image. I guess I can show you this a little
bit later but a - this is White Sands data from Skylab 2.
S193 is a lot harder data to put together and it takes a
lot longer time to analyze.
QUERY A - then to date, you haven't really found
any major other mineral supplies or whatever it is that
you would see with these things?
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PUDDY I think there is a key point that needs

to be made here and that is - say again - the key point that
needs to be made here is that NASA's roll as far as EREP
is concerned is kind of two-fold. One, we're looking at
developing some sensors that could be ultilized in the future
and of course, we're doing a lot of data evaluation, strictly
from the standpoint to determine that these are optimum
sensors to accomplish the objectives that we're trying to
you know, land studies, hydrology studies, things of this
nature. And as we pointed out last night, one of the other
the primary, one of the other aspects I should say of the
EREP program is to provide data to specific scientists who
have been working with us in a specific discipline over a
specific test area. And what - what Dick I think was referring
to there is the fact that we will take some of this raw
data, some of it semi-processed , we will forward this to the
PI or PCS whatever you want to term the individual who's in
change of the invest - investigation. And they in turn will
take this data and compare it with there ground (garble)
information, maybe come back to us and ask for more data
processing. Then as far as making the interpretations from
that data and coordinating that into something that you and
I are going to be interested in as far as there is thermal
pollution here or there is a tremendous break in the earth's
surface at this point or here is a tremendous population
growth over a period of time, or here is a corn - start of
a corn blight epidemic, things of this nature, I think - -

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(PUDDY CONT'd) break in the Earth's surface at this point,
or here is a tremendous population growth over a period of
time, or here's a corn, a start of a corn blight, epidemic,
things of this nature. I think, and Dick correct me if
I'm wrong, but this is my understanding of it, this is primarily
going to come as a result of the reports that these people turn
hack into NASA. And as far as this group - this particular group
here, we're not doing an extensive amount of work in that particular
area. We're data collection in that aspect from that standpoint.
Data collection agency from that standpolnt. We're Just
more or less coordinating the whole thing and doing a lot of
work as far as determining these sensors that are being used,
can productively be used to accomplish the objectives that
we know scientists around the world are interested in. I
don't know if I made that very clear to you, but that's kind
of a two-fold program.
QUERY What I'm interested in, is when - when an
interpretation would be made and/or when this would take
place? Have there been any significant results from the data
or an significant interpretations from the data that's been
already taken on the missions?
KOOS Well, there hadn't been anything. I think
you'll know about it if anything llke that is announced. It'll
probably will come through the way of very much - very similar
to the way we did in Apollo, through some of the lunar con-
ferences that have been held. I think a very similar thing
we held as soon - I don't think people have had the opportunity
yet to look at the data yet.
PUDDY There's one wealth of a lot of data, not
only from Skylab, but from these ground truth sites. They
have done it, of course, with the aircraft. We're flying
aircraft in support of these passes also. Sometimes before,
sometimes after, sometimes hopefully coincident with the pass
itself. In addition to that, some of the PIs have specific
ground teams that are out making studies all the time, at
these particular sites, around the clock. And it's - it's
a monumental Job to bring all this data together and then,
once you've got it all together to determine just exactly
what it all means to you. And I think between ERTS and
Skylab and the investigations that are going on in the ground
in this area, although is a fairly long-term project, eventually
we're going - we're going to find out, in my personal opinion,
that we can use remote sensors either in manned vehicles or
in satellites to readily predict this type of thing as much
as we do use satellites today for weather forecasting. And
the turnaround will be much more rapid. But, it's going to
be a while before we get to the point, where we can answer a
SL-III PC44H/2
Time: 1733 CDT
8_9_73

PUDDY CONT'D) question specifically that you would llke to

answer. That is, do I have corn blight now in the Iowa fields
or am I getting a pollution into our streams from this parti-
cular plant, and are there monumental growth of fish in this
particular area, and is this where we should send our fishing
fleets and things like this? It's going to take time for all
of that to become a systematic and a routine quick turnaround
operation.
PAO Mr. Bueller.
QUERY Isn't NASA planning that on a - kind of a
EREP conference comparable to the lunar science conferences?
PUDDY Well, - -
KOOS I don't have a schedule for it.
PUUDY I don't have a schedule for it. I think, if
I'm not mistaken, most of the reports have to be in - the
scheduled reports that have to be turned in to NASA and I think
most of them have something llke a year - a year and a half
after the return of the data in which to finalize their
reports and to come back with their conclusion. But I am
certain that it will be handled as Dick said, much llke the
lunar conferences were. Eventually, these guys are going to
come in - and some of them are doing similar type investigations
over different area_ of the United States and several of the
foreign countries. And they're going to sit down and discuss
their results and try to see if they have drawn similar or
even opposing conclusions. And if so, why they have done that.
And I would then expect it tO - some of this would start to
gel and you all get a better feel for the total meaning of
Earth Resources investigations on Skylab.
KOOS I'm not in the - in the, in the area in MSC
that would have that type of thing. So, I really can't speak
for how they would want to organize. It might be set up with
se -- --

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-44I/I
Time: 17:33 CDT
8-9-73

PUDDY - - would speak for how they would want to

organize it. It might be set up - Since this is covers
such a wide EREP covers such a wide area of disciplines
it might be set up quite a bit different.
SPEAKER Operations, we are Just trying to get
them the data.
PAO Mr....
QUERY I'm going to repeat the same question
on that in regard to ATM as is there a similar plan there?
PUDDY Yes, there is. There's a tremendous
number and I could probably quote you a wrong number here
but let me Just say and take this with a grain of salt. I
think they're somewhere in the order of 150 to 200 scientists
that are working at the various observatories around the
world in conjunction with the observations that we're making
from Skylab and from local observatories. And I feel
certain that a - again with a monul monumental amounts
of data, that are being collected from these and it's -
It's going to be awhile before they pull all of that
together and start coming out with what you would call
real concise, definitive conclusions of what they have
gained and what - what does this mean to the past
theories evolution wise, sun decrease in lifetime and all
that type of thing, the effect on the tides, you know, the
whole aspect of the sun's affect on us and our atmosphere
and surrounding planets.
PAO Any further questions? Thank you
very much.

END OF TAPE
 SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
HOUSTON, TEXAS

SOLAR EVENTS BRIEFING

JOHNSON SPACE CENTER
AUGUST i0 , 1973
4:02 PM CDT

PARTICIPANTS

DR. ERNEST HILDNER, SO52 CO-INVESTIGATOR

TOM ANDREWS, PAO

PC-45

/
 l

SL-III PC45A/1
z Time: 1602 CDT
8/10/73

PAO Okay, we're ready for the evening briefing

instead of the change-of-shift briefing this afternoon. We'll Just
have a briefing on the solar events of today, I guess and
with us afternoon, we have Dr. Ernest Hildner. He's with
the High Altitude Observatory in Boulder, Colorado. He is
Co-Investigator of the S052 experiment and Dr. Hildner will
make a brief statement and then we'll open it up for questions.
Dr. Hildner.
HILDNER Thank you. I Just thought some of you
might be interested in a unusual solar event that happened
this morning. We had what we call coronal transient, for
one of the better word. What happened, was this is the Sun
that a piece of material on the limb of the Sun, on the
western edge, this way being north, blew off. It was expelled
rather violently from the Sun and it was seen by observatories
I believe it was Canary Island's observatory first noticed it.
Called it to the attention of NOAA. We - NOAA being the most
National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.
They're the people that prow[de the solar weather information
to the ATM PIs. We voice up--linked to the crew for them to
observe this phenomenon and tell us if it was worth interrup-
ting their day off to go look at. And they came back and they
said, indeed it was. They could see in the - display, the
H-alpha and the white light displays, enormous loops into
the corona. These continued to move outward in this fashion
until they - fading as they moved outward. The projected veloelty
turned out to be about 312 kilometers per second, which is
falrly large number when you put it in miles per hour. And
that is the slowest it could possibly have gone, as you can see
looing down - this is the North Pole and Skylab is over here,
and this is the llne of sight - If this material was ejected
ahead of, or belnd the plane of the sky, then it would appear
to be going slower than it actually is. So this is the
apparent velocity. It had to be going at least this fast.
They say these loops moved outward over a period of about 2 hours
and we spent three orbits of ATM observing time this morning
looking at this phenomenon. Total mass ejected is larger than
the mass of the Earth. Boom_ Just blown off the Sun at this
velocity. These - this material is visible because it scatters
sunllght from the solar disk and bounces it towards Skylab.
The material becomes more tenuous as it moves out and threrefore,
becomes fainter, it's also getting farther away from it's
source of illumination and when we saw it last on the TV,
why it was at out about 3-1/2 solar radii. If I, that's an
astronomer's symbol for the radius of the Sun. Okay. Now
Owen Garrlott and A1 Bean, came to the panel. They were there
both there for a while together and then I believe A1 Bean
SL-III PC45A/2
Time: 1602 CDT
8/10/73

(HILDNER CONT'D) ran some of the observations and later

Owen Garrlott ran some of the observations. The white light
coronagrnph is an instrument which blocks out the - with
a disk - the direct light of the Sun. Because the intensity
out here is llke i0 to the minus 9 solar brightness. The
disk surface brightness is indicated this way. This is
quite faint material. Nonetheless, a great deal of the mass
was ejected very violently, and this is quite a rare phenome-
non. At this point in the solar cycle, it happens 2, 3, maybe
4 times a year on the llmb. We were lucky to get _ust a
gllmps of a similar phenomenon during SL-II - -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-45B/I
Time: 16:02 CDT
8/10/73

H LDNER - on the limb. We were lucky to get just

a glimpse of a similar phenomenon during SL-II. We got a
half an hour's worth of observations when the crewmen were
asleep on similar phenomenon on the pther llmb. But we feel that
got excellent observations of this one, particularly because
we know that the film camera can observe more faint objects
than the TV camera can. So, - now I should - that's a
balled resume of what happened. Prior to that time there
were coronal structures in a fan shape. And when this
transient - this ejection occured we saw a picture after-
wards, and instead of all this tenuous material here, there
was much less material and many fewer radial structures
after this great blast of material had gone through. This
event is particularly inteKesting because usually when -
well, such an event has never before been observed out to
such distances in such a great time resolution, but when we
have inferred from closer to the Sun observations that such
an event has occured, it has been accompanied by very in-
tense radial bursts. As near as we can tell, two radial
observatories were working during this period and it was
accompanied by very slight increase in the background radia-
tion. Ordinarily, you would expect this enormous ejection
of material to excite the plasma which exists in the corona
at all times and cause it to emit radial waves. So I
thought that would perhaps be of interest to you.
PAO Okay, if Dr. Hildner is through with his
statement then we'll have questions.
QUERY And Dr. Hildner, do you know if - what
causes exactly and what effect, if any, direct effect it
might have on the Earth?
HILDNER Okay. That's two questions. We do not
yet know what causes these phenomenon. Clearly, the structure
of the corona is determined by the magnetic field configura-
tion which exists in the corona. Material is confined to
magnetic field lines. And what we feel is that the magnetic
fields which are of course much stronger, close to the
surface of the Sun, have in some way gotten themselves -
they suddenly had a rearrangement which the caused the mat-
erial to be expelled. Iodized material, hot gaseous plasma
on the magnetic field lines is very llke little pieces of
split-shot sinkers if you're a fisherman, on rubber bands.
Little pieces of lead on rubber bands. And the magnetic
fields lines are stretchy and gravity sags them down with
the weight of the material that's lying on the magnetic
field llne. But if some sudden restructuring of the mag-
netic field llne occurs, then this material can be flun K
outward. We expect that these loops actually trace out
lines of magnetic field and there's a bubble of magnetic
 SL-III PC-45B/2
Time: 16:02 CDT
8/10/73
/--

field which is expanding outward in the corona. As to what

exactly triggers it though, we do not knowt which is one reason
of course why we fly ATM to try to find out why these violent
things happen. As to the second part of your question, will
this affect the Earth, the answer £s no, because again,
looking down from the top, you see the Earth is back herep
and this material was ejected out to one side. If this
material had been ejected toward the Earth we very definitely
would have had a geometic storm and radio commlxnications
would have been affected and we very likely would have had
an aurora.

QUERY The material ejected I suppose is primarily

protons and free electons, is that correct?
HILDNER That's correct. Yes.
QUERY You mentioned that is more than the mass
of the Earth, but what percentage of the mass of the Sun
would it be?
HILDNER Minuscule. Negligible. A tiny number. We
ha_e as I say, we have not seen these kinds of events in
such deep - -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC45C/I
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8110173

(HTLDNER CONT'D) -a tiny number. We have, as I say, we

have not seen these kinds of events in such detail, ever
before. And so, l'm very uncertain about the mass that is
ejected. But I can assure you, that it's a tiny fraction
of a tiny fraction of 1 percent of the mass of the Sun.
It's just atmospheric material blowing off. It's not really
the - the materials - subsurface materials of the Sun at all.
PAO Are there any other questions?
QUERY What was the greatest distance expressed
in solar radii detected so far in previous events of this
kind?
HILDNER All right. There is a satellite flying
called the OSO 7 satellite and the Naval Research Laboratory
has a coronagraph flying on that satellite. They have seen
sudden disruptions in the corona, although they have not
seen loop structures, what they have seen is streamers
these features being blown apart. They have seen those out to
9-1/2 or i0 radii. They've also seen blobs being ejected.
But they could only take one picture, complete picture of
the area around the Sun once every 44 minutes. We get
12 pictures in 5 minutes. And so, that and plus the
fact that we saw the loops on TV, so we know wetll sea
far better structure in our film, it leads us to think
that we may be able to see this out to 6 solar radii on
our film. But they ha_e been observed farther out.
QUERY How great an advantage has it been to
have Garriott, who's trained as a solar physicist up there,
so far. Have you seen any - any improvement over the last
crew?
HILDNER That one's a political answer. (Laughter)
The previous crew did very well, but they were - the $L-II
crew was not as well trained in solar physics as this crew
and they had many things on their minds. They were the
first men to be there. And the emphasis was on medical
experiments and just showing that the Skylab could work. The
primary emphasis during this present mission, is suppose
to be solar physics and we noticed some certain short comings
and the way that the astronauts were trained, and that the
people on the ground, including the PIs, were trained during
the last mission. We've corrected quite a number of those
problems and we feel that we have much more rapport with
this crew than we did with the last crew. Owen Garrlott asks
many more questions of us that we respond to. We feel
we have a much better avenue of communication. And as I
said, it's not altogether Just because it's Owen. But also
because we found out on the last mission, the previous
 SL-III PC45C/2
Time: 1602 CDT
8110173

(HILDNER CONT'D) crew came down and said, "Gee, it sure

would've been nice to talk more." And so, the system's been
set up to allow that in this mission.
QUERY When does - when this data finally comes
down, what exactly will you be looking at when you look at
this particular data? What will you be looking for?
HILDNER We will he looking for mass velocity and
the mechanism by which this material is carried out and what
triggered the event in the first place, and how the subsequent
restructuring of the magnetic field affects the solar features.
QUERY Is this the largest phenomenon of this type?
Did you say that - that you know?
HILDNER I saw it first time is it? - 5 hours
ago and I cannot answer that question as yet. It's certainly
is a magnificant specimen of this type. But I - it will
be premature to say it's the largest ever observed.
QUERY How many hours did the astronauts actually
observe this? Are they still looking at it?
HILDNER No, let me answer the second, the last
part of your question first. They're not still looking at
it, however, we do have the capability to point the spacecraft
and take observation when the crewmen are not looking at it.
And we've done that at intervals throughout the day. The
crewmen, I believe, spent 2-1/2 orbits, two and a fractional
orbits observing the thing, which gives you two hours of manned
ovservatlons.

QUERY Is the area of the ejection identifiable

with another event which is llke solar group, sun-spot group or - -
HILDNER Yes_ th

END OF TAPE

E
 SL-III PC-45D/1
_ Time: 16:02 CDT
8/i0/73

QUERY - - with another event which you observed

like solar group - sunspot group, I mean, or - -
HILDNER Yes. Thank you. I should have noted that.
This - the ejections material actually appears to have taken
place somewhat behind the llmb. Y'all know of course that
the Sun rotates in that direction. This is the east limb,
this is the west limb. And there was an active region 76
that had associated with it two filaments or prominences,
filament 23 and filament 27. And NOAA speculated that this
ejection actually involved both these filaments which had
just gone over the llmb. There may well have been a flare
occurring, but Just slightly on the backside where we couldn't
see it then ejecting this material into the corona. The con-
nection between this phenomena and flares is not yet well
understood. It's very surprising that there was no radio
bursts with an event of this magnitude. That's a puzzle to
everybody.
QUERY Are all the ATM instruments working well
and how much is the loss of that one TV loop cost you?
HILDNER The instruments are all working reasonably
well. S056 has had some problem with its doors but that's
apparently solved. The astronauts removed a ramp door latch
that was wearing during the EVA, probably knew about that
on S055. Everybody else is working very well. The loss
of the TV is not - has not been significant. We thought
for awhile, of course, that we were going to lose the video
tape recorder and we would have to rely on Owen's comments
his verbal discriptlon of phenomena like these if we hadn't
had that. But so we're delighted to have that working.
But in general, things are working very well.
PAO Any othez questions?
QUERY Did you see this here - in real time, or
was it dump?
HILDNER No, it was video tape recorded and dumped
rather shortly thereafter, about an hour thereafter. While
the event was still in progress we were beginning to get
the first pictures. I wish that I could show you on the TV
because it's truly spectacular. The - in case you do get
to see a picture of the TV preps, I should Just briefly
mention that the - well I have, and they can't find it.
The as I said, the coronagraph through which you're looking
when you see the TV pictures - the spectacular TV pictures,
has a disk which blocks out the Sun. And it has to be
slightly bigger than the Sun. And it's at 1.5 solar radii,
so you will see bright lights spilling around the edge,
nonetheless. But be aware that that's 1.5 solar radii. Then
there is a support which has got to hold that shadowing
SL-III PC-45D/2
Time: 16:02 CDT
8/10/73

disk out in the aperture of the instrument. And that will

appear as a black shape llke this. Sure. And if we can get a
picture a before and after picture as I said, before you
will see this and on the other side there weze two streamers
that looked like horns, and that's just to oriente you.
North is this way, roughly. Okay. Then, these loops start
appearing llke this. Faint here at the outer edges. And
if you can see the edge of the field which is round. That's
at 4.5 solar radii and you can see on the TV if you ever
do get a chance to see it that these things are plainly
visible out to 3.5. They don't fade out of existence at
that distance, rather we stop getting TV.
FAO Any further questions? If not we thank
you very much and thank you Dr. _ildner for coming over.
HILDNER My pleasure.

END OF TAPE
 SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
Houston, Texas

Change of Shift Briefing

Johnson Space Center
August ii, 1973
4:30 pm CDT

PARTICIPANTS:

Charles Lewis, Flight Director

Earl Thompson, EREP
Pat O'Neill, ASCO
David Garrett, PAO

" PC-46
_t

SL-III PC-46A/I
Time: 16:30 CDT
8111173

PAO Okay, we're ready to get started with

this afternoon's change-of-shlft briefing. We have with
us today, Flight Director Chuck Lewis, our EREP Operation
Officer Earl Thompson and the ASCO, which is Apollo Software
and Control Officers Pat O'Neill and Ray Coker. Kick it off
with you Chuck.
LEWIS Okay, in summary the systems haven't
changed to speak of since the last briefing. We have been
on the nominal Plight Plan all day today_ we had a good
EREP pass, dispite a procedure problem Just prior to the
pass and that's one reason I brought Pat O'Neil and Ray Coker
over. They can brief you on what happened there, it scared
us for a moment but we recovered. And Earl Thompson can go
through the pass we - the EREP pass we had this morning and
we also have a late EREP pass today. The crew will be up
about an hour late taking an EREP pass over Australia. I
don't have anything else to add as far as systems, unless
you have questions in that area. I have, I must go back
I do have some questions here from the cape but I'll pick
those up at the conclusion of the conference. So let me
have Pat O'Nell brief you as to the problem we encountered
going into our EREP today. Pat.
O'NEIL Well, we started into our EREP nominally
we had a 33-minute maneuver to go to Z-local vertical for
the EREP and then we had some fine tweaks offsets in attitude
that the crew needed to enter to get perfectly on Z-local
vertical and for some reason the time kept going by and they
hadn't entered these last offsets and finally it had gotten
12 minutes since the start of the maneuver and they hadn't
entered them and so we got them to enter those and when they
did it recycled the computers logic to start - and it restarted
the maneuver. And that meant it would be an addition 33 minutes
before we would be to attitude for Z-local vertical. So we
realized we would - we would arrive 12 minutes late for EREP
and wouldn't he in attitude we would be about a 30 degree error
in error So Ray Coker here realize the problem, we started
working quickly to get a time, a new time a new maneuver time
to get so we'd - we knew when we need to he at EREP at
Z-local vertical attitude for EREP. Ray came up with a number
real quick and we pointed - told flight and he voiced it up
crew entered it and we had LOS about that time and we didn't
get to tell them that they needed to also cycle the Z-LOCAL
VERTICAL switch to get the new maneuver time incorporated.
In other words, it wouldn't have done any good if we hadn't
and thank goodness the crew knew what they were doing and they
had recycled the Z-LOCAL VERTICAL switch and when we saw them again
at Goldstone we were very close to attitude with in 3 degrees
of attitude for EREP, rather than 30 degrees, we were right on.
 SL-III PC-46A/2
Time: 16:30 CDT
8/11/73

SPEAKER I might say that - -

O'NEIL Ten - twenty.
PAO Ray can you add anything?
COKER No, that' s about it.
LEWIS We were about 2 minutes about 2 minutes
and 30 seconds late arriving in ZLV, 2 minutes of that
we got in our pad anyway for settling time, another words
maneuver to ZLV and settling the attitude airs out so we
weren't significantly impacted, Earl our EREP officer said that
we had some a few photographs taken prior to actual ZLV
attitude, but very few, so we got a good EREP pass. I neglected
to say one thing about systems we did have - we've got - Our
rate gyros Z-2 has been acting up. It appears that scale
factor for that gyro is shifted or changed and I think we had
three rate gyro redundancy management failures during the EREP
pass today. And as you are aware we have had rate gyro
problems since beginning of SL - SL-I. We managed to get
through the pass without any any TACS usage or any other
problems. And Earl can glve you a brief run down of the
pass we took this morning.
THOMPSON Okay, the pass we did today was track 6
which starts out on the west coast and it continues and
covers Nevada, Callfornia_ Utah -

END OF TAPE

P
SL IIl PC-46B/I
TIME: 16:30 CDT
8/11/73

LEWIS Okay, the pass we did today was track

6, which starts out on the west coast, and it continues
and covers Nevada, California, Utah_ down through Guatemala,
Mexico, and we ended the pass today about mid-South America.
As Pat was briefing, I think Chuck said, we did get into
ZLV a couple of minutes late today. The only thing that
we figured it up, the only thing we lost Was - we didn't really
lose them, but we took nine Earth terrain camera photos and
three 198 phots. Before w? actually got into ZLV. That
doesn't mean they were los_, it means wwe were not perfect -
we were 3 degrees off, I b_lieve at that time. All the
other passes should be Just: as good as nominal. We had all
insturments operating today. In addition, you may have
heard, we did an Earth's llmb maneuver. What this is, is
coming out - after the normal ERE, pass, we come out of
ZLV and solar inertial. Anti we did the pass today and we
turned on the 190A and 191 _nd the 190B instrument, that's
the Earth terrain camera to look at the aerosol distribution.
As we were coming out of ZL? to the Earth's horizon. This
is actually a physics experiment, which was added onto the
EREP pass at very little cost or no cost, because you're
coming out into solar inertial anyway. We probably will not
do another one of these. This was the only requirement for
one. I'm not sure of what else that you'd llke covered. Yes,
tonight it will be our first - as Chuck said, we'll be doing an
Australian pass - Australian (garble) pass about 02:00 GMT.
(garble) 02 or 03:00 GMT, which would be about 9:30 local
time. The crew will have to stay up, I'm not sure if itts
an hour - an hour or so later to do this pass_ but we wanted to
get it, because it's a - we wanted to get a foreign pass in
this round. And it will - so we will do that one. That's
about all I know to say about it.
SPEAKER Okay, then we have one more EREP
pass tomorrow, and then it's about 20 days before we begin
to plan EREP passes again.
LEWIS That's right. The only thing that might
change that is if that a requirement came in for a foreign
pass that we might cover, but the EREP opportunities are
not very good after tomorrow, so we probably won't do another
one until 20 to 21 days from tommorow.
PAO Okay, if that's all, I guess we're ready
for questions now. Bruce Hicks.
QUERY I have several. First on the ERE,, what
is the track tomorrow?
LEWIS It's track 20.
QUERY Do you know any specifics about tonight's
track? I know it's covering southeast Asia or Malaysia area
 SL III PC-46B/2
TIME: 16:30 CDT
8111173

and down across Australia. Do you know any specific sites

they'll be looking at.
LEWIS We have some sites in that area, but
I don't have them with me. We have I'm not sure if you
know our document which lists the sites that we cover, there
are some specific sites, but I don't know what they are at
this time.
SPEAKER I might say Bruce that tomorrow, track 20,
plus we have a lunar cal. I think we have two each mission.
SPEAKER Right.
SPEAKER This will be our first lunar cal in
conjunction with that pass.
QUERY This will be the first foreign pass
tonight, won't it?
SPEAKER That's right.
QUERY Other than South America and Mexico
and so forth?
SPEAKER Right.
QUERY Could I go on with a couple ofothers while
I've got the mike here? What about the M509, when are we going
to get around it Chuck?
LEWIS Day 17, I believe is the first 509. I
believe that's right. I don't have the 7-day forecaster,
there should have been a 7 - maybe there's a 7-day forecast
around over here from the XQ package, but I think it's day 17.
QUERY The one other thing. Back to the
rate gyros. Z-2 has been out eight times, I understand today, all
together. Z-I has been gone for a long time, and so that's
really, there's Just one dependable one in that axis. Is
that the way you world look at it?
LEWIS Well, as a matter of fact, we finally
just chose Z-3 as the controlling gyro, the latter part of
the EREP pass. You can't -

END OF TAPE

/
 SL-III PC-46C/1
Time: 16:30 CDT
_ 8/11/73

SPEAKER - - As a matter of fact, we finally Just

chose Z-3 as the controlling gyro the latter part of the
EREP pass. You can't say they're out because we're - they'll
come back in and operate properly. The drifts - if we get
one that the drift takes off on we ean compensate for that
and the drift will die down and it'll seem to work fine.
And we suspect this one is a scale-factor problem and we're
working now to come up with a new scale factor for that gyro
plus the other - the gyros in the other axes now. So, you
can't say it's not usable. It's usable - you have to be very
careful with them because you never know when they will pick
up a drift, a scale-factor change, or ocillatlon.
QUERY Also, we've been playing, I think, a little
bit with the Y-2, it seems like to that I think it was.
SPEAKER Y-2 is - -
QUERY Drifting.
SPEAKER Yes.
QUERY What are the emergency procedures for doing
the 6-pack now? What would we do if we lost all three in
the - in one axis and the ivterim of getting the 6-pack up?
And has there been even more discussions in light of Z-2 of
going ahead and doing the getting the 6-pack in and doing
an EVA in the next few days?
SPEAKER We would - during the manned period we would
_ implement - I believe would implement the 6-pack if we lost all
the gyros in that axis. I don't believe we've changed that.
Now, there' been a lot of discussion with these off-llne
teams that we had working with regardto that. So I believe during
a manned period we'd have to he down to - have lost all
gyros and one axis before we'd implementthe 6-pack. Now,
was there another question with regard to that?
QUERY Well, that wasn't exactly it. In other words,
if you lost all of them in one axis, What then would you
do before implementing the 6-pack? How would you control
stability? Would you use the two good rocket quads on the
SM - service module and would you go ahead right away with
the 6-pack, and is there more consideration to plan an EVA
within the week to do anything about it?
SPEAKER Okay. Right - well I know there are studies
underway now to see if we can go into a free-drlft mode. And
each one of the axes, if we lose the - all the gyros and
axes - I don't know the results of that right now. And to
control within - within dead-bands, I - maybe ASCO can help
me, hut I believe - we were going to use the command and
service module RCS. But I believe at this point in time we'd
use TACS. I believe that's the way we've planned that, but
I Bruce, I haven't reviewed those procedures. Pat are you - -
 SL-III PC-46C/2
Time: 16:30 CDT
-- 8/I1/73

O'NEIL Just one thing we're looking at right

now is to use the IMU in the CSM. Don't use the CSM for
control, but use it for attitude reference while you've got
the system down and then we're talking about one crewman
being at the C&D panel where you - in the CSM and one at
the ATM C&D panel where you can enter command - attitude
maneuvers to the computer in the ATM and have it control
attitude. It would be kind of an -
SPEAKER Use an ax.

"O'NEIL - open loop that type thing. It would say -

the computer would say change the CMG momentum this much
and you should get this kind of an attitude change. But
you have no feedbaek_ no rate gyros coming into it telling
it how far you really went. But it's pretty good. It's
looking pretty good. And I don't think they want to use
the RCS during this period.
PAO Yes. Warner?
QUERY Is there any news on quads B and D of the SM?
LEWIS That was discussed this morning at the FMT.
I wasn't there and Nell Hutchinson had gone to the FMT. And
I don't have any specifics on it, but I do understand that
they're beginning to narrow the quad D, what they think the
quad D problem is down to a specific case. I don't feel
llke we think it's a generic problem at all now, llke we
were afraid it might have been early. And it would be best
probably, to have Glen Lunney, or one of those people that's
been working this with the contractor. They're running
tests - they're running tests at the Cape I believe also
to summarize that effort for you and perhaps that could
be set up - probably, I don't know, maybe Monday. I think
they have begun to narrow that down somewhat.
PAO Any further questions?
PAO Okay, I have some I'll read off just to -
SPEAKER Yes, I think I Just answered the first one
on the quad as best as I can today.
PAO Yes, I believe the first one has been.
These are from Mary Buhb at the Cape. What is the difficulty
with the private communication loop used by the astronauts
to talk to their families?
LEWIS Okay - -

END OF TAPE
SL III PC-46D/I
TIME: 16:30 CDT
8/11/73

SPEAKER look used by the astronauts to talk

to their families.
LEWIS Okay, well the first problem is it's
VHF. Itts not as clean alr-ground system as the S-band.
Another problem with that is, we cannot control the _fHF
antennas on the vehicle to give us the optimum antenna_
with regard to the site. And last night they had a site
problem during one of the passes, I belleve it was Ascension_
they had a COAX switch problem and I think that reduced
their up-llnk power by about a halfj but_ as a matter of
fact, this afternoon as I left, we had gone to VHF air-
ground, Just to try it for three or four passes to get a better
feel for the problem that they've been having with the
private family communicatlons_ and if it continues to be
bad, I would imagine we'll go to S-band and let them have
a pass on S-band for that conference.
QUERY Okay. The last question was, have Arabella
and Anita eaten their steak?
SPEAKER I thought they would eat their food,
too, but I was told this morning that they Just take the
Juices from the food and as I understand it, the crew
reported some residue from the meat that they'd left there
smaller in size, which indicates that Arabella had partaken
of part of the meat or the Juices from the meat, and I don't
know what the status is on Anita.
PAO Any further questions? Bruce.
QUERY Well, Arabella and Anita have been
making a lot of news lately, but how are the fish doing?
Are they still belly up to the wall or are they going com-
pletely crazy up there?
SPEAKER I haven't heard any comments from the
crew on the fish, nor have I had any more TV than we had
several days ago, but I can check on that and bring you up
to speed tomorrow night.
QUERY And Pat_ you were telling earlier about
we'd be 12 minutes late into the EREP pass because of the
problem getting commands. Was that a crew error_ Was
that - was that the way I understood it. They didn't get
something done they were supposed to.
O'NEIL Well, that's hard to say. I guess
actually they should have entered it on time. Actually we
should have caught it. That they didn't enter it on time.
I think we all worked together on that one.
PAO Any further questions? Ail right.
Thank you.

END OF TAPE
 SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
Houston, Texas

Change of Shift Briefing

Johnson Space Center
August 12, 1973
4:48 pm CDT

PARTICIPANTS:

Charles Lewis, Flight Director

/-" David Garrett, PAO

PC-47
SL III PC-47A/1
TIME: 16:48 CDT
8/12/73

PAO Okay. Today we have Chuck Lewis, our

Flight Director who will give us an analysis of what's
been going on with Skylab today.
LEWIS Okay, since the last briefing we've had
two EREP passes. Last evening we had the EREP pass across
Australia, Malaysia and Thailand, and had a very good pass
there, and again this morning we had a pass similar to the
one we had yesterday morning, across the western United
States, New Mexico, Central America and through
South America, and we got: a good pass - good weather today.
We - Yon probably have copies of the Flight Plan. We've
been conducting the ATM experiments during the latter part
of this day. We did have a problem after the EREP pass
today with our rate gyros and as you know, we've been having
problems all along with the gyros. In this particular case,
apparently we failed into a mode where we utilized TACS and
I had a preliminary TACS number but I - of about 1200 pounds
seconds, but I think it's going to be close to 2,000 pound
seconds of TACS we used today to square away the OWS
attitude. Tomorrow, we've got the first M509 run. The
Commander will be the test pilot, and as I think I mentioned
yesterday, we don't have auy further EREP passes now for
about 20 or 21 days. After the EREP pass today on Sl91,
we've been having some problem with the door on that, as far
as opening and closing, is taking longer than it should, so at
the end of the EREP today, we left the door open. And that's
being analyzed now to see Jf we want to go ahead and close
it. And basically that's a summary of the activity.
PAO Okay, do we have any questions? Werner?
QUERY 2,000 pouud seconds of the TACS fuel,
what does that really mean. How far down are we now in
percentages.
LEWIS Well, if _hat _umber is right, and like
I said, itls. very prellmin_y right now, but, wehad about
34,500 pound seconds remaln_ng, so it's so_@where in the
neighborhog_d of about 4 pe_ent of that. ' We wer_ above the
experiment ,redline, almost'!0 percent before this Occurred,
so we have taken about 4- we're still above the experiment
redline, probably about 5 or 6 percent. That's the ball park
right now. _hey have dumped the data from t_e ATM and they're
analyzing that now to see if they can reconstruct exactly
what caused the problem.
QUERY Chuck, can you explain exactly what
configuration you're in as far as what - which gyros you're
using right now, and does_thls difficulty this afternoon
have you concerned, worried?
LEWIS Well, we're basically back.to the same
configuration we were before the EREP pass and during the EREP
 SL III PC-47A/2
TIME: 16:48 CDT
f- 8/12/73

pass with one exception. We' re operating in the E axis

with only a single gyro, using Z-3 rate gyro because Z-2
is, as I mentioned yesterday, has had a scale factor change.
And Z-2 and Z-3 were Just diverging too quickly to leave it
in the system, so we took Z-2 out and left Z-3 controlling.
In the other axls, we' re on the same gyros we have been on.
Y-2 and Y-3, I'm sorry, Y-I and Y-2, and in X we're on
i and 2. It doesn't ha@,e me worried. It's probably been
mentioned that we have several software patches in work to -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-47B/I
Time: 16:48 CDT
8/12/73

LEWIS - - worried. There a - It's probably

been mentioned that we have several software patches in
work. The a - Hopefully correct these problems - as a matter
of fact tomorrow we had the scale factor maneuver set up
again. We had done that 2 or 3 days ago, but on one of the
axis we had had got the star tracker data, so we're goln R
to have to rerun it. So software patches are in work -
to address the scale factor problem. In addition, as you
know, the hotter gyros have been oscillating and Y-2
in particular is oscillating - has been oscillating during
the day and another patch takes - hopely will take care of that.
It's called a course gain patch and those are in work and they have
to be done sequentially. Can't do them all at one time. It'll
take, I don't know probably 3 or 4 days to get - get each
one of those items worked. You have to do the maneuver
sequence, get the numbers from Marshall, at Huntsville takes
those numbers and com- and works the softworks the
software patch up and it has to be upllnked and checked.
Now we're still above our experiment red llne. We've still
got margin there. A - we certainly don't want this to
happen frequently or happen again even and use that amount
of TACS. It would - it could begin bite into our experiment
rediine. So I think that We got - we're addressing each
of those particular items and we've got I guess that
software patches in work that'll correct those and I think
we probably see those impllmented in the next 3 or 4 days.
They have been in work before this occurred today because
of the rate gyro difficulties.
QUERY Could you describe exactly what happened
today, which gyro or gyros were at fault?
LEWIS We - we've only looked at the alr-ground
transcript from the crews as they described the problem.
We haven't looked at the data. As I say we got the dump
data in and it's in the software system over there and
the guys are pulling out the reports to see if they can
reconstruct it but we suspect that it started with Z-2 and
Z-3. And we - we've been having redundancy measurement failures
we have in the last 2 days, very frequently on those -
those 2 gyros. Now what the redundancy management does
this is the computer now when it sees a discompare between
2 gyros it says says so, okay. I'm going to pick what it
calls an Interlum, strap down or InterluB rate gyro and look
at that one and try to eliminate which - which of the 2 is
had. Well it does that really by picking the number 2
whether it's good or bad, it picks number 2 when it goes
to interim strap down. So pick number 2_ and number 2
is the one where we think the scale factor has changed.
SL-III PC-47B/2
Time: 16:48 CDT
8/12/73

(CONTWD) Okay it looks at it and says I don't

like that one either so it proceeds to fall back then to
Z-3 which is called backup strap down, the Z-3 gryo. We
think that's - that happen in an addition when it went
when it went to backup strap down it also selected X-2 and
Y-2. Because it goes across the board when it gets to
when it selects back-ups strap down or backup gyros, it
goes across the board and all 3 axes and selects those. And
Y-2 had been oscillating, a little more than - It's varied
but it's almost as high as we have seen the oscillation
in that particular gyro but not quite as - not quite as
much. So we suspect then when it did that then we had
the Y-2 in the system by itself with the oscillation. We
think that's basically what - what caused it. We saturated
the CMG and then the crew in their corrective action reset
the CHG reset which is the thing you want to do and that
normally requires TACS anyway. Just that it - we've seen
it take anywhere from 3 to 5 hundred pound seconds during
SL-II and a CMG reset. This happened prior to our normal
momentum dump maneuver which mean we had a lot momentum
built up anyway. So it's a combination of things apparently
got us today and that's a_ - -

END OF TAPE
 SL III PC-47C/I
TIME: 16:48 CDT
8/12/73

f- LEWIS lot of momentum built up anyway, so

it's a combination of things apparently that got us today,
and that's about as best as I can describe the way we think
we got into the problem. But, like I say, we'll have a
better idea on that tomorrow or tonight.
QUERY Chuck, how would you assess the overall
situation with the gyros and how much worse off are we
compared to what we were before this happened?
LEWIS We're in the same posture now as we
were before the EREP, before this happened, with the
exception we've used a large amount of TACS. And with
the exception that we're on that single rata gyro in the
C axis.
QUERY As I gather this is associated with the
EREP maneuvers.
LEWIS Well, we were through with the EREP,
but we as I recall we were - we had done the EREP maneuver
back to solar inertial - let me think, get that right -
yeah, we had completed th_ EREP maneuver back to solar
inertial, but then after that EREP maneuver back is when
you want to dump the momentum you've gained in that maneuver
from ZLV back to SI, so it was, I think, the first dump,
momentum dump after we had gotten hack to Sl.
QUERY On the M_09 tomorrow, shall we have
this in real-time TV?
LEWIS I know we'll have some TV on the
VT - on the video tape recorder, I'm not sure we'll have
real time, let me see, well, we've got, I think, 20 minutes
on the VTR, and it shows a Goldstone pass where you may
have real time. It's not clear here whether we're going to
try to get the real time or not. But we'll know in the
morning and we will have VTR though, we will have 20 or
30 minutes of the M509 expeciment.
QUERY Have you _:onsidered any more about the
space walk, EVA to take care of this?
LEWIS The slx-pao?
QUERY Have there been any management meetings
about it?
LEWIS Well, not specifically Just for that
subject. No, basically we want to utilize the rate gyros
we have, and work on these patches to try to make that
better. I think the only time weld go to the aix-pac is
if we had lost all the gyros in an axis, lost control in
an axis or we were down to one that was really not that
reliable, in other words, drifted, like Z-2 would he, where
it Just isn't reliable enough and I think at that point in
time we would consider - start considering an EVA to
SL III PC-47C/2
TIME: 16:48 CDT
8112173

implement the six-pae. We don't want to jump into that,

you know, there's some - when you go into a system llke
that and try to implement a fix, you run some risk, although
we think it's very slight, of not implementing correctly,
you could cause, you know, problems there. Now if the crew
exercises that, we think the risk is small, but it does
require an EVA_ it requires that amount of time and so I
don't think we're going to Jump into that riBht off. We're
going to work these patches, get those up and see if that
won't relieve the rate gyro problems.
QUERY Are you considering to take up yet
another six-pac with SL-IV for additional redundancy?
LEWIS I don't think that's being considered.
QUERY On the AM (garble) could you tell
exactly how he's going tc do it. I notice you've got
4 hours blocked aside in the Flight Plan. How much of
that time will he actually be flying it?
LEWIS I don't have those detailed procedures
in front of me. I don't know the exact amount of time
he's actually flying. There's a lot of checks before,
during and then after they fly and I Just don't have those
details in front of me as to the amount of time he's
actually flying. It doesn't mean by the way the Flight
Plan is lald out he's flying, you know, they're going to
be actually flying the package, that length of time.
QUERY And also_ you mentioned, he'll be
unsuited. Do you plan suit flight with the (garble)
later on.
LEWIS Yes, as a matter of fact, Just to give
you an idea the way it looks now, the way we've lald it
out the next few days -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-47D/1
Time: 16:48 CDT
8/12/73

LEWIS Yes. A matter of fact, Just give you

an idea the way it looks now, the way we lald it out in
the next few days. Excuse me. Now this can change, but a -
on day 17, which is tomorrow, we have the unsuited exercise.
On day 19, we have another unsuited exercise. On day 21, we
have a suited exercise.
QUERY Will that all be AI Bean doing that or
will Lousma also?
LEWIS I know it is on the first run and I'm
not sure the others. I suspect we'll probably let a - probably
have Jack run one of those, but I'm not certain of that.
It doesn't specify on No it doesn't say.
QUERY Are they doing VTR on the day 19 and
day 21 EMU2?
LEWIS I would suspect they will. Yes. They
are on day 21. We have that indicated and it doesn't show
it on 19, but it's probably Just an oversight. We - These
are pretty course plans at this point. It Just blocks the
time, but I suspect will get the VTR on each run.
PAO Howard.
QUERY Usual question anything further on the
QUADs?
SPEAKER Have you been able to set up for anything
for them for Glenn Lunney.
LEWIS No. They a -
LEWIS I don't know all the speelficas there
hut from what I've seen and what I've read it looks like
that I think I said this yesterday, it doesn't look like
a generic problem, which we were first concerned about. I think
basically we believe that on QUAD Bravo we had a leaking
seat on one of the thrusters. On QUAD-D, indications
are and they've going back as I understand and have done a
very detail and thorough investigation of the manufactorlng
process, the installation and the test and checkout. And
QUAD-D did have a history of some problem in the impllmantatlon
stage. They had some hardware that was put in incorrectly
and it had to be taken out and reinstalled. So QUAD-D did
have a history of some problem of some rework of problem +
but rework in that process. And I think basically there -
they believe that we may have had a - one of the fittings
in the plumbing that was not tighten down or may have had
several that was not tighten down. Now these fittings as
I understand it are called dynatuba fittings and they seal
in 2 ways. There's an O-rlng seal as well as a metal to
metal seal. Now you can finger tighten these things and
actually get a seal on the system. It'll pass as I understand
it pass pressure test and so forth in this configuration,
 SL-III PC-47D/2
Time: 16;48 CDT
8/12/73

r (CONT'D) but it's not a complete seal, needs to

be torqued on down to get the metal to metal seal in addition
to that. Now they as I understand it, they've run some
test and the oxidizer will deteriorate the O-rlng - I think
the O-rlng is Teflon, but I'm not certain of that. And if
we did have these fitting these dynatude fittings in that
configuration Just finger tight yon have a seal at the
O-ring and but not with the set - metal to metal surface
then the oxidizer's free to degrade the O-ring. And I believe
that's the suspicion at this point, that in time that
O-rlng will give way and you will loose pressure in the
system.
QUERY (garble) looks more and more like
perhaps they'll bring their own shlp back then, their own
Apollo ship back.
LEWIS Well, at this point time it's probably
correct, but this analys_s is not complete, I'm only giving
you basically what I've - what I've read and I think that
we ought to set up a press conference to have Lunney or
one of those people that's working that problem specifically,
brief you on the specifics.
QUERY Would you be using QUAD-D if it turns
out that explanltion that you Just gave us iS correct one?
LEWIS I don't - Right now we don't plan to
use QUAD - I get the QUADs mixed up. We don't plan to
use QUAD-D, I think we would use QUAD-B, now we can use
F QUAD-D, they're not unusable. It depends upon the situation
we get in - -
END OF TAPE
 SL III PC-47E/I
TIME: 16:48 CDT
8/12/73

LEWIS - we don't plan to use Quad D, I think

we would use Quad V, we can use Quad D, they're not unusable.
It depends upon the situation we get into. If it's a real
contingency situation, we can use from all four Quads. So
it depends upon the situation, for example, right now, if
we wanted to use the the service module RCS for attitude
control of the workshop, we wouldn't use either one, I
don't believe. But if we were undocked and they had a
problem, we could use them. We'd use B first and D last,
as I remember the order.
QUERY Are the crew being kept informed of
what's going on in some way? We haven't heard anything
over the air-to-ground, but are they being, say in B channel
or something like that, they're being informed on what's
going on on the Quad? They never seem to ask about it.
LEWIS Well, we don't have any other way to
talk to them except the one you get the transcripts on.
There's no private comm. Well, in a lot of the things
they are informed through the checklist changes we send them
on the teleprinter messages and verbally at times. Now,
yes, they've been kept informed of the problem. There's
been a lot of checklist changes sent to them with regard
to the service module RCS Duads and the configuration and
so forth, as a matter of f_et, as I understand it, the
service module RCS system has already been configured for
f the AC Quads, to use those and the others are inhibited.
So I just - it's been sevezal days since we've talked to
them air-to-ground on the Quads.
PAO Are there any other questions here?
If not, I'ii take a few from the Cape that we have. The
first one is: Did they see the meteoroid shower?
LEWIS I didn't hear any report from the crew
with regard to the meteoroid shower, so I don't know.
QUERY And the second question is why did they
call it Perseus?
LEWIS You got me, I can't answer that one.
I haven't got an answer here.
QUERY Okay. One that yon can tell us.
QUERY Was the point of the radiant of this
meteoroid stream is in the constellation of Perseus.
LEWIS Okay.
PA0 How long will the actual M509 tests
last tomorrow.
LEWIS Okay, we've got that scheduled - the
prep in the test from 13:20 GMT to 17:15 GMT. I explained
that they won't he flying all of that time, but that's the
SL III PC-47E/2
TIME: 16:48 CDT
8/12/73

time that we've allocated for the M509.

QUERY Okay, my next question is what will
they actually do?
LEWIS Okay. It - basically go through a
series of maneuvers to evaluate the M509 package_ the rate
gyro system, the thrust and the attitude and control system.
And I don't remember now the specific sequence of those
maneuvers_ but it's strictly Just to evaluate the
maneuverability you would have with the M509.
QUERY And the next question is: Will they
use both maneuvering units? I think we cut out one, didn't
we? Are there two maneuvering -
LEWIS I thought we only had one on board. We
have_ we had some spare batteries_ and of course we can
recharge the propulsion system_ nltrogenj from the OWS. I
thought we only had one, but I'd have to check and see.
QUERY Well, there was M508 and M509 originally.
I think it was cut down to M508.
LEWIS I'm not sure. I'Ii have to check on
that.
QUERY M508 is the back pack, right? Or 509
is the back pack and 508 was the foot maneuvering unit. Is
that right?
LEWIS Oh boy, Rou got me. I'd have to go
back and look at my documentation to tell you.
QUERY That is the back pack they're using
tomorrow.
LEWIS Yes, yes,
QUERY Okay.
LEWIS I'd have to go back and check the
documantatton.
PAO Are there any more questions? All right.
Thank you.
PAO Wait, you have one.
QUERY Wants to know, have they looked at the
volcano yet?
LEWIS You mean during an EREP pass or you
talking about out the window?
QUERY Out the window.
LEWIS The one that we talked about today?
We talked about that as a possibility and for the Commander
during his presleep and we ruled that out in favor of an
SO19. Now, there may have been a volcano photography on someone
else_ but I don't remember. It had not occurred when I left at 4:00.
I don't have today's Flight Plan. If somebody's got today's
Flight Plan_ you can. Okay_ then they haven't gotten there
SL III PC-47E/3
TIME: 16:48 CDT
8/12/73

yet. There was one scheduled. We also considered another

one for the Commander to do later in the day.
PAO Thank you.

END OF TAPE
 SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
.... Houston, Texas

Change of Shift Briefing

Johnson Space Center
August 13, 1973
9:51 a.m. CDT

Participants:

Nell Hutchlnson_ Flight Director

Rick Fitts, Assistant Flight Director
Jack Riley_ PAO

PC-48
 SL-III Pc-4gA/I
Time: 09:51 CDT
8/13173

PAO We're going to hold up just a minute,

we've got another guy coming.
PAO Good morning. We're ready to start.
Nell Hutchinson, the Flight Director whose shift Just ended,
and his G & S officer Hick Fitts, F-I-T-T-S, for transcript
puEpogeS. Nell do you want to give us a - -
HUTCHINSON Well, I guess I probably won't give you much of
a shift summary except to say things are cooking along
pretty well. And of course on the shift at night, we build
flight plans and we're busy packing the schedule absolutely
as full as we can get it per some requests from the crew.
As you probably know they have been requesting almost every
day additional work over and above what we've been giving
them in the flight plan. Today the day with the M509 run
they are flying the first flight plan built into the new
ground rules to try and fill it as full as we can get it with
no scheduled housekeeping in it. They reviewed that flight
plan onboard last night and decided it still wasn't full
enough so we stuck 2 more ATM passes in it last night. And
we're going to kind of wait and see here for the next couple
of days how they cope with these extremely busy flight
plans if they still think they need more work, we intend
to schedule them up to 0100 every night zulu which is work until
f- 8:00 at night instead of knocking off primarily at 6. And
I don't think we're going to take that step yet. I think we
need to wait and see how busy this flight plan that we've built
today and the one we built for tomorrow keeps them. We're not
doing EREPs as you know, and so we're getting an incredible amount
of ATM time upwards of 7 hours of man time today and tomorrow,
each day. And that's probably enough on the flight plan.
I think what you really wanted to hear was what's going on
with the APCS. And I brought Rick Fitts with me in case I stub
my toe which I probably will do on this incredible thing
that has happened to us over the last day. I guess some of
you were here last night when Chuck Lewis came off after
running this EREP pass and the EREP cal yesterday. Of course
at that time everything that was being talked about about
expenditure of a rather large amount of TACs yesterday
involved the malfunctioning of one or more of the rate gyros
which as you know have been giving us trouble for io
these many months. Just to put this whole thing in context
I'm going to start out with the conclusion and then I'Ii see
if I can develop it. And the conclusion that we have come
to after analyzing the data last evening and all last night
is that the rate gyros had nothing to do with the anomaly we
experienced yesterday. As a matter of fact, their performance
was the result of what was going on with the attitude control
SL-III PC-48A/2
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system and the computer as opposed to the cause of it. Now

what was it that got us in trouble yesterday this is - I'm
going to try and take a little time here. This is kind of
a difficult topic to talk about since momentum seems to be
kind of an intangible thing. But basically the situation
that we got into yesterday Was we got an accumulation of
momentum in such a manner - accummulation of momentum in the
CMGs in such a manner that the computers soft ware, the ATMDCs
soft ware dump scheme in effect did not handle the situation
properly and left the vehicle without attitude control in
one axis, the X axis. And from there, we progressed through
that sequence of events that in the end cost us 2586 pound
seconds of TACS. Now to try and explain that a little bit
further, first off the computer dump scheme when it dumps
momentum, which it does every rev, it has in simple terms
kind of a basic - the 2 axis that yon really want to work on
are Y and Z. They are the two with the large cyclic components
of momentum. The X axis is the one that doesn't cycle a lot
due to gravity gradient but very slowly builds up. The basic
scheme involves when you do the dump maneuver makes some
assumptions mathematically. One of the assumptions it
makes is that the momentum that has been accummulated in the
X axis is fairly small.

END OF TAPE
 SL-III PC 48-B/I
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HUTCHINSON Makes some assumptions mathematically. One

of the assumptions it makes is that the momentum that's been
accumulated in the X Axis is fairly small. And therefore
the computer assumes that it can use a certain amount of
momentum that is stored in the X axis, and transfer it to the
Y and Z axis. Sort of redistribute it, if you will, or borrow it
from the X axis in the process of doing the dump maneuvers.
In other words it reallocates the momentum to the Y and Z axes.
Some quotes spare momentuem that's in the X axis. In the process of
doing this it also, when it's doing the dump manvuers ignores
the vehicle motion in the X axis, in terms of correcting for it.
If it has motion during the dumping procedure. Another fact you
need to know is that over the last few days, we have on occasion
had some unexplained momentum. In fact we've been looking at
some unexplained - By unexplained I mean momentum that's
accumulated in the vehicle that we're not, we haven't pinned down
q_ite where it's coming from, small amounts 5 or i0 percent
extra in an axis that we can't really account for. This is typical
if for example a vent were left open or something like that you
would see the situation where you'd have a non-nominaal momentum
situation in a given axis by a small amount. Now this hadn't
been consistent, and it's been off and on, and we haven't got
anything we can put our finger on at the moment. However, we're
_- looking at - we certainly have been looking at it and we're
looking at it even harder in light of this thing that happened
yesterday. Turns out that going into the last, not last night,
night before last on the night shift, which is the one that
Rick and I ran, the momentum performance fairly nominal,
in fact one time during the night we had dumped down to the point
where we were absolutely exactly nominal, momentum wise. Turned out
that going into this pass two pass operation yesterday. At
the beginning of the situation - pass, first EREP pass, we
had a slightly higher than normal momentum in the X axis. And
by slightly, I haven't got the figures but like i0 percent,
something like that, which are the kinds of numbers that once
in a while we've been seeing over the last week or so. Now
our computer programs both here and at Huntsville, of course
every maneuver we do with the vehicle we simulate, before we do it,
on the ground, with a program that duplicates the on board
hardware and the on board software, and the physcial environment
that the vehicle's going to see. And it tells us how much TACS it's
goning to cost. And in the case of, of course, every time we do an
EREP maneuver or a back-to-back EREP, or something like this EREP,
and EREP CAL that was done, we run the entire sequence. From the
beginning of the day to the end of the day. And this sequence
before we flew it was predicted to cost us about something less
than 5 minimum impulse firings of TACS. Which is an acceptable
SL-LLL PC 48-B/2
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situation. Now the one thing that these computer programs do,
is they are initialized at the beginning of the day with a
nominal momentum state. Now this situation that we got into
yesterday, we had a slightly non-nomlnal momentum state going
into the maneuvers. By the time we got through with the two EREP
passes, we had an X momentum state of around 40 percent used
which is high for X. Now when the machine went into dump, to
dump the momentum which it did. After we inhibited the dumps
for two revs, for the EREP. And when it was finally allowed
to do the dump. It started it, it did it's thing about robbing
Peter to pay Paul. By borrowing momentum out of the
X axis, to redistribute it in Y and Z. Just llke the equation
said it was supposed to do. The only problem was there wasn't
enough momentum in the X axis to borrow. That left us effectively
with no attitude control in X. In other words we used up all
the momentum in X, we had used up a certain amount of it llke I
said 40 percent, before we got into the dump maneuver and in
the process of doing the dump maneuver we used up the rest.
The computer does not pay attention to the X axis, as part of
the mathematical scheme of doing the dump maneuvers. And therefore
it went into free drift in X, it drifted out 20 degrees. And
when the computer has a little test - whenever it builds up an
attitude error bigger than 20 degrees, it goes to TACS only. There-
fore we were about half way through the dump maneuver yesterday, and
it failed into TACS only mode. And TACS only, does several things
first it cages the CMG's, inhibits the CMG control - -

END OF TAPE
 SL-III PC48C/I
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HUTCHINSON - and it failed into TACS only mode and TACS

only does several things. First it cages the CMGs, inhibits
CMG control, maneuvers immediately back to solar inertial, and
does it on TACS only and that's exactly what happened. And of
coarse complicating this whole thing was the fact that the crew
a_d the ground have been primed over the last months to he afraid
of rate gyros we've been having lots of trouble with rate gyros,
and been watching them llke a hawk and they've been failing and
we've been having the heater problem and they've been drifting
and we've been having scale factor problems, we have two of them
that are failed and so on and so forth. So the natural assumption
on the part of both of us was to immedlatley assume that
we had a rate gyro problem. That was - the culprit because
of course when you're doing dumps you're at night and the
rate gyros are the things that are keeping track of where
the vehicle was. Anyway, we've explained the sequence of
events basically once that - once you find out that you
were in TAtS only the vehicle started maneuvering back to
solar inertial and of course the crew got all kinds of C&Ws
they got a stuck thruster light, high rate auto TATS,
CMG saturation, which are all indications of TACS only mode
by the way. The - this particular TACS only mode you have to
understand it when it went into TACS only it had large
attitude errors on all three axes because it was right in the
middle of a dump and Y and Z were out of kelter and X was
out at least 20 degrees. So it had what it considered to be
gigantic attitude erros and started a lot of full on
firings to bring it back to solar inertial. The crew let it
go for a couple 3 minutes and then when it was almost back
to solar interial hut was still killing rates and they began
to wonder like I would have if I'd have been in that
situation does the thing really know where it is so they
went to ATT HOLD CMG which didn't do any good because the
computer was in TACS only, but it did establish an attitude
hold but that was all right because they were almost back to
solar interlal anyway. However the vehicle continued to damp
rates around the new attitude, I hold attitude which wasn't
quite solar Interial and it appeared that TACS was not firing
properly because the new hold mode had been established
slightly off of the exact solar interial and the attitude errors
showed the difference between where the attitude hold was and true
solar interial so it looked llke the TACS maybe didn't know what it
was doing. And so the crew inhibited the TACS and this led to
of course the rest of the rate gyro failures we experienced which
were we failed the backup down in X; backup strap down in Z and
finally Z-axls failed to no control. And the reason all of
that happend was because with the TACS inhibited the computer
continues to try and fire the TACS and everytlme it issues a
._ pulse it says to itself it assumes that it got X amount
of momentum regained from that pulse. However, it wasn't gettln E
the momentum regained and so it kept seeing the attitude errors
SL-III PC48C/2
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go out and it has a test that it does after it's down to a

single gyro in an axis that looks at the total system
momentum and decides that's the vehicle plus what it thinks
it's getting and decides whether the gyro knows what's it's
doing and the computer called the gyros bad. We failed to no
control in Z. I guess the rest of the story is finally the TACS
crew reenabled the TACS and we settled down solar inertial
and pressed on. And there were some more switching
in there but that's basically the story. We're looking at several
things - obviously we're looking at the way the situation
happened in terms of us being able to prevent it. It was a
strange set of events that got us in this situation. The
software performed as designed it's not built to handle large
momentum dumps around the X-axls. The crew did exactly as
they were suppose to do. And if given the situation again
of course knownlng the facts we know now, we might handle
it a little bit different. We're now doing a lot of talking
about running - for example running with the TACs off all
the time which I don't know whether we're going to end
up doing. Were discussing things llke whether we ought to
reinstate using the CSM as an attitude control device in
case of further extended use of the TACS in a situation
llke this where it appears that the TACS may not be - we may
be spending to much or the TACS may not be doing the right
thing and I think all that stuff will fall out here in the next
day or so, probably, by the end of the day, at least some basic
ground rules for the crew to operate. The current configuration
on board is we've told the crew if they have attitude control
problems to use the CSM RCS we have the TACS inhibited and we're
on single rate gyro control in Y and Z.

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-48D/I
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HUTCHINSON We've done a couple of things to try

and help this gyro situation which I ant to emphasize again
had nothing to do with the problem, rather was a result of
the problem. We have put a patch into the computer this
morning which we had planned to do any way without - this
problem had nothing to do with putting this patch in, to
run on coarse gains on the rate gyros which we hope is going
to desensitize them to this, the heater malfunction that we've
had. And hopefully is going to improve our posture on
gyro Y-2 at least and very possibly we'll be wanting to bring
on those two that we considered failed to see if we've helped
them any by using this coarse gain patch, which basically
keeps the gyros on coarse gain and Just desensitizes them.
We are also doing a maneuver today to get some numbers to
put in a patch which we're going to put in tomorrow or the
next day to take care of the scale factor failures that we've
experienced in X and Z. So we think we're on the way to
maybe helping our gyro situation a little hit with a couple
of patches in the computer. And that's about it.
PAO Questions. Arthur Hill.
QUERY That was interesting. I'd llke to get a
further explanation of exactly what you're talking about in
relationship to momentum and the space station, where it
accumulates? And I gather that if the vehicle were in a
perfect orbit there would be no momentum, but there must
he other forces acting upon it and every time there is an
event or something llke that you have this problem develop - -
HUTCHINSON Well, you're partially right Art. Let
me go back to the basic - I probably ought to let Rick do
this. I probably will, I'll probably trap myself into some-
thing I don't understand. But go back to the basic principle
of the CMG. Well first off let me correct something you said.
There are forces on the vehicle which cause it - because the
vehicle is not a symmetrical body, cause it to experience
torques that are nonuniform. Now -
QUERY What you're saying there is because of in
it's moving around the Earth it is unsymmetrical and therefore - -
HUTCHINSON Not the orbit, the vehicle itself, the
distribution of mass of the vehicle is not uniform. In other
words the center -
QUERY And therefore gravity is going to act on
different parts of it in different ways?
HUTCHINSON Yes.
QUERY Okay.
HUTCHINSON Basically. And of course as you know the
higher the beta angle, namely the farther away the Sun is from
the orbit plane. You recall how we have to roll the ATM out
 SL-III PC-48D/2
! Time : 09 :51 CDT
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of the orbit plane. Well the farther you roll the ATM out
of the orbit plane you are actually changing the relationship,
the distribution of mass relative to the gravitational field
which in turn changes these forces continually. Now this
momentum management scheme utilizes those forces in two axes
in X and Y those forces are - Y and Z, Z being this direction
yaw and Y being pitch, vehicle yaw and vehicle pitch.
Those forces are cyclic. In other words you get as much torque
in one direction as you get in the other direction as you
go around the orbit. And if you didn't have any other forces
on the vehicle. You better nail me if I'm wrong you
didn't have any other forces on the vehicle, you could
go forever and they would cancel each other out each rev.
Now the X axis roll is not that way. The gravity gradient
torque on the X axis if left untouched would very slowly build
up. Each rev you would get a little more and a little more.
It is not it is cyclic, but it is not uniformly cyclic.
In other words you get more plus than you get minus each
orbit. And the farther the ATM is hanging the bigger the
beta angle, the farther you hang out of a plane the worse this
condition is. Now what we do to compensate for that, the
momentum scheme manages - If I'm looking right at you and
that is the plane of the orbit, the momentum scheme first off
at the beta - suppose my pencil is the ATM and I'm rolled
out of plane so I've got to this big heavy thing sticking out.
-- The momentum scheme is very clever and manages the vehicle
Z motion. In other words it yaws the vehicle out of plane
to help minimize that effect of the gravity gradient torque
due to the unsymmetrical vehicle. And one of the things that
we think may have contributed to us getting in this situation,
yesterday - -

END OF TAPE
 SL-III PC48E/I
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HUTCHINSON - vehicle and one of the things that we think is -

maybe contributed to this us getting in this situation
yesterday is the fact that if that X-axls vehicle X-axis now, is
not oriented properly with respect to the orbital plane for
the given Beta angle you're at the momentum is does not
behave properly and what you basically get is build ups in
Y and Z left over from the X - it cross couples into
¥ and Z, in other words the momentum becomes non uniform
and that's one of the things of course we have been having
trouble managing the Z gyros and they are one of the things
that helps determine where this vehicle X-axis is. I know
that all seems very confusing, it's confusing to me but let
go get - answer one more part of your question about
momentum. There's a basic law of physics about the
conservation of momentum. Now what we've got here are three
spinning wheels that have a constant amount of energy.
Let's talk about energy instead of momentum, you can talk
about it just llke you can talk about gas - propulsion gas,
they've got a constant amount of energy. Now the vehicle
in the CMGs are mounted rldgely together therefore the whole
systems has an amount of energy in it. Now that energy is
either in the vehicle or it's in the CMGs; it can't disappear
because the law of conservation of energy says it's got to
be one place or the other. Now the way you maneuver the
_- vehicle is very simply you transfer that energy from the CMG
into the vehicle and that energy manifest itself in the
vehicle as a rate. That's how you manuever the Skylab.
Now the momentum the energy if you will has to be one place
or the other, it can't go anywhere, now the clever thing
about this management scheme is that with the gravity gradient
the effects of gravity on the system as it goes around
were able to control where that momentum is between the vehicle
and the CMG. In other words, every orbit this dump scheme
what it does is it takes all during the orbit when it's not
dumping were transferring energy from the vehicle into the
CGMs. So the vehicle won't move, in other words the vehicle
wants to move but instead we let the CGMs move. Now once
in orbit what we got to do is rebalance that and we use the
gravity gradient torques to do it. In other words, we transfer
the engery back into the vehicle if you will, that's why the
big maneuvers. And then the CMGs returned to a nominal configuration
in other words, an optimum configuration and they're able to
obsorb energy for another rev, from the vehicle so it won't
move.
QUERY How is it transferred? By firing the TACs.
Is that the way it's transferred?
SPEAKER No, it's transferred by simple gyroscopic
principle. You can leave the TACS completely out of this
 SL-III PC48E/2
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discussion. If the CMGs run like they are supposed to

in a - you should never have to have the TACS, you should
never have to add energy from any other sorce, but the
TACS does - well let's talk about whe - the CMGs a gyro if
you had a spinning top llke this and pressed it in one
direction it would move in another direction it's a basic
gyroscopic principle. And if you've got this wheel with a
certain amount of - spinning with a certain amount of energy
in it now if you deliberately move it in one direction it
wants to transfer that energy and - in 90 degrees out of
phase from that. So how do you want - suppose you want to
take Just one axis suppose you want to move the vehicle
move the Skylab around in the sky change it's attitude what
you do is you move one of these gyros 5 degrees now it's
want to - that motion of that gyro wants to - it exerts a
torque in a 90 degree angle from the direction you moved the
gyro. What do you do? You clamp the gyro to the vehicle
so what does it do it twists the whole vehicle over. Now,
if you want to do the inverse you can deliberately maneuver
the vehicle back the other way and get the gyro back right
where it was. Now if - and that's basically what a gravity
gradient maneuvers does. It uses instead of TAtS to maneuver
the vehicle back if you didn't have gravity gradient now
you couldn't do this you're right you'd have to use TACS
every rev to help you regain a nominal momentum state. What you
do is put he vehicle in such an attitude that the gravity
gradient acts very fast. I mean - you know- if you haven't got
the vehicle Just exactly lined up right you can get the
gravity gradient torques to exert tremendous forces on the
vehicle and -

END OF TAPE
 SL-III PC 48-F/I
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HUTCHINSON What you do is put the vehicle in such an

attitude, that the gravity gradient acts very fast. I mean you
know if you haven't got the vehicle just exactly lined up right,
you can get the gravity gradient torques to exert trememdous
forces on the vehicle. And they actually in order tohold
the vehicle steady in a non-nomlal attitude. The CMG's will
have to move rapidly, hack to some other configuration. And
that's what you're doing when - - this thing called desaturatlon
or dumping, dumping the momentum. That's the term you hear.
QUERY The ah - I'm still a little confused about
the whole thing. It sounds as though from what you were saying
that the only time you really have to be careful about it, is
say during a EREP pass. When you have some special - - other
special conditions you have to worry about. And at least - I
got the implication from your statement, that one of the things
that lead to yesterdays incident - was - - or whenever it was,
was a double dif on the EREP.
HUTCHINSON Yes.
QUERY And where does that leave you as far planning
those things are concerned?
HUTCHINSON I don't think it puts us in any posture
where we won't plan hack-to-back EREP's. I think it puts us in
a posture where we may take some special precautions to make sure
f that the X momentum is in good shape at the last minute, before
we go into one of those double EREP's. And of course the reason
that this is connected with EREP's, is that to maneuver the
vehicle, uses up this commodity called momentum. In other words
its - - in order to install rates in the vehicle you have to
install rates in the CMG. And it - - not only does it use it
up, but since the maneuvers were - are long and we had two of them
back-to-back. We didn't allow the CMG's to let the gravity
gradient dump the momentum between EREP's, which is
something we do on regular occasions. We do that everyday
when - - for example, when we have biomedical constraints to
meet where we can't have the vehicle maneuvering while a
medical run is going on - - llke MI31. We will do what we call
inhibit momentum dumps and make the computer - - the machine
go more than one revolution, without dumping, without getting
rid of the energy that it has accumulated in the CMGs. Now
when you do an EREP maneuver you accumulate a whole bunch of energy
in the CMG's, and if you accumulate enough, sooner or later you reach
this condition we call saturation which means you've got all the
energy in the CMG's used up, if you will. And they no longer
can move, and it's a simple fact - the CMG if yon want to
move the vehicle in roll and you torque the CMG in pitch,
Just keep torqueing it and keep rolling, and keep rolling. You
know sooner or later the CMG is on a - what we call on a stop,
SC-III PC 48-F/2
Time: 09:51 CDT
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It won't move any farther in that direction. And therefore you

can no longer impart a maneuver to the vehicle. You gotta go
back the other way. Now of course there are three of these
CMG's - - orthogonally mounted and that makes the problem
a little more complicated. Any two of them can handle motion
in any given axis, and there's a lot of interplay there. But
basically the situation that we had yesterday, was we did use
a lot of momentum. But I'ii say again, before we do
any of these things. We run them through the ground control
computer program, which simulates that.
QUERY Well what -
HUTCHINSON I'm tired of talking you'll have to answer
the next one.
QUERY What happened where the software is concerned,
then if you ran it through, before you do things. This didn't
show on the ground, did it?
HUTCHINSON That's correct. It did not.
QUERY Why not?
HUTCHINSON The reason it did not show up on the
ground was that basic assumption, I explained to begin with
the ground simulations - - and they're run the night before,
assume a nominal momentum state to start with. In other words
they assume the CMG'a are in Just exactly the right place, and
the right amount of energy is in the vehicle and in the CHG's
when this whole maneuver sequence starts. And yesterday, it was
not when it started. It was not off very much, but it was off a bit
in X and I don't recall it in numbers. Do you know what the
numbers were in X when we started?
PAO I think it was around i0 percent.
QUERY Now where does that leave the posslbly of having
to replace the rate gyros, with six pack. Is there any change in
that?
HUTCHINSON There's no connection between these two problems.
None whatsoever. The rate gyros, had contributed effectively,
as best we can figure out. Unless we had some small contribution
to the fact the X momentum wasn't quite right, yesterday morning.
From the fact the Z gyro hadn't been acting up a little bit. The
rate gyros had no affect whatsoever on this anominally yesterday.

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-48G/I
Time: 09:51 CDT
8113173 r

HUTCHINSON So the rate gyro. six pack installation

is wherever it was, you know, which is in the discussion
stages. And I think you guys know that we're seriously
Considering it but it has not been decided yet and it's a
subject of a lot of discussion among a lot of people about
circumstances under which we're Eoing to install the darn
thing. And we - over and above this situation that happened
yesterday we have done a couple of things which we suspect are
going to improve our gyro posture, we hope.
PAO Any further questions, Wener? We're getting down
to about i0 minutes from AOS. Let's try -
QUERY Neil when you say that the torques in the
Y and Z axes are cyclic, I suppose this is the first approxi-
mation only, or are the perturbations by the Sun and the Moom
so minimal that the system doesn't have to consider them?
HUTCHINSON I'd say the answer to that it yes. That they
are so minimal - They are so overpowered by yhe proximity
of the Earth's gravitational field that - -
QUERY How about the nonsymmetry of the Earth
being pear shaped, things of that nature?
HUTCHINSON Very, contributes very - you know the
Earth's gravitational field can be represented by an equation
of 24"or 30 coefficients or _ome incredible number llke that.
I don't know, they've probably got 90 by now. And you are
right the fact that that particular thing has an effect on
it. I think the basic and overwhelming effect is probably
the first 2 or 3 terms I mean the pear shaped term is probably the
9th or 10th harmonic in gravitational field. I don't know what
it is. It's way down the llne a ways. And I would say that
particular one probably does not contribute significantly
to the effect of gravity gradient. It's the first 2 or
3 terms that describe a gravitational field that are doing
the basic.
QUERY Okay, one more thing I wanted to ask you
as far as yesterday was concerned. What is it like to have
one these things happen on board? I mean what do the astronauts
feel? Is the vehicle I'm sure its not tumbling or anything.
HUTCHINSON Oh no, no.
QUERY But what is it doing?
HUTCHINSON What were the rates during the typical
dump maneuver and when we were going to TACS nnly and going back.
SPEAKER Going to TACS only the rates were about i - 0.15,
2/10 degree per second.
HUTCHINSON That's fairly slow, 2/10 of a degree per
second which converted into - well a degree in llke 5 seconds,
and so that's llke - in a minute that's like 12 degrees. That's
fairly slow. So the sensation of motion Art is certainly not
there as much as the audible and visual cues.
SL-III PC-48G/2
Time: 09:51 CDT
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QUERY Then it's doing a very slow roll or pitch up and

down or -
HUTCHINSON All three.
QUERY What was - Oh, all three.
HUTCHINSON Because when you dump the momentum. Right?
FITTS That's right. We were about 20 degrees out
in X and about I0 in Y and Z.
HUTCHINSON When we went to TACS only. I think the
sensations are more visual and audio than - and of course you
know when the TACS fires this crew and the last crew has commented
it sounds kind of llke an oil can down there. I mean it's -
there is a definite resound to it. And of course there were -
the buzzer was going off because we had an ACS alert. And there
were a lot of lights on the panel. And of course they weren't
up at the panel at the time. So it - there were plenty of
cues onboard that there was something there they ought to
pay attention to.
PAO We've got a couple here from the Cape
on another subject.

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC 48H/I
Time: 09:51 CDT
8/13/73

PAO - - Cape on other subjects. Do you know

how fast they're going to fly the 509?
SPEAKER Very slowly. I really - honest to God I
don't have a number. That's a darn good question too. I don't
but I'm serious about very slowly. It moves very slowly -
I've heard it described as moving considerably slower than
the guys move when they're doing their tumbling and so on and
so forth back and forth.
QUERY In what type manuevers, I think those were
described on over the release line not too long ago. And do you
know anything more about the Perseus meteoroid shower? Did the
crew see that?
SPEAKER By golly, I don't know we sen - radioed them
up a message yesterday to take a look for it and I didn't
check on that. And I can't answer that question. That's
another good question. And I wouldn't be surprised if they
took a look at it cause I know Owen's interested in that
stuff.

SPEAKER Okay. Major Whitsett the Principle Investigator

on 509 will be over here for a briefing about i:00 or 1:30
we don't have a definite time yet today and that time will
be passed out ahead of time. He'll have the answers on
that one. Also we want to announce that at 3 p.m. tomorrow
Bill Schneider, the Skylab Program Director, will hold a
briefing here on the status of planning - future Skylab planning
which promises to be an interesting briefing. That's at
3 p.m. Central Daylight time, tomorrow. Thank you very much.

END OF TAPE
 SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
HOUSTON, TEXAS

M-509 PI BRIEFING
JOHNSON SPACE CENTER
AUGUST 13, 1973
1:34 pm CDT

PARTICIPANTS:

MAJOR C. E. WHITSETT, JR., USAF

BRUCE McCANDLESS II, ASTRONAUT
TOM MURTAGH, JSC
LEX RAY, MARTIN MARIETTA, DENVER
LOUIS V. RAMON, CREW SYSTEMS
JACK RILEY, PAO

PC-49
 SL-III PC-49A/I
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PAO Good afternoon. We're ready to start on

briefing on the M509, the astronaut maneuvering unit. These
gentlemen from your right, Mr. Thomas Nurtagh of NASA Johnson Space
Center, Major Ed Whitsett, the principle investigator for the
experiment, Astronaut Bruce McCandless, who has been the CAP COMM
this morning during this first run on the experiment, and
Mr. Lex Ray of the Martin Denver Division. Somebody slipped
in on us, Lou Ramon from Crew Procedures here at JSC. Major
Whitsett would you llke to give us a little summary of how
you see the first run on your experiment there, and then we'll
go to Q and A after that.
WHITSETT Okay, we got a report over Hawaii I guess
about half an hour ago and the crew went through a short summary
of how it went. Basically they flew the maneuvers in the
Flight Plan. They said it went real well. A1 Bean was the
primary pilot. He went through all the planned maneuvers.
He also did some discretionary maneuvers which were some on
his own. And he reported that all the modes operated well.
It flew just like a simulator, in fact he said it flew easier
than on the simulator. And then after he flew around for
a while he let Jack Lousma fly for about i0 minutes, which
was a bonus. We didn't expect Jack to be flying on this run.
And we're real pleased with the data. We haven't gotten the
data back, but the crew's report on the data. We've got about
27 minutes worth of TV, which will be back about midnight
tonight. It was recorded onboard, we haven't seen it yet.
SPEAKER We'll probably see that in the morning,
you folks will hopefully.
WHITSETT Are you people familiar with what they
were trying to do in terms of the maneuvers?
SPEAKER Yeah, that might be good. We've had
some questions from the Cape and other areas around the country.
We're hooked up with Washington and the Cape and some other
areas with people that aren't here. And they have been inter-
ested in what type maneuvers A1 planned to do, and how fast
he was going to go. That's a big question. What velocity?
WHITSETT In the simulations he never flew more
than about a half a foot per second. Yet we've yet to see
the data on how fast he flew this time, but one of the objec-
tives was to fly much the same way he did on the ground.
Of course we want to find out if it is correlatable. But
he went through a series of maneuvers beginning with what
we call calibration maneuvers. He translates fore and aft, left
and right, up and down, does pitch, rolls, and yaws. During this
period of time he becomes a little familiar with the maneuvers,
and at the same time we're able to get data on how pure of
a translation he gets, whether the unit may rotate couples

f
 SL-III PC-49A/2
Time: 13:34 CDT
8/13/73

on the other axis. So we can calibrate the unit while he

is getting familiar with its handling. Then after that he
does a transfer from one side of the workshop to the other.
He starts on where the 509 donning station is_ it was on
the TV monitor a minute ago, Just to the left there, and
flies up towards the dome, comes back. And then he goes into
a series of maneuvers we call base line maneuver. Again
he starts from the donning station, he flies up to the dome
hatch area, and stops and station keeps, then he backs off
and he flies down to the antisolar scientific airlock area,
the TI3 unit that be actually station keeps on. But he's
flying on his back facing the dome and he sort of slides
down his side and station keeps horlzonal this time looking
out from the spacecraft. Then he station keeps there for
a few seconds, then he backs off and flies over to the opposite
wall of the dome and the round ring of stowage lockers. He
station keeps at one of those for a few minutes - few seconds.
Then he makes a circular inspection task followlng the curvature
of the workshop around the dome lockers, the wall lockers.
And stops on the opposite side of the workshop and then goes
back to the donning station. Now he does this in each of the modes
of the back pack. After that we have some discretionary
maneuvers, which essentially allows him to fly and explore
things that he found of interest that we didn't anticipate
beforehand. Bruce might want to add some more on some of the
other discretionary tests that he did.
McCANDLESS Well I'd Just like to comment on the
maneuvering speed really. People seemed surprised when
you speak of a half a foot per second, which is about a third
of a mile per hour really, much slower than you could walk
at a brisk pace. And the only reason we're using a velocity
of about that - -

END OF TAPE

f
SL III PC-49B/I
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SPEAKER Might well find that moving across a

large space station or between two vehicles, he'd travel at
a considerable higher rate. We haven't put any constraint
on the rate that the crewmen use. It's just been whatever
the individual found to be most comfortable in the simulation.
And they had mentioned what we asked them to start out doing
is to try to fly in space the way that you flew it on the
simulator so that we can get as close a comparison between
zero g in orbit and the zero-g simulation we have down here.
And then as they pick up experience with a couple of runs,
then they're on their on. And we'd like very much to see
how they go through the maneuvers after getting a little
bit of time. And I don't know what else it is that you all
have in mind. Maybe we could pass it on to Whitsett who's
been working out some of our procedures and doing time and
motion study work on the experiment.
SPEAKER It's a little early to tell, but we
Have 6 degree of freedom simulator.
SPEAKER Yes, Louis, tell them what that is.
SPEAKER I think we decided that we needed some-
thing to brighten up their day so
SPEAKER They use this checklist when they're
flying. We have a very specific maneuvering plan for them to
do. Specific maneuvers we want done and then on top of that,
they have their own discretionary - and since both guys have
to wear ear protection because of the loud noise of the
thrusters, they can't hear each other very well. We can't
have Jack, who's the observer on this run reading the
checklist and yelling to A1, telling him what to do next.
And there is too much involved. It's too detailed to expect
him to memorize it, so we have a cuff checklist, which is
worn on the wrist as Ed has here, with the procedures spelled out
in shorthand. And when Al's flying it, hers got the words
right there. He can just check them off as he -
SPEAKER Itts similar to the lunar -
SPEAKER It's similar, yeah, it's a modification
of the cuff checklist that worked so well on the lunar
surface.
SPEAKER It has little sketches in here that
shows him the various points inside the workshop that he's
supposed to fly to.
SPEAKER You may want to look at that to get a
better feel for what we are talking about for the different
stationkeeping points.
SPEAKER I didn't mean to cut Lex off.
SPEAKER Yeahp go ahead.
RAY It's quite all right. Upstaged by TV.
 SL III PC-49B/2
TIME: 13:34 CDT
8/13/73
f

SPEAKER He'll be back for the close-up in a

minute.
RAY Right, that's what I was thinking.
SPEAKER We got a good shot of him.
RAY We got to adjust the focus here so that
you can really see the cover of the thing.
RAY No, it's a little early to tell, but
we did do some pretty extensive simulations up in Martin
on a 6 degree of freedom simulator that - which is probably
the best we can do here on Earth to simulate zero gravity.
Other than a neutral - other than a parabolic airplane flight.
Here's a good clear shot.
SPEAKER M509, run i.
SPEAKER I guess one of the major questions at
the time this first started being transmitted was, where
did the cartoon come from? Did one of the crewmen draw it
or I guess we've answered that now.
SPEAKER No, no.
SPEAKER It originated on the ground I guess.
SPEAKER The crew had not seen it until today.
SPEAKER The artist is anonymous, but ground
based.
SPEAKER Any questions? Arthur Hill.
QUERY In a drag strip sltuatlon_ Just how
fast would the unit go? Realizing that you wouldn't want
_-- to do that in the workshop, but if he opened it up, what
could it do? And I'd like somebody to talk about the future
of maneuvering units. For example, do you foresee this
being used in connection with the shuttle program, and if
so how, and why is it important to develop these kind of
things.
SPEAKER Well, I'ii start with your first one.
It has an acceleration of about 3/10 of a foot per second
squared. So it's a matter of time as to how fast you could
go. If you were in open space and you fired the thrusters
til you ran out of gas, you would be going -

END OF TAPE

f-
SL-III PC 49C/I
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(CONT'D) - - so it's just a matter of time as how

fast you can go but if you were in open space and you fired
the thrusters until you ran out of gas you would be going
about 40 feet per second with a whole tank.
SPEAKER Nhich is about 28 miles an hour or 27 miles.
SPEAKER Now as far as application thatts the que -
reason for doing this experiment is to get data and experience
from maneuvering unit that might be used for the Shuttle. At this
time there is no specific shuttle mission that requires an
EVA maneuvering capability that's a kind of device that
would be very useful in a - quite of number of contingency
situations and you can look at Skylab 1 where you had to go
down the side of the workshop where there were not handrails and
a maneuvering device would be very useful for that kind of
task. So with 509 we're trying to demonstrate how well a
man can maneuver how accurately he can control it get data
on how the systems respond in zero g. You've got a man
it's like a miniature spacecraft with a payload that weighs
more than it does that's got arms that wave and this sort of thing
has upset the attitude control systems but we're making a very
careful review of the engineering performance of the
stabilization systems. And then we're trying to correlate
that with our ground based simulations obviously it's cheaper
to do analysis work on the ground but you've got to have confidence
in your analytical tools. So we're trying to correlate the
flight data with our ground data and with this we should be
in position to build a unit for space.
QUERY Maybe you ought to point out to them that
this really is the first time wetve tested really seriously
been able to test in maneuvering unit in zero g, Ed White had the
bandheld manueverlng unit but he only had about enough gas for
what - 24 seconds worth of running. We have the Gemini
astronaut maneuvering unit on Gemini 9 but due to ECS problems
overheating of the astronaut Gene Cernan, we didnVt get to
operate it so this is really the first time that we've had
a chance to look at different control systems in a zero-g
environment.
SPEAKER Skylab, provides the opportunity to do it
inside the spacecraft without the risk and constraints that
cause the problem of Gemini so we can look at the mobilityp the
maneuverability, the system performance and so forth without
these risks to the crewmen.
SPEAKER If I may, let me add a little bit to your
previous question. The answer about 40 feet per second or 28
miles an hour with this unit of course is correct. But one of
the constraints that we have here is that all of the exhaust products
of the unit have to be breathable consequently we're using
compressed nitrogen gas from the atmospheric supply system
which has a considerably lower specific impulse than would
SL-III PC49C/2
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8/13/73

some sort of monopropallant or even a hi-propellant fuel

which you might use in combination with cold gas and
EVA maneuvering unit. Also if you look at the shuttle
you can consider first that the shuttle vehicle is basically
or has to be an aerodynamic vehicle since itts going to
come back into the atmosphere and for that reason it seems
to us the impractical that you would put a great number of
handholds or handrails over the exterior of it
thereby requiring the unit of this sort if youtre going to
do anything in the way of exterior inspection of the shuttle
or photography of it - things of this sort. It also has
reaction control systems thrusters which are rated
about 800 pounds thrust apiece and if you maneuver the
vehicle in close proximity to either a large, delicate satellite
or some sort and fire one of these or if you come close
to a small satellite and one of these should impinge on it
you'll probably upset the dynamic situation quite significantly
w
Be -
SPEAKER Did you fellows see - excuse me. Fly around
TV that we did prior to the docking here and if you did
you recall how much that the parasol moved and those were only
100-pound thrusters that were firing on the service module.
SPEAKER Whereas if you could come up into the
vicinity of your payload, be it a large-phased telescope
or a small satellite of some sort, perhaps using hot
gas thrusters and only one axis for starting and stopping
and then do all your maneuvering to the vicinity with
again, compressed nitrogen or something like that at a
very low thrust level_ you feel that you have a much more
feasible system for many of tasks that confront us in
connection with the space shuttle.
PAO Arthur. Go ahead.
QUERY Well to my mind though, this -

END OF TAPE
 SL-III PC-49D/I
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f PA0 Parker, go ahead.

QUERY Well, to my mind though this, all of
this sort of basic question is to why if you in planning
this 509 why you don't altimently or didn't altimently
plan to build up to where you would at the final run try
it outside, in the EVA situation. And in that contexts I
did believe I heard some comment from A1 or somebody to
the effect that he thought that there might be some problems
with umbilicals or something when he does get around to trying
it suited.
SPEAKER The main consideration there is cost,
and safety, again doing it inside the spacecraft was a
safety issue. Cost to do it EVA would require additional
redundance systems, a higher reliability and testing. So
we, 4 or 5 years ago when we went into developing this thing
it was apparent then there was not a specific mission that
required this manu - mobility aid. So we were approaching
it from a research point of view rather than a operational
use. So we had to agree because of cost limitations to
build a unit that was not qualified to operate outside.
QUERY But, but, but the way Skylab has turned
out it would have been nice.
SPEAKER Right.
Ms Yes, it would have. (laughter)
SPEAKER I've said, I've told you so a number
of times (laughter)
_- MS (Laughter)
SPEAKER I think, I thi_k maybe there's a point
of clarification here that you were talking about the
umbilical and the suited. Now we did plan to on Friday, fly this
thing fully pressure suited with the umbilical inside the
spacecraft, so we will get that data with the perturbation
of the umbilical although it is within a confined area. So
I think you know we're not losing all that much by flying
it inside as opposed to outside because we will be flying
it suited with the umbilical.
SPEAKER And we will also incidently will be flying
suited without the umbilical making use of the secondary oxygen
pack which may indeed come closer to simulating what the
real operational maneuvering unit may have in space. Real
operational unit quite likely would have it's on enviromental
control system built into it and the only thing you may have
would be maybe a light tether if that.
QUERY What would you - if this is successful as
it appears to have started out, what would you propose for
the next - the next step to - to ask for money to build an
operational model to go wlth the Shuttle programing, where do you
go from here?
SL-III PC-49D/2
Time: 13:34 CDT
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SPEAKER That's the general idea. As I said

right now there's still no particular requirement that
says we got to have a maneuvering capability. Now as you are
aware, 509 is kind of a like 4 maneuvering units in one.
An operational unit, you would probably build with only
one mode of operation. That's contributes the fact that
509 is quite large, because it is a research tool and has these
four operating modes based on the data and as I said we haven't
really seen it yet as in the crews comment. We would have
a lot better confidence on how each one of these modes would
operate. Looking at shuttle applications at particular satellite
servicing or something like that you would be in a better
position to decide which mode would be best.
SPEAKER On the other hand we want to avoid building
a specific unit for each task. We would like to come up
with a unit and if you look at the pictures you'll notice
that this particular one has refurbushed Apollo block i
hand controllers on it and I llke to put it in the rent-a-car
concept and that we try to keep the control logic conslstant
with what everybody in the program had learned in going through
and flying our simulators and flying the spacecraft so that in
the future if this was an operational unit you could pull
one out of bonded storage load it on with a minimum of
crew training send someone up there to do a Job bring it
back clean it up and put it back into storage,
SPEAKER Think the fact that Jack Lousma got on
it and flew successfully with practicly no training is an
indication that the worth of having this rent-a-car concept.
SPEAKER Yeah, Jack had about an hour I guess on
the simulator in Denver for something like that didn't he?
SPEAKER No time on the air bearing did he?
SPEAKER And I think he had about i hour on our
air hearing.
SPEAKER Just very minimal training.
PAO Bruce Hicks.
QUERY Now A1 did make a comment referring back
what Art was saying earlier about the umbilical being used
to to kind of drag down on it because of the stop and start
action, I think once you've started a maneuver it tended
to keep going - it was cost perpellent to slow it down. Now this -
he said we would have to come up with a better idea
on the future. He was I think pretty clear about that
that this really wouldn't work. Did you understand the
comments the same way that in other words this unit
itself would not be very good for inside work without the
umbilical or outside work without an umbilical because of it's
it's

END OF TAPE
 SL-III PC-49E/I
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'w_ QUERY it's the same way. In other words,

this unit itself would not be very good for inside work
without the umbilical or outside work without an umbilical
because of its stopping capacity?
SPEAKER What he meant with that umbilical was that
the umbilical was creating torques on the unit. Okay? And
those torques were attempting to he overcome by any opera-
ting - automatic operating mode the unit was in and there-
fore, it was causing the reaction Jets to fire. Okay,
that uses up propellant. If you take that umbilical off
and you don' t have an external torque or an external force
applied to the unit, then you wouldn't have that problem. Now
if you went outside and you had umbilical you see this same sort
of effect. However, if you went outside and you had a llfe support
system llke this secondary oxygen package, which did not
attach a long tether to the thing, then you wouldn't
create these external torques so that the control systems
wouldn't be attempting to fight overcoming those torques.
QUERY In other words he was saying that it would
work better without the umbilical or with a better umbilical
that didn't create the torques.
SPEAKER Right.
SPEAKER With this umbilical, which is relatively
large, it's got water lines and oxygen lines and power and
communications and instrumentation, does provide a big
disturbance. Now, as we as someone mentioned earlier,
we will have a period of about 20 minutes of flight suited,
pressurized, but with the umbilical for comparison purposes.
QUERY Would this unit as it stands now be safe
other than from the redundancy problem of flying outside,
could this unit be flown outside just as well as it is
inside except for the redundancy?
SPEAKER From the performance requirements, yes.
McCANDLESS You'd have to say that it has not been tested
in a thermal-vacuum situation. So, we found in the early part of
the Skylab, ourselves in the awkward position of trying to talk
people out of using the maneuvering unit, ours in particular,
for any of the EVA repair work or inspection tasks. It's
just that we set out to build the unit for one purpose
an engineering, scientific, test-pilot type evaluation
in correlation with ground simulations. And because we
did that and - for example, if you'd look at the size in
geometry of the unit, I think it's obvious that it could
have been made smaller and could have been made lighter.
But for a research vehicle there was no particular point
in spending the extra money to make it smaller and lighter,
whereas if we were going to an actual operational unit where
SL-III PC-49E/2
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propellant usage would be critical - why we'd naturally

go to a much llghter framework and put effort into packaging
it more effectively.
PAO Warner Budrow.
QUERY If all three runs on this mission satlslfy
your technologically would you then consider taking it out
on an EVA during SL-IV?
SPEAKER Nell, you still have the hardware qualifica-
tion problem. It has not been tested in a vacuum and it
does not have the safety additional redundant systems. I
don't think you would really want to.
QUERY It Just wasn't designed for that purpose.
McCANDLESS One of the questions that we would llke
to answer - or at least I would like to answer in the
connection, is the following: If you had this maneuvering
unit outside and if the automatically operated thrusters
failed, could you get yourself back home on the handheld
maneuvering unit? That is, is that a suitable backup techni-
que? If the answer to that proved to be yes, that would
be a greatly simplifying factor. If the answer is no, then
you have to design in additional complexity in the basic maneuver-
ing unit to provide you with safety. Againt on the subject
of umbillcals for an EVA unit_ we naturally have to be very
conservative, hut what you might find is that you have a
very lightweight, flexible rope, if you will, which serves
as a safety umbilical and supplied nothing else - would
be more flexlble. Or, as you go down further in the pro-
gram, you might decide that you could take two crewmen on
maneuvering units and tether them together much llke divers
in a buddy swimming arrangement and use them as each other's
safety man and thereby be relieved of the constraint of
being tied to the spacecraft,
PAO Arthur.
QUERY Bruce_ you indicated that there was apparently
some thought given to using the unit earlier in the maybe
on the first mission or something llke that. I'd llke to
hear a little more detail on that from you as to - -
McCANDLESS Well, the conversations that came up centered
mostly around using the handheld maneuvering unit, EVA, but
of course we had no system designed to support or operate
it other than the backpack and the early crews were not well
trained in the handheld maneuvering unit and our previous
experience with that unit in the Gemini program indicated
that it was satisfactory for - -

END OF TAPE
 SL III PC-49F/I
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/-

SPEAKER - Previous experience with that unit

in the Gemini program indicated that it was satisfactory for
point to point translation. But we were concerned that it
might not give you enough control for a precise inspection
task, and at that time, we also thought that there might he
large expanses of Jagged material of one sort or another on
the outside of the spacecraft and if such were the case,
we were going to make sure that you had the finest, most
precise control available to position yourself, so we wound
up talking against ourselves.
SPEAKER I think maybe to clarify it, this was
at the very beginning, the first day when we found out we
had problems, and we were looking at any and all possible
solutions in a maneuvering unit. Of course, it seemed to
good to be true, and indeed it was too good to be true. We
couldn't use it. But it was just one of many things that
were considered and then discarded for various reasons.
QUERY What was the development cost and the
building cost on the unit?
SPEAKER Oh, the basic contract was somewhere
around six and a half million dollars. That was for the
development, two maneuvering units and flight and the hack
up, trainers and that sort of thing. Fully operational
trainer here plus mock-up for other training.
SPEAKER And including the development of the
.... gyro package by Sperry Gyroscope in Phoenix, aren't they.
SPEAKER Right.
SPEAKER That's a rather - (garble) it's a rather
unique system. You have six gyroscopes arranged in three scissored
pairs, with each pair arranged so that the wheels are spinning
in opposite directions and when the axes are parallel, you
have a net momentum of zero. And as they scissor in or
out, you get the effect of a momentum vector up and down.
And this system is, I guess you could call it free-floatlng,
that is, it's its own stabilizing element. The ATM system
uses rate gyros to sense the rate of the vehicle which,
then generate commands which torque the three control
moment-gyros that they have to maneuver the vehicle. We're
using the control moment-gyros themselves to sense dis-
placements and then to react against them. And for
maneuvering, these gyros are electrically torqued by inputs
from the hand controller and then cause a momentum
exchange. If they reach saturation due to external torque
the thrusters are fired to partially desaturate them and
you proceed on your way. This system allows you essentially
unlimited attitude reorlentation without using propellant.
SL III PC-49F/2
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SPEAKER Yes, since it's got two stabilized

modes. In one mode it has small rate gyros that sense
rates and fire thrusters to stabilize you, In the CMG
mode the gyros are large enough that they have the power
to hold you in fixed attitude and to produce rotation
without using the jets except for desaturations.
QUERY One last thing. I'm, I think, slightly
confused on how much hardware there is involved. The
difference between the handheld and the rest of it. Could
you give me a very brief explanation of what exactly there
is?
SPEAKER I wish we had brought some pictures
along. It would make it easier. Essentially there's two
pieces. There's a back-pack, the big thing that you saw.
And it has three modes of operation, It can be flown with
the CMGs that we just got through talking about. It can
be flown with rate gyro sensors that stabalize it. And
then it can be flown with the pilot providing the stabilization
cues. In other words -
SPEAKER Manually.
SPEAKER Manually. Direct mode, it's called.
The other unit is a handheld maneuvering unit, similar to
the one Ed White and Mike Collins used on Gemini. It plugs
into the back-pack with about a 4 foot hose, and the
back-pack provides the propulsion and the telemetry for the
handheld unit. The back-pack arms fold down - the right
arm folds down out of the way and then the pilot can
maneuver the handheld unit to fly Just like Ed White did. The
difference here is that the back-pack is providing accelerations
angular rate, data, propellant, pressure and
temperatnre_ and quite a lot of instrumentation on how it's
working. So you've got four modes and two units. Three
in one, and then the hand gun.
QUERY Did he use the handheld today?
SPEAKER Yes.
QUERY He did use both pieces fully?
SPEAKER Right.
QUERY Could you give me What does the
handheld look like and a general description, I mean is
it a small thruster or is it a control handle?
SPEAKER It weighs about - It's a three thruster
unit. It has one thruster of three pounds thrust that
points directly away from you. It's held in the right hand.
It has a little handle that you squeeze and controls the
amount of gas that's coming out. It has two thrusters on
arms that come out like a T-shape. It gets the thrust
vector around your body so the plume doesn't impinge so much.
 SL III PC-49F/3
TIME: 13:34 CDT
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/

SPEAKER On the hand.

SPEAKER Right. So youtre holding it in front
of you llke a wand_ kind of_ and it has a second control
that allows you to select either the thrust that pull you
forward_ or the thrust that stop you.

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-49G/I
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SPEAKER - - control that allows you to select either

the thrusts that pull you forward or the thrusts that stop
you. And he can control the thrust level and the direction.
And to maneuver it he points it in the direction he wants
to go. But he has to be careful to go through his center
of gravity, otherwise he produces a tumble. And when he
wants to rotate then he displaces on away from the center
of gravity - get the largest moment arm to rotate in
attitude.
QUERY Could you give me an example of what the
pitch, yaw, and roll involves?
SPEAKER In order to do this in a manner that keeps
you rotating about axes it's easy to figure out where you're
going. You'd end up with something like 27 different com-
mand positions. Like for example, if you wanted to roll
you would put it out to your right side and you could fire
the thrust vector up or down, it would roll you left or
right. If you wanted a pltch you'd put it out in front
of you - go this way. Yaw, - this way. Now, everytime
you do a rotation, it only has one thrust, so it produces
a translation disturbance as well as rotation. So sooner
or later you've got to take care of that. So that ends
up - if you want a pitch you can put a pitch in front of
you and that gives you an up and down disturbance or
you can put it up over your head and it gives you a fore
and aft disturbance. So the crewman has to decide based
on which way he's drifting, which way he wants to point the
thing. And you end up and you may want it pitch down -
with the pitch down may drive you into the wall say. So
you've got to figure out some other way to get a pitch down
without going into the wall.
SPEAKER It reminds you somewhat of watching someone
learn to do one of these classical oriental dances where
you get all - - (laughter). And you add a pressure
suit onto the top of that and you can see why it may turn
out to be a formidable pass.
SPEAKER When we train the crew, both Ed and Bruce
who can fly the unit very well, tell the guys that they
should choose which position they want for their rotation,
you know, either - say for a pitch in front of you where
you translate vertically or put your hand up above your
head where you're going to translate fore and aft. Choose
the one you want so that you pick the most desirable trans-
lation to go with it. You know, if in the lone run you
want to go that way rather than go up or down, you'd want
to do your pitch work like this. But for the guys that
fly the unit like I do, I don't pick my position by the
SL-III PC-49G/2
Time: 13:34 CDT
8/13/73

most desirable translation component. I kind of figure

what is the least undesirable perturbation I'll get and
try to go that way.
SPEAKER Youtre - the message here is that - here
you've got it three thrusters essentially, functioning
bacically, it's two. And on the maneuvering unit itself
we have 14 fixed thrusters which always operate in pairs
so that when you command a rotation you get a pure moment -
a pure couple which gives you no translation and then when
you command a translation within the limits that we've been
able to pin down the center of gravity of the man and the
maneuvering unit combination, you get a translation with
no rotational components.
SPEAKER So you - with the handgun - handheld maneuver-
ing unit and the backpack you're trading off weight and
complexity versus simplicity in flylng. But we're spending
over half of our crew training on the handheld maneuvering
unit mode. And the backpack, most of them is - is gather-
ing baseline data because the guys know how to fly it and
it's very simple.
PAO We're about 4-1/2 minutes away from AOS [
think. We have one question called in and I think - both
Major Whitsett and Commander McCandless have already covered,
it's - how does the Air Force plan to use the AMU tested
today. [ think you went over that pretty well.
SPEAKER It's a NASA project. We discussed the
Shuttle applications.
SPEAKER Yes, Ed was in Flight Control Division
down here weren't you and Just packed up and moved over
to CSD?
SPEAKER Originally in the crew systems several years
ago and I'm working kind of on a consultant basis now.
SPEAKER I think one thing that Bruce has pointed
out too, that maybe needs further emphasis - that it is used
for EVA activities. We - there was no other intention of
using it operationally for an IVA. St was always outside
the spacecraft. So therefs - -
SPEAKER Yes, we wouldn't design a space station or
anything big enough that you'd need something - you would
need something llke this to maneuver inside it. We're for-
tunate in having a vehicle large enough that we can use
that volume for testing.
PAO Okay, thank you very much. We'll catch this
next AOS.

END OF TAPE
 SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
HOUSTON_ TEXAS

CHANGE OF SHIFT BRIEFING

JOHNSON SPACE CENTER
AUGUST 13, 1973
5:00 pm CDT

PARTICIPANTS:

CHARLES LEWIS, FLIGHT DIRECTOR

JOHN McLEAISH, PAO

PC-50
 SL Ill PC-5OA/I
TIME: 17:02 CDT
8/13/73

PAO Hello, Okay, we're ready to start this

afternoon with the change of shift briefing. We have with
us Flight Director Chuck Lewis. Wetll open with some remarks
by Chuck and then turn it over for questions.
LEWIS Okay, I think you had a press briefing
this afternoon on the M509. We had a very good M509 run
thls morning, with the Commander, and I think the Pilot also
had a few minutes on M509. Most of the day was spent on
the M509 and ATM observations and as far as I know, that's
all going very well. And I think I mentioned yesterday that
we have another M509 two days now. Welve started recharging
the batteries and refilling the M2 bottles in preparation
for that, as well as a cabin vent. We - Today's run brought
the cabin pressure up to about 5.2. No problem there, and
we got to vent that down again now for the next run. We
did do our scale factor maneuver this afternoon, and we're
in the process of bringing that data back in to the control
center. And we use that Marshall will use that to compute
or to develop the scale factor patch, which we hope wetll
have in a couple of days. And the systems performed very
well today. That's all I have. Summary.
PAO Okay. Let's throw it open for questions.
Bruce Hicks, UPI.
QUERY Yeah, Chuck, then I guess I understand
that you don't have any results yet, at all today, from
your testing of the gyros.
I LEWIS No. On the scale factor? No, it takes
anywhere from 2 hours to 4 hours to get that. It's on tape.
Was recorded on hoard. We got some of it real time, hut
not very much. And most of it was recorded on board. We
have to dump it, which occurs sometime within an hour after
that, takes an hour and a half to get - nominally get the data
back in here, and then we got to analyze it, pull it out, so
we _ont t have that yet.
QUERY What are you doing in the meantime, tll
you work out the computer patch?
LEWIS We're basically in the same configuration
that we were this morning, and Hell, I think, was over here
talking about that. We're - we've got, in the X axis, we've
got the X-I and 2 - all three gyros in the X axis. We're
using Y-I in the Y axis and Z-3 in the Z axis. And that's
where we stand right now.
QUERY Could you explain a little bit about this
so called erratic transducer in Quad B. Mow does that
operate? What makes the temperature go down and up and -
LEWIS An erratic transducer. We've got some-
thin K wrong with the transmission. It seems to he shifting
SL III PC-50A/2
TIME: 17:02 CDT
8/13173

from a nomlnal reading up around 120 to 30 degreess all the

way down to really down to i PCM count or about 7 percent.
And when it goes through that, about 83 degrees, it triggered
the C&W_ caution and warning in the command module and
we had the crew inhibit that caution and warning primary
this morning. We don't think there's any problem there at
all. Just a bad transducer.
QUERY The temperature really lent, fluctuating
as bad as-
LEWIS No r no it's not that - we saw a drop
from 123 or 4 degrees to 7 instantaneously_ which means it's
not a temperature problem.
QUERY Also, would you explain what when they
talk about the off scale low and so forth on the CMGs,
what they mean by that when, I think it was CMG 2 dropped
llke 105 percent, minus 105 percent? I don't understand
that.
LEWIS Okay. You look at a meter and it's
scaled for different parameter_ but on that particular meters
it's the scale on it you've got a zero point in the
middle of the meter on the scale. And it goes up to 100
percent, and then plus 100 percentp and then down to
minus 100 percent. He meant by off scale low, it means
it dropped below the last reading on the scale. Now he
said 105. He was just estimating about where it was with
respect to the last increment that's marked on the meter.
QUERY What does that mean?
LEWIS I think it means to us that we've got
a problem in the meter. It's not reading properly. We're
not reading that on the ground. Telemetry. Okay, what
it should read - Let me go back and say what it should
read, that measurement_ where the outer gimbal, that
particular CMG -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-50B/I
Time: 17:02 CDT
8/13/73

LEWIS - - okay, what it should read - let me go

hack and say what - what it should read - that measurement
where the outer glmbal of that particular CMG is. And
we're reading that also in telemetry. We don't read what
the crew's reading. This indicates a meter problem - a read-
out problem because we've got the data on telemetry that
doesn't indicate that at all.
PAO Hicks again.
QUERY Are you still assured that there's no pro-
blem at all with the rate gyros, that the problem that
cropped Sunday was still - was only a computer program?
And also, where do we stand in our plannln E for a possible
EVA to put the slx-pack in?
LEWIS Okay, first question, it looks llke it was
a problem in the software that got us yesterday. And I
think Nell went through that probably in a lot of detail
this morning. No, we don't have any change from that.
Basically, software is designed - not to - to utilize that
momemtum in X and it wasn't available. With regard to
planning an EVA for the slx-pack - there's no plans right
now to do an EVA to implement the slx-pack. We're still
operating on our main rate gyros. And as I described yes-
terday, we're still - we're working - we have the one course
gain patch we put in this morning which we hope will help
the oscillation problem and instabillty. With this maneuver
that ray scale factor maneuver today will turn around_
hopefully in a couple of days and have a patch available
for the scale factor so that we can update scale factors,
whereas we can't - we haven't been able to in the past in
all the axes. So, that work is proceeding on schedule and
by about Thursday we ought to have those patches up in the
vehicle. And I would suspect at that time we'll go back
and - for example, in C-2 they had the - a lot of drift -
or the scale factor problem we'll hope to correct that.
And then perhaps bring Z-2 on again with C-3. We had - it's
too early yet to see if the course gain patch that we put
in this morning is going to help our oscillation problem.
That's still being looked at.
PAO Bruce Hicks.
QUERY Well if nobody else - Is there a heater
problem in _-27 Is that the way I understand it?
LEWIS Well, we don't think now it's a heater
problem. We first thought all those heaters - we first
thought that the instrumentation had - on those - on all
the number 2 gyros plus Y -- let me get my numbers straight,
Y-3 and Z-l. That we had Just - that we had lost the

-- . - -- --
SL-III PC-50B/2
Time: 17:02 CDT
8/13/73

instrumentation it to fail off scale hi_h, but yes, there

may be - there's - it could be that the heaters are failed
on. That's the reason for the high temps. Now the high
temps then caused the instability we see in those gyros
the oscillations.
PAO Hicks.
QUERY Then do yon have full confidence in Y-I
and Z-3 which are the only ones in those axes, that you
will be able to keep those up through - until you get
your scale factor worked out by, like yon say, Thursday
or so, that you won't lose those?
LEWIS I think so. We - they've performed very
well the entire mission.
QUERY But you have no redundancy - no management
redundancy in those axes?
LEWIS No. That's correct. We'd rather stay
that way though and if something were to go wrong we could
go into free drift as opposed to havinB a bad gyro in there
take the system out and then fire a lot of TACS like we
got into yesterday.
PAO Okay, let's see. We've had several ques-
tions that have been called in to the newsroom. The first
one, are yon considering taking a CBRM off-line to watch
it's discharge rate for comparison to on-golng tests of
the batteries at the Marshall Spaceflight Center?
LEWIS Yes, we're - we had planned to do that
pre-mlssion with CBRM battery 7. And right now since we
had the short, that's being analyzed again - analyzed to
see if we want to go ahead and do that. We've got it
scheduled for flight plan, hut that may come out. That's
being discussed with Marshall and our people right now as
to whether or not we want to go ahead and proceed with that.
There may be other damage in that power distribution box
and if - Marshall and we feel llke it's too risky to go
ahead and run that battery verification test we won't do
it. We basically feel that the - those batteries that were
degraded early in SL-II have regained a lot of their capa-
city since the Skylab-II. This was a just to back up some
engineering data from ground tests.
PAO Next question, what is the present status
of batteries and solar arrays. Are they working as they
should?
LEWIS All the AM PCGs are working - -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-50C
Time: 17:02 CDT
8/13/73

LEWIS All of the AMPCG are working as they

should. We're still carrying the same problems we had
in the CBRMs that we had in SL-II that is I think CBRH-3
we've lost of course we've regained 15 back in SL-II. There's
basically no change there.
QUERY The final question, how do you feel about
the feasibility of using the CSM RCS as a backup in case of
another attitude control occurrence such as yesterday?
LEWIS We're looking at procedures right now,
to preclude using the service module RCS going ahead and
using TACS in the control situation and that's the procedure
weirs working on right now. However, we are - we can use
the service module RCS if we get into a bad attitude or
rate situation. Right now that's what the crew has
been instructed to do if they get into a bad rate situation
they're to go ahead and use service module RCS to damp those
rates, basically to Just damp them and hold their on until
they get over state site and we can look at the ATM control
system. But when I left we had baselined some procedures
they need a lot of review and they're kind of gross hopefully
we can come with a situation or procedure where if they
this same problem we'll basically just let the vehicle go
ahead and free drift in the axis that we had the problem
in and look at it and do a control maneuver back to solar
inertial and thereby use some TACS but not near as much as
we used yesterday.
PAO Any further questions? Bruce Hicks.
QUERY How do you stand on TACS gas now, what
percentage are you above redline and how much do you got?
I understand you use 2600 foot pound - pound seconds.
LEWIS I heard about 20 yeah, almost about 26
we had 34,500 pound seconds before that happened so we have
come down 2500 pound seconds 6 percent which means we're
still above experiment redlines of about as I remember
3 or 4 percent. We were 9 percent above experiment redline.
We're probably on the order of 4 I know 4 percent above redline.
PAO No further questions, we adjourn.

END OF TAPE
 SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
HOUSTON, TEXAS

SKYLAB PLANNING STATUS REPORT

JOHNSON SPACE CENTER
AUGUST 14, 1973
3:00 pm CDT

PARTICIPANTS:

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, SKYLAB PROGRAH DIRECTOR

BILL POMEROY, PAO

PC-51
 SL III PC-51A/I
TIME: 15:01 CDT
8/14/73

PAO Okay, before we proceed, I want to

make two brief anouncements. One is on the location of the
typhoon, Iris, that they were considering taking a picture
of today. As of 01:00 p.m. central daylight time, it was
located at 26.8 degrees north, 131.1 degrees east, thhe
steady winds were about 80 knots with gusts up to i00 knots,
and it was headed in the direction of due north. It's south
almost directly south of Japan Kyushu and in 24 hours it
will be very close to the Nagsaki area. The other is that
there was some confusion about the - whether we had one or
more astronaut maneuvering units on Skylab. We do have
another one, the TO20, and the Flight Plan currently shows
that that may be evaluated or have it's first evaluation
on Sunday the 19th, or mission day 23. At this time I -
that's the foot control maneuvering unit, right - at this
time we'll have a look ahead on Skylab with William C.
Schneider, Director of the Skylab Program for NASA head-
quarters.
SCHNEIDER Good afternoon. All the past few weeks
I've been promising you that we would continually examine
the status of the vehicle in orbit to determine what our
best possible posture was for the rescue mission and for
Skylab IV. And as I said last week, we reached another
decision point yesterday. Namely, what test sequences to
conduct at Cape Kennedy. The Skylab IV vehicle is rolling
out from the VAB on to the pad, as a matter of fact at this
.- time of day, it should have done so. And we are preparing
to begin those next series of tests. Based upon an analysis
of the command service module 117, which is in orbit, and
the workshop, I have concluded that there is no imminent
need for rescue, and therefore we have made the decision to
proceed with a normal test flow on an accelerated basis at Cape
Kennedy. This then says that the Skylab IV vehicle is
being prepared for a normal mission, but those preparations
are going ahead on an expedited basis. That does not mean
that we are currently planning to launch as early as
September 25, it means that we have the capability to make
that decision between and then to launch either early, or
as I've been telling you, later to catch Comet Kohoutek.
There's been no decision as to when the Skylab IV launch
will be. Hopefully, we'll be able to come closer to that
decision in the next week or so, but right now we have the
physical capability of launching as early as the 24th or
25th of September. When we say the 25th, why launch date,
launch windows are llke plus or minus a day. And now pro-
ceeding along that basis at Cape Kennedy, we do have a
decision point downstream from here when we come up to
 SL III PC-51A/2
TIME: 15:01 CDT
8/14/73

hypergolic loading, which I believe is on the 9th of

September now. At that time we must make the decision to
load or not to load. As far as the rescue vehicle, rescue
capability is concerned, if we make the decision between
the completion of these next series of tests, the tests that
we call triple balls 5 down at the Cape, we make the decision
between that date and the 9th of September, we can have a
rescue vehicle in orbit approximately 9 days from hypergolic
loading. If we were to carry the vehicle completely down
through September 25 and decided on the 25th that we needed
a rescue vehicle, we could recycle and have a rescue
vehicle ready to take off in 6 days.

END OF TAPE

I
SL-III PC51B/1
Time: 15:01 CDT
8/14/73

SCHNEIDER - - 25th and decided on the 25th that we

needed a rescue vehicle, we could recycle and have a rescue
vehicle ready to take off in 6 days. So we have not com-
pletely ruled out rescue as a potentiality, however, we're
not planning on it now as a primary option. We have
also reexamined all of our reentry mission rules to make
sure that they correspond with our current thinking on
the status of the systems and our rules as previously, still
state that we will use the primary command and service
module to come home as long as we have one reentry system
operating and we have no basic uncertainty about the re-
maining RCS quads. So we've reexamined the system, we're
reasonably confident now that - we are confident now that
117 is a good vehicle. If something happens between now
and reentry day to one of the other quads we will reexamine
that to see if it gives us any uncertainty about the re-
maining single quad, assuming another one went out. And
if it did we would activate the rescue vehicle again and
if it did not why we would reenter with our primary system.
PAO Bill, I think that's all. Okay.
QUERY Mr. Schneider, you've said as early as
the 24th or 25th. If splashdown remains set at the 25th,
would you splashdown and take off launch on the same day
and if so in what order? And if you took off on the 24th,
would you have six guys in orbit aboard the Skylab at one
time?
SCHNEIDER Answer to your second question is if we
took off on the 24th, yes, we would have six in orbit. We
have not made any decision as to whether or not we would
deactivate the vehicle, bring the first Skylab-lll crew
home and then launch Skylah-IV, or whether it'd be better
to launch Skylab-lV, dock to the sideport and come - and
then bring the III crew home. What we cannot do is have
two independent command and service modules in orbit at
any one time. We can have one docked to the workshop and
one in orbit,but we can't have two independent of the work-
shop. So we're studying both options right now. I don't
think it's a very - I don't think it's a very probable case
now, that we will launch early.
QUERY 25th or the 24th?
SCHNEIDER I don't think it's a very probable case
that we will launch in September.
QUERY Would the status of the gyroscopes or other
problems aboard the Skylah make you - possibly make you
feel that you didn't want to leave Skylab unattended for
5 or 6 weeks inbetween launches?
SCHNEIDER Yes, those are - precisely - the gyros and
 SL-III PC-51B/2
Time: 15:01 CDT
8/14/73

coolant system - the alrlock coolant system. Those are

the two items which we are looking at which will drive us
to an earlier launch if we have uncertainties. Right now
the systems seem to be in reasonably good shape and of
course we are watching them and we'll continue to watch
them to pick the best day possible. Right now, as I said,
I think the probability is reasonably low that we will
want to launch that early.
QUERY Bill, would you give a full explanation
of the testing that has gone on to understand the quad
problems and why you now have gained even much more optimism
to push a possible rescue 15 days later and do you have
this confidence to tell A1 Bean to get - climb in his
Apollo and come home?
SCHNEIDER Yes, I have that confidence as we've been
describing to you the series of tests that have gone on
have proven almost conclusively that the problem has to
do with the - with the fitting that has an O-rlng
backup which doesn't appear to be tight. The tests have
shown that if such a fitting is loose the oxidizer will
eat through the rubber O-ring and cause a leak within
48 hours or thereabouts. So, we are reasonably confident
that if any of the other fittings were loose, why, we would
have experienced a leak prior to this.
QUERY Well, this O-ring fitting, is that
in quad Delta?
-- SCHNEIDER Correct. And quad Baker as we've told you
we think there's some contamination on the valve seat on
the one thruster.
QUERY And you don't think this - this O-rlng
leak will have any effect on the two well thrusters?
SCHNEIDER No, the indication is of course that those
two good thrusters are not leaking - that they are tightened
down properly.
QUERY In what other area - what are the - what
is the probability now that you will launch SL-IV late,
to get a look at this Chrlstmastlme comet?
SCHNEIDER Well, tomorrow we expect to make a presenta-
tion to the administrator of NASA to see if we can get a
determination as to what the most practical launch date
for Skylab-IV would be. I think I'd he able to tell you
a little hit more on that in the next couple of days.
QUERY I'm a little confused -

END OF TAPE

pF-
SLplII PC-51C/I
Time: 15:01 CDT
8/14/73

SCHNEIDER - practical launch date for Skylab IV

will be. I'll be able to tell you a little bit more in the
next couple of days.
QUERY I'm a little confused over the - Which
quad was it that showed up the leak right away?
SCHNEIDER Well, Baker had the leak in the valve -
the thruster valve and Delta apparently had the leak within the
dog house, giving us a leak, which is, I guess, you'd call
it a structural nature rather than valving nature.
QUERY But the valve nature was first? - -
SCHNEIDER That's correct.
QUERY That's the O-rlng and that's what
occurred within 48 hours?
SCHNEIDER No, no. The valve was first. But that's
not the O-rlng. The tubing has various fittings around it,
and those fittings, they primarily are metal-to-metal seal.
But if that metal to metal seal is not fully engaged, then
the tubing is allowed to back off a little bit. Then you
have ale a seal that is only with a rubber O-ring. And the
rubber O-ring is in there Just for gas leak purposes.
QUERY Okay. Then I'm further confused by
the 48 hours, because that didn't show up until past 48 hours?
SCHNEIDER The test showed 48 hours with the leak
path that we had. Obviously, if you less of a leak why
it would take longer than 48 hours. But on that order,
48, 96 hours, thereabouts.
QUERY Well, that being the case, could there
still be a leak in some of the other things?
SCHNEIDER No. We have not experienced any - this
rubber, when it's hot has very little - has very little
strength after several days when it's exposed to the oxidzer.
QUERY Bill, as I understand, the date
you gave of September 9, with the loadin E and if you've
made a decision on that day, it will be 9 days later, earliest
possible rescue. Are you saying then, if we got in trouble
in the next week or so, that the 18th would be the earliest
that we could launch a rescue?
SCHNEIDER Approximately. Obviously, though, the
Cape would be really going fast if we ran into a real crisis.
I suspect that they might be able to pick a day or so off
that.
QUERY Well, then why are we - Is it just a
management decision to go later than the 10th or did we
find it physically impossible?
SCHNEIDER No. Let me explain. For a rescue
attempt, we examine the command and service module, we have
examined - did this several years ago. And examined the test flow
SL-III PC-51C/2
Time: 15:01 CDT
8/14/73

at the Cape, to make sure that we tested everything in a

rescue mode that was necessary for a rescue. In a normal
60-day mission there are many other things that we do test.
You test the service propulsion system differently, because
you expect to deactivate it and turn it back on 60 days
later, whereas in a rescue vehicle, it's actable all the
way through, so you do some different testing. So we made
a conscious decision several years ago, what kinds of tests
we could logically cut out of the sequence in order to go
faster, and still not induce any additional hazard into the
count. And that was the rescue flow. Now, if we went on
that flow, and then subsequently decided to go in and not
use the vehicle as a rescue vehicle, but then to use it as
a SL-4 vehicle, we would have to go back and repeat all those
tests. What we've said is, we have enough confidence
now to initiate those tests right from the beginning. What
we're saying is, we do not believe we need the rescue vehicle
at all. And we see no reason whatsoever, right now, why
we need it earlier. The only time, we would think, now, that
we may have some cause to call upon the rescue vehicle would
be A, if there was an additional failure in the quad, and
it there was an additional failure in the quad, as I said,
we would then seriously examine again, whether or not we
thought we had a generic problem. And the probability is
probably pretty high, that we'd say we wanted a rescue
vehicle at the end of the mission. Or if at the end of
the mission, we activated the RCS system and found something
wrong with it, at which time we would not then come back, we
would then send the rescue vehicle up.
QUERY If you were to decide to go early, that
is around the end of September, do you have to go before or
around splashdown, or could it be a week later? Could you
leave the Skylab unattended for a - say a short period of
time? Is that possible?
SCHNEIDER Right now it looks as if we could leave
the vehicle unattended for a short period of time. The ah
As a matter of fact, right now it looks as if we could leave
it up - -

END OF TAPE
 SL III PC-51D/I
TIME: 15:01 CDT
8/14/73

SCHNEIDER Right now, it looks as if we could

leave the vehicle unattended for a short period of time.
The - As a matter of fact, right now it looks as if we
could leave it unattended for a reasonably long period of
time. We do have a question in our mind about the six-pack.
If we were going to leave it for a long period of time, I
think we'd be - we'd press ourselves pretty hard and we'd
probably decide to replace the - put the six-pack in if
we were going to leave it unattended for a long period.
The latest story on the coolant loop is still a little bit
uncertain but right now, it looks as if the primary loop
has about two weeks of capability left and it looks as if
the secondary loop, as we said late last week, if it has
a leak at all, it's a very small leak.
QUERY But you have raised the possibility of
a launch on the 24th or on the 25th before splashdown to
put six astronauts in that Skylab together, a very complex,
something that's never been done before. That is a poss-
ibility that's being considered now.
SCHNEIDER That is a possibility. I'm not saying
that is something that we've decided to do or have even
completely analyzed. We just have the physical capability
at the Cape to prepare the vehicle to do that. As you
mentioned, there are many things we have to examine very
carefully before we decide to do that. There's no problem
_- with having six guys in orbit as long as they all six have
a seat home.
QUERY What's the posture, assuming that SL-IV
did go early as far as adding another flight and what would
be the cost? Have you looked into that as far as another
flight is concerned?
SCHNEIDER We have done a very brief examination
of the possibility of a fifth flight, and it looks as if
the cost would be up within the neighborhood of 40 or 50
million dollars. This is not money necessary for Skylab,
it's money necessary to replace the vehicle and the
spacecraft that we would use - that's currently planned
for the Apollo-Soyuz test project. Right now, we don't have
that kind of money and we have no plans right now for a
fifth mission.
QUERY Questions in two areas. First, as
Program Director, what kind of a recommendation are you
going to make to the administrator tomorrow about an SL-IV
launch?
SCHNEIDER I'ii tell you tomorrow. I really don't
want to telegraph my punches.
QUERY Have you made up your mind?
SCIINE1DER Yes, I have.
 SL III PC-51D/2
TIME: 15:01 CDT
8/14/73

• QUERY What kind of on board tests are you

going to ask the Bean crew to do with a docked CSM to
check to see that your two well sets of thrusters are okay?
Or are you going to going to ask them to do anything?
SCHNEIDER Well, you better ask the Flight Director
that when he comes back. That'll be a normal test sequence
to assure ourselves that the systems are all operating
before they - before we do separate. Specifically what
the tests are, I'm afraid I'm not familar with them.
QUERY I'm a little confused with the question
Peter asked while ago about leaving it unattended for a
time. Were your answers in relation to unattended deactivated
or still activated without a crew? Basically still activated.
SCHNEIDER Well, if you wanted to have the vehicle
unattended for any period of time, we would deactivate.
That's I'm not talking about a day or something llke that.
You'd probably get by with powering down.
QUERY Well, you gave me the indication that
you, by no means, want Co leave it for six weeks.
SCHNEIDER No, I'm afraid I - I hope I didn't
give you that impression. Right now, as I said, we have
two technical problems. One is the rate gyros, and I would
assume that if we decided to leave it unattended for six
weeks, we would probably change out the six-pack. The
other problem, the coolant loop problem does not seem to
f be that imminent, as I said the secondary loop, if it has
a leak, it's a very small leak, and we have also determined
that we can operate the workshop in an unmanned mode, in a
powered down mode, even if we had the coolant loops fail.
PAO We have a question from the Cape. I -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC51E/I
Time: 15:01 CDT
8/14/73

PAO We have a question from the Cape I might

throw in at this time since you've said it would unlikely
launch in September. The question's been raised, would
you consider it a most - what do you consider the most
probable launch month, October or November?
SCHNEIDER You're trying to get me to telegraph again.
I would - we are under - there are a great many reasons
why we would like very much to go to see if we can get
some data on the comet Kohoutek. That's one of the more
interesting scientific ventures in some time and we'd
llke very much to do that. We're weighing the scientific
payoff against very questions that you gentlemen are
raising here. Just how confident are you that the hard-
ware will still be operating if you left it unattended
in a - for a period of time. As I've said, the technical
problems that we have had in the past several weeks have
diminished with our better understanding of them and we're
not feeling as itchy as we had been a week ago. I would
llke to make sure there's no misunderstanding about whether
or not we're going to swap crews in orbit. That's a physi-
cal capability and that's all that remains is that that's
something that is physically possible for us to do. The
desirability is somewhat questionable right now as to
whether or not that's a desirable thing to do. And so
I would not think that's a very probable option, although
it is an option.
QUERY Would you expect an SL-IV launch date announce-
ment tomorrow?
SCHNEIDER I would hope for one but I can't promise
that - we have a number of things that we have to do. We're
reasonably close to one. I would expect one within the
next week. Although, I guess I ought to qualify that.
We might wait until we see whether or not that primary
coolant loop goes out before we make a final decision - a
final announcement as to which - whether or not we want
to go early or not. If that one did go out on the day
that we're predicting, namely a couple of weeks from now,
that would give us a great deal of confidence that we
understand what's happening up there and we understand what
all the data is telling us.
QUERY How much more will it cost if you delay
the launch of SL-IV to take in the comet?
SCHNEIDER Well, we're currently - the money that's
in the Skylab program - the Skylab budget called for a
splashdown on the 4th of January. I had some contingency
money in our program over and above that. If we went to
 SL-III PC-51E/2
Time: 15:01 CDT
8/14/73

the if we went as late as the 15th - splashed down as

late as the 15th of January, the cost increment would
be about five million dollars. That would not be monies
that we'd have to ask from Congress. We would find a place
to get it out of Skylab.
QUERY You mentioned the possibility of flying
Skylab unmanned and powered down. Wouldn't you - would you
lose a lot of data that you would otherwise get if you did
such a thing?
SCHNEIDER As you know in the unmanned mode we're
getting some passive experiments and ATM experiments. We
would power down and that would power down our data trans-
mission capability. We would only power up the telemetry
system periodically and so, yes_ there would be a loss of
the unmanned ATM observations - a degrading of the unmanned
ATM operations.
QUERY Well, I'm wonderin E if you had considered
the possibility of having your cake and eating it too. Say,
having a crew up there, keeping it manned and possibly
strecthing Skylab - the third Skylab mission, Skylab-IV
above the 56 days to say a 13 week mission?
SCHNEIDER Well, one thine that we've determined in
the past few days is with the crew consump - -

END OF TAPE

,f
SL-III PC-51F/I
Time: 15:01 CDT
8/14/73

SCHNEIDER Well, one thing that we've determined

in the past few days is with the crew consumption of food,
and clothing, and underwear, and what not, to extend the
mission even i0 days would mean that we would have to
bring up some additional food. And it boils down to about
a 150 pounds of food per lO-day period. So, if you're going
to extend the mission any appreciable amount of time, why
you have to devote a great deal of your storage space in the
command and service module to food. We do want to bring up
a coolant loop servicing kit. We have some film that we
want to bring up and we have a number of consumables that we
want to bring up. And right now, the command and service
module is filled, and we've got more things than we know
what to bring up now. And there is no extra food on there.
QUERY Bill, do you intend to inform the crew
about the rescue possibility of not being until the 25th? - -
SCHNEIDER Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
QUERY Have you given much thought to the fact
that AI may just say that he doesn't really want to come
home in this Apollo? And will you Just go ahead and plan on
rescue in this case?
SCHNEIDER Yes. Obviously, if he has any great
reservation about that vehicle, why he has a very strong
vote. Yes. (Laughter)
QUERY If you're going to replace the 6-pack,
when would you do it? Would you do it in one of the scheduled
EVAs, or would you do a special EVA?
SCHNEIDER We would in all probability do it in
one of the scheduled EVAs.
PAO Okay. Thank you very much.

END OF TAPE
 SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
HOUSTON, TEXAS

/--

CHANGE OF SHIFT BRIEFING

JOHNSON SPACE CENTER
AUGUST, 19, 1973
4:20 pm CDT

PARTICIPANTS:

PHIL SHAFFER, FLIGHT DIRECTOR

DAVID GARRETT, PAO

PC-58
 SL III PC-58A/]
TIME: 16:16 CDT
8/19/73

PAO Okay, we'll get started with our change

of shift briefing this afternoon. We have Phil Shaffer,
the off-going Flight Director. Phil.
SHAFFER Okay. Another nice day. We accomplished
everything that I outlined to you last night. Up to the
time that I left the Control Center we were in the process
of running TO20 when I left, and that had all gone essent-
ially nominally. It's not my fifth day in a row with no
problems. Had a few little nuisance value things today
that hold our attention. One of the carious things, if you
remember, 6 or 7 days ago, I guess, something llke that,
the CBRM selector switch appeared to kick two of the CBl_Is
the charger battery relay regulator - modules, I'm sorry, off
line, which are part of the ATM power supply. Today we had
a new phenomena with that thing. The - We came up over the
hill at Goldstone about 7:40 this morning, I guess, and the
crew told us they had a BAT CHARGE light and that nominally
indicates that one of the batteries did not get a complete
charge on the day cycle. And we looked at the power system,
it looked completely nominal to us. We didn't see any
thing wrong with it at all, so we asked them what battery
it was, and io and behold they couldn't tell. There was
the light was on and a little talkback. The way that
system works, you have a rotary switch and a selector
switch, there are 18 of the CBRMs which are more positions
than are allowed on the rotary. You go through some of
them and then you go through your selector switch on one
side and then the switch moves and you go through the rest
of them. And the thing indicated that they were all
uncharged. Yeah, and then a little while later it indicated
that none of them were uncharged. They were all nominal.
And a little while later the light went out. And 3 or 4
hours later the light came back on. And it's possibly
and only possibly there's some contamination in that
selector switch that's causing some funnies. The power
system itself is beautiful. We're llke we've been for a
long time now, with only CBRM 3 off llne, the rest of
them are completely nominal. Today was fix it day, but
l'm sorry, we had one other little problem, the SO82 Alpha
door, one of the ATM instruments, stuck in transit and it
appears to be only the logic associated with the door got
out of sync somehow. We reset the logic and the door has
been working nominaly ever since, with no problems, so that
is not a big deal at all. Last night the crew, and I
believe it was Owen, broke the rope on their Mark i exerciser,
the one you saw on the TV, with all of them exercising.
Looks like an exergenie, sort of, broke the rope about
SL III PC-58A/2
TIME: 16:16 CDT
18/19/73

8 or 9 inches below the handle and Murphy's law rul_, rampa,t.

Of all the too|s w_. got o, hoard, we don't hav_ a11 A||,.,
wrench that flts the screw that holds the clam shell to-
gether that attaches the handle to the rope. And we worried
around about that for awhile today and finally discovered
that we had a wrench that was close, an Allen wrench that
was close, so we inserted it in the Allen nut, put a cheater
on the end, lifted it to get some tension and torqued it
off. The exerciser is fixed now. One of the Nikon cameras
was not working and we sent up a mal 2 or 3 days ago, and they
got around to working on it today and that camera is now
in good shape. Reloaded and in use. One of the speaker
interface, speaker intercomm assemblies, SIAs, down at the
minus Z sclentlfic alrlock had a switch that apparently
had lost the spring loaded tension on it. The switches
are a lot llke the wall switches. They are spring loaded
on position or another. Apparently it had broken and the
thing was hot mike in Intercomm all the time_ and the guys
changed that out last night. So that piece of gear is
working okay. Good day. Lots of science and lots of
fix it. Okay.
PAO Okay. Do we have any questions? Warner.

END OF TAPE
SL'III PC-SBB/I
Time: 16:16 CDT
8/19/73

SHAFFER - - lots and lots of flx-it. Okay?

PAO Okay. Do we have any questions? Werner?
QUERY As far as the battery charging is concerned,
I take it that you have an additional means besides that
red llght for finding out whether they are charged, fully
charged, or half or what?
SHAFFER Yes. The - there are a row - there are two
indications that we have a problem. On the ATM C&D panel
there's Bat Charge Alert light and I'm sorry I didn't make
that cleaT, and that's the light that was working. There
is a CBRN monitor panel that has 18 lights, one for each
charger. Only this one light that says therets a problem
somewhere was llt. The row of 18 lights individually for
each CBRM, none of those indicated anything wrong.
PAO Howard?
QUERY Row was Jack doing on his search for the
leak in the coolant system?
SHAFFER He hasn't started yet.
QUERY Oh, he hasn't started it.
SHAFFER Hasn't started yet. That's scheduled to
begin at 22:00 Zulu, 17:00 local, about 5:00 o'clock.
QUERY And what trouble have they had getting
all those screws out of there at the panel?
SHAFFER Nonep it's Just a lot of work. You know,
they're what we call hlgh-torque screws. They're put in
good and solid and they - that panel itself is not scheduled
until tomorrow. But because it's going to take awhile and
because there are 53 of them, we wanted to go ahead and
get started gettln those screws out during the course of
today and later on this evening so that we didn't get bound
up in that tomorrow. There are actually two panels to be
taken out there and it's kind of curious that we're working
on that today when in fact, we may find the leak today. And
that part's not scheduled until tomorrow. And I'm going to
beat you to that because you'll think of it in a minute.
(Laughter) Yes, I mean - it doesn't - we're making money
taking those screws out anyway because behind those panels
are where we will reservlce the primary loop_ whether or -
if we reservlee it on SL-IV. And if we don't find the leak
we're - we at this time plan to reservice it. In any case,
the screws have got to come out and it's Alan taking them
out for Jerry or Alan taking them out for Alan. You know_
or whatever. The screws have got to come out one way or the
other. So, we're not losing anything even if we find the
leak today. I think we're going to pull those panels and
look and be sure that we don't have multiple leaks. And
even if we do we intend to reservice the primary loop at this
SL-III PC-58B/2
Time: 16:]6 CDT
8119173

time, so it doesn't hurt anything to go ahead and take them

out.
QUERY With AI's comments last night about liking to
have more pictures to take, out-of-the-window pictures of
you know, the Earth, things that they're passing over and
their heavy schedule today doing things like that, are they
going to be - going to try and schedule more of that into
the flight plan?
SHAFFER Well, you put those things in where you have
naturally falling breaks in the flight plan. You know, there
are - you get a list of targets of interest, or areas of
interest, or however you want to name them and the ones that
are convenient, you go ahead and schedule them and then the
rest of them you put in, even though they may potentially
conflict with an ongoing activity, you provide them the
data. And then if they happen to have a break going on at
that time, then they can arrange for themselves to be in the
right place to catch the pictures. And today we had three
scheduled photographic areas and two targets of opportunity
and it looks like we're going to get all of them. It's kind
of interesting, these - these targets of opportunity, you
know, we took the Straits of Magellan and we're taking a
shot inbetween the FiJi Islands and Samoan Islands and trying
to find some floating pumice that has reported to be there
and et cetera. And you could ask the question, why are we
bothering, why don't you ride an airplane out there and get
that. Because you know you get a whole lot prettier picture
I say prettier, I mean better picture in terms of an over-
all view of what you get from 270 miles than you do from
30 to 40,000 feet. You - I would remind you that those areas
are very remote and they're not too easy for the aircraft to
get to. The spacecraft is relatively insensitive to weather
because he can see the holes in the clouds and can use those
holes in the clouds. He gets to see currents that are asso-
ciated with these remote areas and that's part of the big
picture. He really gets to get a big shot of - -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC58C/I
Time: 16:16 CDT
8/19/73

SHAFFER ... gets to see currents that are

associated with these remote areas, an_ that's part of
the big picture. He really gets to get a big shot of what's
going on there. And there's one other thinE, we're already
there. And we got the cameras, and it's an opportunity.
So, it's easy for us to - to do that in a relative sense.
QUERY Have you calculated when the best time
will be for viewing Brenda tomorrow?
SHAFFER No Brenda tomorrow. We - we've seen
all we're going to get to see of Brenda. The - Our ground
tracks move east about 230 miles a day; and Erenda's going
west. And on these these ground tracks on a rev to rev
basis are just over a thousand miles a part. So, we go
another 200 miles - we went 200 miles east from yesterday
to today another 200 miles, and Brenda's moving about
i0 miles an hour. So, she's gone 200 miles and
it's kind of in between us. Brenda's 500 miles away either
way we go and that's too much of a side view, and it's
another half hour earlier than it was today which would
put it at about - in relative to spacecraft, to about
5:30 or so on that. Maybe - no, it keeps getting earlier.
The spacecraft now will be coming over when it's dark.
PAO Any other questions?
QUERY I noticed in tomorrow's flight plan
you got 6 hours put aside for A1 Bean to check the condensate
system. What is he going to be doing there?
SHAFFER Tomorrow we're going to pressurize the
condensate system. You know we've have isolated pieces of
it and isolated pieces of it, and tried to find out where
the leak is and we finally got the the plumbing where
the leak is down to a finite set of pipes. And - well
we can't find it. We've checked all the quick disconnects
and we've checked this and checked that, but in fact, we
have - we're just not able to find it. And the way we've
been checking the thing is by exposing that part of plumbing
to vacuum and then shutting it off and then shutting off
various pieces of it and see where the pressure comes up
to show it's leak, and it didntt work. We're not able to
get down to the granular enough segments of the plumbing.
So, tomorrow we're going to pressurize it with nitrogen.
With the same pressure source that pressures the water
supply of 35 psi nitrogen source. We're Eoing to hiss
test it; pressurize it, go around all the parts that are
exposed to us and see if we can hear it hissing. And
hopefully we'll find something llke in fact a QD that we
SL-III PC58C/2
Time: 16:16 CDT
8/19/73

haven't been able to isolate before or these B-nuts or

connectors or something we can tighten up and find out
what it is because everyday we have to service that system
to continue to pull the humidity out of the air; the moisture
out of the air.
PAO Any other questions?
SHAFFER We had one other question about TO20,
about for the future would you use a device llke the rocket
shoes instead of a backpack or a spaceguu?
SHAFFER The backpack llke M509, which is super
sophisticated, and the spacegun both in their current
stages require you to use your hands to - to maneuver
them. The TO20 leaves the hands free and are operated
by the feet. And these are technology experiments. And
you - if in fact a maneuvering unit that is operated by
the feet is feasible then it's obviously a very good thing
because it leaves the hands free to do work, to carry things,
et cetera. So, the specific answer to the question I think
is, you'd use a device llke TO20 anytime you needed
transportation that needed to be used in your hands for
whatever purpose.
PAO Are there any further questions?
QUERY On this condensate system you had to
Service it everyday now. How - If you had it in good working
order, how often would yon service it?
SHAFFER Well, with zero leaks?
QUERY Uh-huh, zero leaks.
SHAFFER Well, we wouldn't have to service it.
QUERY Wouldn't have to service it?
SHAFFER Yeah, because we wouldn't lose the
vacuum on it. But we're not expecting zero leaks. What
we really want to do is get it done where we have to service
it like once a week.
QUERY The kind of question that we were
talking about a little while ago; if that hurricane decided
to come in here, you know, coming in here 120 miles an hour
or something like that and threaten the space center here,
would they bring the astronauts down?
SHAFFER No.

QUERY You know, it's Just a thing we were

wondering about.
SHAFFER No, we - we have a facility prepared - -

END OF TAPE
SL III MC-58D/I
TIME: 16:16 CDT
8/19/73

QUERY - you know, Just that thing that we were

wondering about.
SHAFFER No, we have a facility prepered and for
all practical purposes implemented at the Goddard Space
Flight Center, that we would all retire to and were able to
do all the determination and flight planning and spacecraft
monitoring, not anywhere nearly as well as we do it here,
don't get me wrong, it's not a one for one control center.
Without the high-speed responses and instead of all the
computer systems we have here, it's a great deal of pencil
and paperwork. In fact, it's mostly pencil and paperwork.
But that's all preplanned and if Brenda should come in or
any other storm come in or any other problem, as far as that
goes, that cause us to have to evacuate here, we'd Jump into
airplanes and go to Goddard and press on.
PAO Any further questions? Okay. Thank you.

END OF TAPE
 SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
HOUSTON_ TEXAS

CHANGE OF SHIFT BRIEFING

JOHNSON SPACE CENTER
AUGUST 20, 1973
4:33 pm CDT

PARTICIPANTS:

NElL HUTCHINSON, FLIGHT DIRECTOR

DAVE GARRETT, PAO

PC-59
 SL-III PC-59A/I
Time: 16:33 CDT
8_20_73

F PAO I thlnk we're ready to get started with

today's change-of-shlft briefing. We have the off-_oing
Flight Director, Nell Hutchinson. Nell?
HUTCHINSON Okay, I guess I ought to start by saying
myself and my team spent most of the day sort of playing
catch-up day. This is our first day back on after a couple
of days off and as usual, we'd had a million things go on
in the last three or four days that we needed to get caught
up on. We had a couple of things go on today. They're probably
worth talking about. We had a pretty full flight plan today.
And one of the big items that we had on it as you all probably
know, is our condensate troubleshooting, which is - occupied
a certain percentage of our time off and on every since
Skylab-lll started. Today, we were running and are still
running - it was about over when I left over there, except
they had an awful lot of clean-up work to do. A rather
thorough leak check of the system by pressurizing it with
35 psi nitrogen and checking it first for audible leaks by
going around and listening to various connections we call
B-nuts, which are nothing more than plumbing - where two
pieces of plumbing or raised tubing or two pieces of tubing
are joined together. And we're checking all those connections
that we can get at and all the quick-disconnect fittings
and so on, with both an inaudible technique by listening to them
with a stethoscope and by putting a soap solution on them and
seeing if they bubble up very similar to what you probably
used to do when you were tryin E to find a leak in your old
spare tire innertube. We worked on this pretty much all day
long and we've come up with nothing. No leaks. Now, that
probably means one of two things. I tried to get a count
of the number of B-nuts we checked versus the total number
that were in the system, and I didn't get that, but we checked
darned near all of them. And there is a small amount of
plumbing that's outside the pressure vessel, which of course
we can't check. And of course then, there is another - the
other - another possibility that one of these QDs - however,
we've checked this possibility before and don't believe it
to be a big contender, but it of course raises the question
when you're - leak-checked the whole system and you don't
find a leak, that one of the QDs is leaking, going in and
when you get any kind of positive Delta-P on it going out
like we had today, it, of course, seats well. Down solid.
I guess we're going to be talking about what the next step
is in the condensate saga. The other thin E that happened
to us today, S019 is stuck in the SAL. About halfway in
we think. And it operated normally the first couple of pas-
ses this morning and we're in the process, Jack was in the
°

SL-III PC59A/2
Time: 16:33 CDT
8/20/73

process of bringing it in Just before lunch and he had the

mirror - it has a big oblong mirror about this big on the
end of it. And of course it has to be in exactly the right
position to get it to clear the sides of the airlock when
it comes in. And we verl - got - he was retracting it - he
got about 2-1/2 turns on the retract knob. Now this thing
comes in with a gear mechanism right contained in the ex-
periment as opposed to the kind like S073 that had the rods
- or TO27 had the rods on it that shoved it out. And it's
stuck, it appears, about halfway in. It won't go in and it
won't go out. And the mirror system is free, it rotates and
tilts like it's supposed to. We're getting ready to run
a check this afternoon to see if it's free completely, which
we hope will help us determine how far in or how far out
it is. And we're thinking about various things, nothing
concrete yet on how we might go about freeing it. Of course,
as you know, that mirror system is used for the French ex-
periment, S183 and it's also - it's used for SO19, which
is what we were using it on today. I understand it's bad
some use in the comet work on Skylab-IV, includln E one of
the new expe - -

END OF TAPE

/--
 SL III PC-59B/I
TIME: 16:33 CDT
8_20_73
_f

HUTCHINSON That's what we're using it on today.

I understand it's had some use in the comet work on Skylab
IV, including one of the new experiments in Skylab IV, and
I don't remember the number. Anyway, that's a new anomaly
that we're working on today. I think that's about it. We
had a good day on the ATM today. Owen was at the panel
when 1 left working away and we did lose one SO19 pass,
partially because of this anomaly and partially because the
condensate troubleshooting procedure took us a little longer
than we thought it was going to. However we do think we
will finish it up tonight and get it all cleaned up and
put back together. We're not going to put all the panels
back on because we will be taking them off again here in
the next day or so to do a inspection on the coolant loop.
Some of the same panels need to be taken off to do this
coolanol inspection, which you probably been hearing about.
And so we only put them back on with a couple of screws
instead of 20 or 30 or i0 and that will make it easier to
get that coolanol inspection done. That's about all.
PAO Okay. Do we have any questions?
Start with Tom here.
QUERY Neil, where does this leave you on the
condensate now, and what's next?
HUTCHINSON Well, Tom, I'm not quite sure. We're
going to have to sit back and kind of regroup here. I
-- really think that we thought we might have had a good one
here. That we would have been able to turn up a leak or
if we - especlally if we would have had one. I think it
probably, not probably, it pretty much validates most of
the B-nuts, probably 99 percent of them and I still - I
told you before I don't have the number - the exact number
we checked. We probably checked 50 or 60 of them though,
out of maybe 65. Most of them. And that was one thing that's
been bothering us that we've definitely thought it was a
candidate for a leak, and of course, using both teohniques,
both audible and the soap suds, we really felt pretty
confident that if we had a joint that was leaking that
we'd find it. So, llke I said, maybe we're narrowing the
field down, maybe we're back to looklngs at QDs and, of
course, there's nothing we can do about the part of the
plumbing, the small of the plumbing, and I don't know how
many feet or inches that's overboard that goes to the dump
ports out the airlock that we can't vlsualy inspect that
was involved in this leak check today, because the valves
that you shut off that go overboard, it's part of the
35 psi is in there. However, I guess to sum it up, we've
elfm[nated a blg source of the leaks in the condensate
SL IIl MC-59B/2
TIME: 16:33 CDT
8/20/73

and we're going to continue to see what the next thing is we

ought to do with it. And I'm sure we're going to do some-
thing. We'll just keep after it until we think it's remarkable
that we're able to do as signiflcate - I mean, we took a
lot of stuff apart today to get at that thing. And it really
went fairly smooth. Took longer than we thought it was going
to, but that's because the crew took their time in getting
all these nuts out - all these torque bolts out of the panels.
But we didn't have any problems executing the procedure, and
llke I said, I think it's validated one of the big suspects
in the leak chain. That probably doesn't answer your question.
I'm not hedging. I'm really not sure what we're going to do
next, but I'm sure we'll be doing something. And we did
make some positive progress today, because we've eliminated
a big - one of our big possibilities.
QUERY All right. If everything else fails on
the SO19, would it be feasible to free it during one of the
forth-comlng EVAs?
HUTCHINSON I'm not sure that's a possibility. I
don't know what the EVA trail would look like going down there
to the minus Z SAL, of course we've been down in that general
sort of that general vicinity working on a solar panel. I'm
sure we're going to be doing a lot of thinking about what
it is we need to try and retrieve that mirror system. We
need that mirror system very badly on this experiment as
well as on some other ones. And that's always a possibility,
although it hasn't been looked at. It's too early in the
anomaly to -

END OF TAPE
 SL-III PC-59C/I
Time: 16:33 CUT
8/20/73

_ HUTCHINSON - - in a - that - that's always a possibility

although it hasn't been looked at. It's too early in the
anomally to be looking at things llke that. I mean, we're
still thinking about things whether we ought to take the
little clutch plate off on the back of the thing and see
if we can drive the gear directly and they're looking at
basic jam mechanisms. We've got one of the instruments
over there in the control center and they're looking at
what could have gotten in. There's a big long worm-gear
that goes out on each side, if youtve ever seen it. It's
a fairly complicated drive mechanism with a wheel and a
set of gears and a chain and - that goes onto this worm-gear
that drives it in and out. And - certainly aze some candidates
in there for a - for sticking.
QUERY And for what mission day aze you going to
schedule the next EVA?
HUTCHINSON Currently the EVA is scheduled for Friday
and that's mission day 28. This Friday.
QUERY Do you have a tlmeline yet for the EVA and
you -
HUTCHINSON No.
QUERY Okay. Can you tell us what besides film
reloading you're going to be doing? And the gyros, are
you still considering the - -
HUTCHINSON The gyro situation is still under considera-
tion and a decision has not been made whether or not to
..... replace the gyros yet on this EVA. However, I think you
can probably expect that in the next day or so, because
we're going to have to turn them on in preparation for that,
a couple of days in advance, so you'll have plenty of notice
if we are going to replace the gyros. We, of course, are
doing a standard film work and there are a couple of other
candidates, at least that I know of, kicking around. Now,
a couple of - more of the door hinge locks, one's on SO82 B,
I believe it's B, that we Just had a problem with here last
night. And I'm not sure what the other one's on, but any-
way there are a couple of doors that we're thinking about
doing that ramp-lock procedure, the same one that we did
the last EVA, on a - the other instrument on 55. So, other
than that, I don't know of any other potential tasks on the
EVA. The slx-pack and a couple of doors, and a standard
placement which makes it - of course the slx-pack is a
significant thing if we decide to do that, hut other than
that it's a pretty standard EVA.
QUERY A couple of questions. Have you resent the
search for the coolant leak yet? And will it be tomorrow
or the next day or will the have you decided that yet?
SL-III PC-59C/2
Time: 16:33 CDT
8/20/73

HUTCHINSON We probably won't impact tomorrow's flight

plan. Let me tell you what he's referring to. Today when
We got a little behind on looking - on working the conden-
sate system, we decided to hold off on the troubleshooting
procedure. It was scheduled today to do the coolant loop
inspection and we're going to do it at some later date, And
that would just freed up a couple of hours to finish the
cleanup on the condensate system, l'd say - not af - not
tomorrow, day after tomorrow. Mainly because that's just
how long it takes us to get it back in the flight plan cycle
and get a block of time lald out that lonE. Because we've
already got the time laid out for tomorrow.
QUERY On this SO19 problem, you mentioned, I think
you mentioned that the mirror would have to be used in con-
nection with the comet search in November and December and
all, and you couldn't get that mirror in because if it
remains stuck in there would this impact your whole comet
study?
HUTCHINSON Well, I think, of course, itts too premature
to answer that question because the first thing that comes
to your mind is whether we'll fly up another AMS, another mirror
system. That's the first thin E that would come into my
mind. I don't even know whether that's feasible or not,
but I don't think it's I don't think there's any way you
could make an assessment yet on whether it would have any
impact that - Obviously if we don' t have the mirror system
the answer to that question is yes, but not having the mirror
system is - first off we have to completely lose the one
we've got and not be able to get it back and secondly,
we've got to not be able to get another one up there for
various reasons. And thirdly, we'd have to be able to figure
out - you know, if we didn't have any AMS - we could - we'd
probably figure out some way to use the instruments in a
different manner and not compromise the thing terribly
anyway. It's too early to tell - it is used on the comet
work. It was planned to he used on the comet work.
QUERY How about the outside part of the condensate
system? Would you consider looking at this during an EVA?
HUTCHINSON It's not being considered at all for this
EVA, and to answer your question directly, I don't believe
that that plumbing is available directly, where you could
just go up and see it. In fact I'm aim - I'm positive it's
not, considering where it comes out of the pressure vessel.

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-59D/I
Time: 16:33 CDT
8/20/73

HUTCHINSON In fact, I'm poslti_e it's not, consid-

ering where it comes out of the pressure vessel. And no
consideration has been given to that at this time. I don't
even know how long the lines are. I wouldn't suspect there's
more than a couple of feet of plumbing out there. And I
don't know whether there are any B-nuts.
PAO Any further questions.
QUERY Any new estimate on how long the fluid
will last in the primary coolant system?
HUTCHINSON Yeah, I heard a number today and I heard,
yes, the predictions about - staying about the same, you
know, about a week ago we were giving you the 2-week figure
and now we're giving you like about a week figure and the
numbers I've heard are mission day 31 to 33, somewhere in
that area and it's still slowly inching down, which is
commensurate with the leak - supports the leak theory that we are
slowly losing the fluid. So that's llke - that's a week
from now, today's mission day 24 - day 34 - day 31, 7 days
from now. So it's on the order of a week or i0 days.
It's still an ambiguous number. It's hard to pin down be-
cause of the way the loop the reacts thermally.
QUERY Does this really worry you - when we
do lose all that fluid out of that one system?
HUTCHINSON Well, it puts us in a posture where
we're down to one coolant loop but I wouldn't say it worries
me. That's we have redundant systems. We plan on running
the EVA on loop 2, by the way - on SOS loop 2 and use
standard liquid cooling for the EVA with two crewmen on the
loop. We have the secondary loop and we have adequate
procedures and equipment to preclude the malfunctioning
of the valves in it that is similar to the thing that
happened in the primary loop and so I think we feel reasonably
comfortable with that. As you know, there are plans in the
mill, providing we can find a leak or do something about it
and probably - maybe even if we can't the possibility of
reservlcing the loop is a definite - definitely in existence
and we're looking at ways to get fluid back into orbit on
Skylab IV and get it into the loop, et cetera.
QUERY If this one coolant loop goes out in
about a week's time, would that impact in any way the November
9 launch date for SL-IV.
HUTCHINSON I'd say not. And the reason I'd say not
is because for unattended operations if we ever had to get
right - our backs right to the wall, we could probably
operate with no coolant loop by powering down a lot of stuff.
With no crewmen there. What I'm telling you is running
SL-III PC-59D/2
Time: 16:33 CDT
8120173

HUTCHINSON fairly long distances unmanned on one

coolant loop doesn't bother people.
PAO Okay. We had some questions that were
called in. One that you've covered, Nell, what would the
astronauts do on Friday's EVA. The other, what are they going
to do on the M509 tomorrow and I believe you said you haven't
checked that out yet.
HUTCHINSON Yes. And that's a good question and
we ought to be able to get them a pretty straightforward
answer on that back over here. The Buys over there can get
them a good answer to that - the PAO fellows on duty. It's
run 4; I know it's the fourth of the runs and it's scheduled
to last about 2-i/2 houzs and it's unsuited and I'm not sure
the exact maneuvers they intend to do with it.
PAO Okay. You've covered the condensate
tank. Any further word on Arabella and the minnows.
HUTCHINSON Not today. There were no crew conversa-
tions today and I don't know any earth-shaking news about
either one other than the last that we had.
PAO Any physical deconditioning of the astro-
nauts that has been detected yet?
HUTCHINSON Well, I probably - I wish there was a
surgeon hera. To my knowledge, nothing significant. I
have no flrst-hand knowledge of anything.
PAO Any further questions. Thank you.

END OF TAPE
 SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
HOUSTON, TEXAS

CHANGE OF SHIFT BRIEFING

JOHNSON SPACE CENTER
AUGUST 21, 1973
4:25 pm CDT

PARTICIPANTS:

NEIL B. HUTCHINSON, FLIGHT FIRECTOR

DR. ROBERT MACQUEEN, PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR OF S052
DAVID GARRETT, PAO

PC-60
r_
SL-III PC-60A/I
Time: 16:25 CDT
8/21/73

PAO For our change-of-shift briefing today,

we have with us Flight Director Nail Hutchinson and Dr.
Robert McQuean. Nell, I understand you're in a hurry so
we'll get started with you first. Take questions and then
move on the Dr. Bob McQueen, whots the S052 Princlpal
Investigator.
HUTCHINSON Okay. I'm not really in that much of
a hurry. I've got to - do have to get back to a meeting
though. Let me kind of summarize what kind of a day we
had today. We It got a lot better right at the end. This
morning we were running - We ran a check on one of our
coolant loops, the secondary coolant loop in the alrloek
module in preparation for the E_A on Friday. As you know,
the primary loop is the one which we suspect is leaking and
we have made definite plans to use the secondary loop for
cooling the EVA astronauts. And we had a planned proce -
checkout of that loop today of the suit umbilical system,
hooking that - the water loop and the secondary airlock
module coolanol loop together_ heat-exchanger-wise and
checking them out. We started to do that this morning, and
io and behold, right at the very beginning in the procedure
the first part of the procedure was for the ground to put
on a second pump in the airlock module secondary loop_ which
is a standard procedure for ErAs to run, when we run two
men on one of the suit umbilical systems off of one airlock
loop, we use two pumps to increase the heat rejection capability.
And we went to turn the pump on, and turned the pump on and
it blew a circuit breaker. And we spent the better part of
the morning trying to understand what it was that went
wrong, of course, kind of concerns us, because that particular
loop we already have a suspect pump in that loop_ the
A pump in loop 2. And with the primary loop not too
healthy, and now we were turning on pump C in that loop
when the circuit breaker blew. To make a long story short,
we have not explained the circuit breaker popping. We have
looked at all the data surrounding the event, and have
not come up with a current spike. We - After looking at
the data we spent most of the morning trying to analyze
the data, and analyzing the data from the anomaly, we decided
to check out pump C on its own, instead of in conjunction
with pump B, which is already on in the secondary loop, so
we turned off pump B and turned pump C on. It came on
normally, it operated the loop for a few minutes, while
we looked at it. And then we went - moved on into the
configuration we need for EVA, which is both pump B and
pump C on. And it went all according to plan. And we had
no further problems. We then brought on the suit umbilical
system and the loop operated normally. We're still looking
 SL-III PC-6OA/2
Time: 16:25 CDT
. 8/21/73

at the data from that. But all preliminary indications are

that we aren't going to have any problems during EVA. The
circuit breaker popping remains unexplained. It is not
going to have any effect on the configuration we're going
to use for EVA. However, we plan on using these two pumps,
B and C in suit umbilical system 2. So that was our big
systems day for today. I imagine Dr. McQueen's probably
going to talk some. In fact, I'm sure he will about what
went on at - around lunch time and thereafter on the Sun.
We had picked up a couple of pretty good coronal events
and I'll let him address that completely. And you want to
address some questions. There was a lot of alr-to-ground
conversations between ATM folks and Owen Garriott concerning
that particular incident. This afternoon, the other super
good thing that happened today. This afternoon, in fact,
about 15 minutes ago - Well let me back up. We have been
trying the plan that we have been using. As you know, when
I came over yesterday - Yesterday about 1 o'clock, SO19
was stuck in the SAL about halfway in and halfway out.
And we suspended SO19 operations yesterday. Today we
continued - decided to continue operations except while
we weren't using it we - -

END OF TAPE
 SL-III PC-60B/I
Time: 16:25 CDT
8/21/73

HUTCHINSON - - And we suspended S019 operations

_-_ yesterday. Today we continued - decided to continue opera-
tions except while we weren't using it we have - we in the
hopes that - that whatever it was that was Jamming it up,
may it be ice, or whatever, could be helped by a little
heat soak. We had positioned the mirror to pick up the albedo
off the Earth so that it would be reflected directly back
into the instrument when we weren't using it, to see if
we could do any good heating it up. And I have no idea
whether that did the trick or not. But, believe it or not,
we were getting ready to stow the mirror in a position away
from the MO92 vent so we wouldn't contaminate it about a
half hour ago. And since we'd been using it to heat the
instrument, as best we could, for the better part, probably
about 5 or 6 hours_ we asked the crew if they would try one
more retraet_ and Io and behold it came in. They ran it in
and out a couple of times, kind of jiggling it3 and
the impression I got was A1 did it, and about the third
time he tried to bring it in it Just came right free and
moved right on in. And it's retracted and the door's closed.
And we're going to let it sit there for a couple of hours
and I suspect we'll be taking it out of SAL tonight and
seeing if we can get a good look at that gear mechanism and
see if we can find anything wrong with it. But the important
thing is that's it's back in and we've got the mirror system
which is the thing we really need and no harm done to any-
thing. It was another busy day of work. And that's about
f it.
PAO Any questions?
QUERY Have they checked out the slx-pack yet,
and how did that go, if they did?
HUTCHINSON Well, yes. The checkout today was not
really a checkout. What we did today was to turn it on and
Just get some temperature arrangements for base-line tempera-
ture data. And we haven't got the data down yet, but we
did turn it on. And we did run some continuity checks on
one of the gyros. And the data's not back on the ground
yet, but I presume it went all right. That's one thing else
I should tell you, I guess_ while we're talking about six-
packs. I don't have an EVA plan lald out yet. The EVA is
still scheduled for Friday. There have been a couple of
decisions made, one in particular. We are going to install
a slx-pack during the EVA. And I'm sure you've heard that.
The meeting that I have to scurry back to is the timelining
of the EVA. And tomorrow night I'm sure I'ii have a Flight
Plan semi-coherently lald out that will tell you pretty much the
sequence of events through the EVA. We also are currently
 SL-III PC-60B/2
Time: 16:25 CDT
..-- 8/21/73

considering removing the door latch ramp, ramp latches on

SO52 and on SO56 during the EVA. The same procedure we
performed before, which I mentioned the other day. And
I'm not sure if that's completely homed in on yet, however,
I suspect it's probably 99 percent cetain we're going to do
that.
QUERY How much increase in temperature do
you get out of the Earth albedo up there?
HUTCHINSON I donlt know. I can't answer that.
I'm sure it's not any great amount, you know. But it's
better - At the high Beta angles that instrument with the
vehicle tipped off to the side, looks out into deep space.
So, it gets a pretty good cold soak. I don't really know
the answer to that. I would imagine it's on the order of
a few degrees. It's not anything llke 50 degrees, or any-
thing llke that. The - That's purely a theoretical - I
mean we were grasping at straws when we put the mirror
down there to try to get some heat in, because no one
really knew what the problem was that jammed it up. And
I really would say it was probably a 50-50 proposition
that that had anything to do with the fact that it came
free.
QUERY Do you have a tlmeline yet, on the
EVA?
HUTCHINSON No. I don't have. But I sure will
have tomorrow. That meeting I'm scheduled to be running
over to is for that purpose. And we're just now getting
everything - The six-pack decision was basically firmed
this morning, and we're Just now getting everything lald
out. That's not a particularly long procedure of the EVA por-
tion of it. I don't know, it's about less than an hour
involved with all, everything going right. The six-pack
contribution to it.
QUERY Will today's pump affair change the
procedures for the EVA Friday, like throwing pump C on
first?
HUTCHINSON No. We're going to bring the pumps
on exactly as we di - -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-60C/I
Time: 16:25 CDT
8/21/73

QUERY - - pump C on first?

HUTCHINSON No, we're going to bring the pumps on exactly
as we did the second time. Well, I guess I'd better qualify
that. It will change the way we're going to bring the pumps
on. We are going to turn the inverter off, which essentially
turns the loop off, then bring pump C on, which doesn't turn
the pump on because it has no inverter, and then bring the
inverter on so that both pumps start up against a non-flowlng
loop. Now that's the way we did it the second time. The
thing that's strange about the pump situation is that we have
seen before - we had that procedure and we in fact, exercised
it after the circuit breaker popped, not knowing that the
circuit breaker was popped, because we have seen before when
we bring a second pump onto a loop that the inverter will
stall out and both pumps will quit. But we've never seen a
circuit breaker pop before. Now, then the procedure is, the
one I Just described, to get the two pumps on, and then bring
the inverter on so that they both come up against this - a
non-flowlng loop, and we will do that on Friday. That's the
only change, though. As far as the configuration we end up
in, it will be exactly the same.
PAO Anymore questions for Nell? (garble)
QUERY Was there any particular factor that prompted
the 6-pack decision? Is there some further deterioration
and could you give us a rundown on these - on the condition
of each of the gyros that are up there?
HUTCHINSON Okay, let me answer the first question, first.
There has been no recent change in anything. I think it's
a matter of - over a period of weeks, here, we have been
observing the slow deterioation of the rest of the gyros,
down to a single gyro in each axis. I think we have, over
the weeks, developed confidence in fact, that we can indeed
install that piece of gear with a fair amount of ease and
will a high degree of confidence that we can do it right.
And I think the feeling is fairly strong that we would not
have been comfortable unmanned with only a single gyro in
an axis, and I think the feeling Is fairly strong that if
those first two things, being the case, we would llke very
much to see the system in operation for awhile. Now, if
we would have done it at the last EVA, in other words, prior
to being unmanned, of course that's only a few days before
the end of mission, and if anything isn't quite right, or
any - we don't like the way it looks, you have no chance to
regroove. So, I think it was a combination of things, us
being - getting ourselves more attuned and more confident in
being able to do the procedure. The gyros slowly but surely
continuing to cave in until we're down to essentially one in
 SL-III PC-60C/2
Time: 16:25 CDT
8/21/73

two axes. And the fact that we wouldn't feel very comfortable
being unmanned with single gyro in an axis. Now, as far
as the gyro status goes, in the X-axis, we still have three
what we consider to be three good ones. One of them ][-2
has this heater problem, or suspected heater problem that
we think may be at the root of all evils with these gyros.
And it has just recently exhibited a couple of drift shifts
very minor, but it's been awfully stable for a long time
and that's the first time, in fact, in the last week that
we've seen any - even remote sniffing out of the X-axis.
However, we still have three good gyros in X. In Y, we
really think we only have - we have one good gyro, Y-I.
Y-2, is definitely marginal, it - you could probably baby-
sit it for a day or two while you were - if anything happened
to Y-I while you were getting the 6-pack installed. However,
Y-2 requires continual drift updates. The drift changes
so much that every orbit you've got to Stick a new number
in there to make it even usable at all. So Y-2, at best,
is marginal. Y-3, is oscillatory in nature, as you know,
and it's been turned off. On the Z-axi_, the situation
is about the same, except the Z-2 gyro. Z-I is the one
- let me see if I got that right. Z-I - yes, Z-l's the
one that's off. Z-2 and Z-3 are the gyros that were on - -

_ END OF TAPE
 SL III MC-6OD/I
TIME: 16:25 CDT
8/21/73

HUTCHINSON - - One is the one that's off. Z-2 and

Z-3 are the gyros that were on. Z-2 has a characteristic
not a drift characteristic, but a thing we call scale factor,
which means the gyro is sensitive to motion. It's fairly
good when it's not seeing any rates, but as soon as you
put a rate in it, it reacts to the rate differently. The
scale factor is not stable. We, as you know, tried at the
beginning of Skylab II to get some new scale Skylab III,
excuse me, to get some new scale factors into the gyros,
and we did two scale factor maneuvers as a matter of fact,
and have pretty much concluded that it's an impossible task,
because the scale factors are not stable in these bad gyros.
To sum that all up, we've got a pretty good set of gyros in
the X-axls and we have two very good ones in the Y-axls.
We've essentially got only one and one with a backup that we
could use temporarily and in Z you've got one, with one
that's certainly questionable, because every time you do a
maneuver with it, Z-2 will give you redundancy management
failure because of the scale factor. Obviously if you got
down to having to use Y-2, and you were unmanned, and you'd
be hard-pressed.
QUERY Same thing. If you disconnect the gyros
you've got on there now and put the new pack in and find
out it doesn't work, can you go back to the original pack
or is that an irreversible -
_- HUTCHINSON Oh, yes.
QUERY You can go back -
HUTCHINSON Oh, yes, and remember that the six-pack
only has six gyros, not nine, so we use three gyros out of
the current ones, plus six new ones, and of course the three
we will use will be the three good ones we've got in X, Y,
and Z out of the current slx-pack, and they will become the
third rate gyro in each axis. In the new nine-gyro configura-
tion after you put the slx-pack in.
QUERY What would happen if it was unmanned and
some more gyros went out? Would it begin to tumble and -
HUTCHINSON Well, you depend- at nighttime you depend
upon the gyros to tell you where you are, and if you were in
a situation where you didn't have a gyro in an axis, then
the vehicle cannot - it has no way of knowing itself where
it is. In other words, you lose control in an axis. Now,
whether it would tumble or not, after you come around to the
Sun, if you're within a certain angle of the Sun, the Sun
sensors will pick up the Sun and lock you on and you will
be all right for awhile. But it would just depend on what
kind of torque you happen to get on the vehicle while you
 SL III PC-60D/2
TIME: 16:25 CDT
8/21/73

were in darkness and so on and so forth. The gyros form

a basic - the basic knowledge of the vehicle of where it is,
when it's in night, in darkness. So you effectively have
no attitude reference in an axis if you lost all gyros in
an axis in darkness. Eventually losing all gyros in an
axis, sooner or later you would get yourself in a situation
where some torque would put you in posture where you would
lose the Sun. Then you would go into a random reacquisition
and then you might find it and you might not and of course
that gets you into all kinds of electrical power problems.
PAO Any other questions. Okay. Fine.
Dr. MacQueen.
MACQUEEN Right. What we had occurring this
morning and also this afternoon were an extremely complex
series of events on the solar limbs, which prove to be
very interesting for a number of the Apollo Telescope Mount
experiments and I think that one of the things that was
highlighted by the events and the response to them this morning
was the very effective communications that exist between
ground-based observatories around the world and they
particularly exist, as Neil already alluded to, between
the ATM science room in Mission Control and the crew
members. The events, as I said are complex. Let me
summarize them by saying, or beginning around iS:00 this
_--- morning there were X-Ray events - well not major X-Ray
events, but X-Ray events nonetheless. -

END OF TAPE
 SL-III PC-60E/I
Time: 16:25 CDT
8/21/73

MACQUEEN - - are relatively - well, not major

x-ray events but x-ray events, nonetheless. In addition
to the x-ray events, which began at approxlmately
13:00, and which were recorded by the Solrad Satellite,
there were observed from the ground from the NOAA, that's
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the NOAA
Site at the Canary Islands, using visible H-alpha telescopes,
observed an eruptive prominence on the east llmb of
the Sun. They made photographs of this and they called in
as soon as they had observed the eruptive prominence to
the ATM science room where NOAA maintains a desk there
24 hours and where there are located the individual ATM
experiment consoles, the ATM Zar and the Flight Control
personnel. In response to that call, the ATM people initiated
a communication with the flight control team, who then,
through Cap Comm, of course, talked to the crew members and
warned them of the eruptive prominence on the east llmb.
And there on from that period, which was roughly around -
following 14:00 this morning, up until the time period around
18:00, there have been a series of observations by various
of the ATM experiments, to observe the eruptive prominence
and to study the coronal effects of such a prominence erup-
tion. And in particular, the chain of events, the communica-
tions, continued on with the ATM science room personnel then
getting in contact with various other observatories around
/_ the world, those in our own hemisphere, in particular, since
the Sun was then up in the morning there. And calls went out to
the University of Maryland facility at Clark Lake in California.
A call went to the Mauna Loa facility of the high-altitude
observatory in Hawaii. A call went to the Naval Research
Laboratory for the use of their instrument on the OSO 7
Satellite, and a call also went to Stanford University
to warn them of the event, so that observations could be scheduled
on the Pioneer Interplanetary Probe. While these communica-
tions were going on, of course, an observing program was
being worked out in the science room by two of the SO52
Coinvestlgators, Dr. Richard Monroe, and Dr. Art Poland, who
were there. And, again, we had a superb response, I think,
on the part of the flight control team to uplink - voice
uplink to the crew memebers, the proposed observing program.
You're all aware, of course, that the ground sites are few
and far between these days, and there are long times between
ground sites. So, of course, in the mean time, the crew
had done various things, all of which, as usual, were extremely
intelligent. They had observed the event on the white
light coronagraph monitor. They reported on it at the next
ground station. A1 Bean had made observations with the white
light coronagraph and with the X-ray instruments on the
SL-III PC-6OE/2
Time: 16:25 CDT
8/21/73

ATM, to observe the event. It was a very spectacular one,

as he reported on the voice downlink. It was a loop
structure, as he called it, a bubble moving outward from the
Sun. At the time he reported, it was approximately
three quarters the size of the Sun, which means, of course,
that it's several hundred times the size of the Earth. So
it's a massive event in terms of our own scale of things.
And he could clearly detect motion in the event as it moved
outward from the Sun. And he then carried on a series of
observations, having to keep in mind the all important
fact that the S052 experiment, the coronagraph, is down to
their last few feet, llterally, of photographic film. And
he made an extremely wise choice of the modes in which to
run the instruments so as to obtain optimum observations,
realizing that he mustn't expend too much film on the experi-
ment. So over a period of something llke 4 hours, we have
a series of observations of this erruptive prominence moving
through the corona - -

END OF TAPE
SL III PC-60F/I
TIME: 16:25 CDT
8/21/73

MACQUEEN So, over a period of something like

4 hours we had a series of observations of this eruptive
prominence moving through the corona. This one is of
particular interest because there occurred at 14:44 this
morning a peak in radio emission from the event. A so-
called type 4 continuum burst and it turns out that the
coronagraph itself was operating precisely at the time of
that peak radio burst and this has been one of the major
objectives of the eoronagraph experiment, to try to observe
the corona at the time of a radio burst, and I think that
on this load of film now we have such an observation. Well,
in some, over a 4- or 5-hour period, there was a very great
interplay of communications between the ground, the ATM
science room, the Flight Control team and the crew. And I
think that we have a superb set of observations as a result
of this interplay of communications. I think we get to see,
other than Just hear what A1 Bean had to say about it. I
think we get to see the video tape recording tomorrow
morning when the lines are brought up. The video tape is
being dumped tonight, I think, late tonight at a site that
I'm not sure, and that will be brought back in here tomorrow.
We'll have a chance to see what the television system on
the coronagraph sees on the event. I think that's probably
summarizes the events of the morning.
PAO Any questions? Yeah. Jim.
QUERY Let me see if I can understand what a
solar prominence is. If what I read I interpreted correctly,
it begins with a flare, and then what amounts to a ball of
material that rolls out to the llmb.
MACQUEEN Well, a prominence itself is basically
a structure which sits up in the solar atmosphere. It has
roots in the base of the Sun, in the photosphere, chromosphere,
but it sits up in, not unlike my arms here, with feet in
the Sun, and it sits up. And it's supported above the
atmosphere, in the atmosphere of the Sun by the magnetic
field lines that exist in the low solar atmosphere. And
they can be fairly active, that is, prominences can move
around a bit, they can be very quiescent or static. Now, on
occasion, and we don't know the cause, but on occasion, apparently
the magnetic field that's the hammock that supports this
prominence becomes disrupted and the material that's sitting
in the hammock can be thrown out. Now presumably this
occurs because some of the foot points of the prominence,
these foot points are disrupted, distended, severed, I don't
think anyone really knows, but when this occurs, then you
have material that is basically thrown out from the Sun as
the magnetic field lines expand, so a prominence does not
SL III PC-60F/2
TIME: 16:25 CDT
8/21/73

necessarily have to be triggered by a flare. It could be,

that is, if a flare occurred near by and that may have been the
case this morning. That may have been enough of a shock
to disturb magnetic field lines and then cause the prominance
to be ejected from the Sun. The amount of material that's
in the prominence is huge. There's more material in the
prominence than there is in all the solar corona. The very
pretty white structure that you see in eclipses. And of course,
when you have this amount of mass pushing through the
corona, then you're distorting and distending the corona
itself and that's one of the reasons why we're so interested
in the phenomena, is to use it as an analytic tool of the
material plowing through the solar corona, we can then
analyze how the field lines are connected and how they pass
through the coronal region itself.
QUERY Well, does this mass of material, that
you described as loops or a bubble fall back into the Sun?
MACQUEEN No, it is ejected with sufficient force
that it escapes the Sun and it will traverse out into
interplanetary space. And if we're lucky, then in a couple
of days, one of the interplanetary probes that are present
around one astronomical unit, that is, roughly around the
Earth's orbit, around the Sun, will be able to detect the
effect of this now continually diffusing material passing
by that satellite in space.

END OF TAPE
 SL-III PC-6OG/I
Time: 16:25 CDT
8/21/73

MACQUEEN we'll be able to detect the effect of

this now continually diffusing material passing by that
satellite in space. And of course it's - it's clearly dis-
rupting the general overall magnetic field structure of
interplanetary space also, just like it does the inner-
corona. Now, the bubble, I think, is Just the analogy of
this thing lifting off and gradually moving out, being ex-
pelled by a symmetric force that's pushing it out. Like
a balloon expanding, if you will. Of course we see
the balloon edge on with the coronagraph.
QUERY So what would all this tell you?
MACQUEEN Well, we - one would hope from an analysis
of not Just the coronagraph data, hut the ground-based and
the X-ray data that's on the satellite, the ATM. We hope
it might tell us something more about why the prominence
was ejected from the Sun. It certainly will tell us some-
thing about the effect of a - an erruptive prominence passing
through the corona, and therefore, it will be an analytic
probe, if you will, for the coronal configuration. And I
hope - and we're most excited about this, that the fact that
we were making observations with the ATM coronagraph pre-
cisely at the time of the maximum radio emission from this
event that we will be able to say something further about
the mechanism of the radio emission itself.
QUERY Just to carry it one step further, what
_. if you could tell something about the radio emission itself?
MACQUEEN Well,
QUERY I guess what I'm trying to get at, is it's
something beyond knowledge for knowledge's sake?
MACQUEEN Well, that's as always that's a difficult
question to answer. I think that if we can understand the
mechanism of radio bursts, we're understanding more clearly
the precise physics, interaction between particle and
fields. These interactions occur not just in the solar
atmosphere, but in the Earth's atmosphere, itself. The
Earth has a magnetic field, the Earth is has particles
impinging on it, and I think that in the general knowledge
that we might deduce from the solar event, maybe applicable
to the interaction of particles and fields in the Earth's
upper atmosphere. Now, if you get down to the next step
of practicality, it's getting a bit difficult, but clearly,
we use our own - our own outer atmosphere, the ionosphere
for example, as a bouncing device for radio signals. I
think it would be in general of good - of a good practicality
to understand precisely what causes disruptions in our
own ionosphere and therefore disruptions in our own com-
munications systems and the llke. Now, that's a far step
SL-III PC-60G/2
Time: 16:25 CDT
8/21/73

removed of course, from the interpretation of the solar event.

But what we hope to do - what we're hoping, what we're
in the process of doing, of course, is the collecting of
data on a basic physical process that we think will have
application in the future for practical studies by engineering
community, for example.
QUERY What is the material that's hein E ejected
out, and also, what theories are there about the source
of this peak radio emission?
MACQUEEN Well, the material is basically electrons
and protons and ions which are always present in the solar
atmosphere. The temperature of a prominence is a ballpark,
something llke say, 50,000 degrees, give or take some. And
that means that most of the material that's in there, espec-
ially hydrogen, helium, things llke that, is ionized so that
you have lots of electrons and protons. Basically, you're
talking about the material which is ionized at a stage eom-
mensorate with a 50,000 degree temperature, and you're talking
about particle densities, say electron densities of - on
the order of 10 to the 10th, or thereabouts. I wouldn't
quibble over factors of hundred there, hut that's ball park.
Now, you asked about the theories of radio emission. I'm
probably not the best person to talk about those, but there
are a number of different character of radio bursts that
occur in the solar corona. And there are things that are -
there are - the radio physicist who study these, classify
them from type 1 to type 5 bur - -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-60H/I
Time: 16:25 CDT
8/21/73

MACQUEEN - - in the solar corona. And there are

things that are - The radio physicist, who study these,
classify them from type 1 to type 5 burst. There
basically typified - The definition of radio burst is
basically based on the time of passage and the spectral
characteristics of the burst. In the sense of the following:
The type 3 burst, one sees changing in frequency over
the radio spectrum, very rapidly over a matter of seconds.
The implication there, being, that the radio emission
can't get out if it's below a certain level of density
of the solar corona, so that you have radio burst, which is
basically reflected just as radio waves are reflected in
the upper Earth's atmosphere. And by examining the spectral
character of the radio burst, you're traclng the thing
through the less dense med - the changing density medium of
the corona. The fact that a type-3 burst changes its
frequency in a matter of seconds, means that you have a
passage of particles, and they're thought to be streams of
electrons, or protons, one or the other, moving from the solar
surface out to well beyond the range of the coronograph in
just a matter of seconds. This implies that you have a
packet of stream of particles which are moving something
like one-third the velocity of llfe. Now, for example, that's
a type-3 burst. That's the characteristic of type-3
burst. A type-2 and a type-4 burst, for example and
we observed a type-4 today, are much more broadly spaced
burst in the sense of the spectrum changes much less
rapidly over time. The spectrum changes gradually over a
period of hours, typically minutes, to hours I should say.
Now, the precise mechanism for type-2 or a type-4 . burst,
is not known, in a sense that one doesn't know precisely how
the radio emission originates, whether it is something llke
spiraling of electrons around magnetic field lines, whether
or not you're setting a plasma oscillation, in the corona
as this pi - this pile driver, if you will, comes plowing
through the corona, or just precisely what's going on.
So there is an interesting study - studies that have been
going on for the last decades or so, on the character of
radio burst. One of the things one likes to know in trying
to say which kind of burst is which, is you'd llke to know
the density of the material present at the radio burst.
That's the parameter that the white light coronagraph on
the ATM will give to the radio physicist studying that.
That is we are measuring directly the density the number of
electrons, if you will, that are present in the corona at
the time of the burst. And that is a parameter which is
sorely needed for the theories of radial generation.
SL~III PC-60H/2
Time: 16:25 CDT
8/21/73

QUERY Has such a phenomenon been observed

before with unmanned spacecraft?
MACQUEEN There have been a number of coronal
transients, we call them, observed with other satellites
and particular with the OSO 7 Satellite, with the Naval
Research Laboratory instrument, which observes further out
in the corona than the ATM instrument, but with a somewhat
poorer spaclal resolution, observed the passage of blobs
of material in the corona several times. And, I think, that
there have been radio bursts associated with those events,
also. Here, I think we are precisely coincident with the
radio burst, as I pointed out at 14:44. We'll have an
interesting handle, because we are precisely coincident.
And the ATM instrument has the ability to examine a much
finer scale in the corona, and the OSO 7 instrument. In
addition, on the ATM we've had now, several observations of
eruptive prominences on the llmb and on this particular
mission, on the SL-3 Mission. Since the end of SL-2, I
think, this is the third such event that we have on this
film camera. On the few frames that are remaining. So
we're extremely anxious to get this film load down at the
end of SL-3 we think - -

END OF TAPE
 SL-III PC-601/1
Time: 16:25 CDT
8/21/73

_ MACQUEEN - - two frames that are remaining. So we're

• extremely anxious to get this film load down at the end of
SL-III. We think that it's got three examples of which this may
be the best, I can't say, of this type of event. They're
rare in the sense that they require some form of activity
obviously, to let the prominence erupt. We're at a time
of solar minimum. It looks llke, however, we're averaging
one a month, which is an awfully nice average.
QUERY What - would this be the best observation
of such an event, that you know of?
MACQUEEN I really can't say that yet. For example, I
haven't seen the video tape down-llnk which I am extremely
anxious to see. So, I honestly can't answer that.
QUERY Well, then, knowing what you know about the
instruments that observed it, and if those all got recorded,
under good circumstances, would it be the best?
MACQUEEN I think it's going to be, certainly one of
the best. We've got - the crew did a superb Job of response
today to the event. They ran the experiments extremely in-
telllgently, especially when you consider that in addition
to responding with these various instruments they were keeping
in mind our own film situation and the llke. We did have
an eruptive prominence of, luckily, something llke three
weeks ago, which they also responded well to. I honestly
can't make a judgement between this one and an earlier event,
because we haven't seen the film in either case.
f QUERY Is there any way to predict that some other
event is going to come up because of what happened today?
MACQUEEN I wish there were so they wouldn't catch us
quite by surprise. But I'm afraid the answer is no. It's
difficult enough to predict, as you are well aware, the
occurence of flares, which are the most energetic phenomena
on the Sun. And you would think, therefore, would have the
greatest signature. These events are extremely difficult
to predict. In fact, I hesitate to use the word, but I'll
say right now, they're impossible to predict when one of
these is going to occur. And especially now that we're in
a period of quiet solar activity, yet we've seen three or
four of these events now during the Skylab mission. And I
think this event, as I say, is going to be a particularly
interesting one because we know that we have precise simul-
tlnuity betwen radio observations from the ground and the
observations from the spacecraft. That, I think, makes
this one a particularly interesting one.
PAO Any other questions? If nots we have - I
have six questions that were called in from New York. First_
 SL-III PC-601/2
Time: 16:25 CDT
_. 8/21/73

has it been determined that this flare is a proton event?

MACQUEEN No, the - this, of course, the thing I'm
speaking of principally is the eruptive prominence which
had associated with it, apparently, a C-I type X-ray event.
That's not a proton event.
PAO Okay, the next question was if it is a proton
event, is there any danger to the crew? And it's not.
If this flare - is this flare expected to come around the
limb to the front of the Sun?
MACQUEEN The region in question, which of course is,
the region of the prominence in particular, will of course
will be rotating onto the disk more in the next day or so.
And it will be, of course, interesting to see how the mag-
netic fields that were supporting the prominence on the
limb, how they have rearranged themselves, especially if
another prominence will form at that same region.
PAO If it does come around to the front and
if it is a proton event, is there any danger to the crew?
I think I've asked you that one.
MACQUEEN It's not a proton event.
PAO If the event had oecured on the front of
the Sun, would there have been any hazard to the astonauts?
MACQUEEN No.
PAO Since this is the year of the quiet Sun, what
are the odds of an event of such magnitude?
MACQUEER Well, I alluded to that in the other discussion.
Now, we've seen three of these events, I guess, on this
film camera, which goes from the last EVA on SL-II until
Friday, and if anybody had told me that five months ago, I
would have scoffed.
PAO Jim?
QUERY Let me ask you one other thing. What - well,
what would you dare say about the advancement of man's know-
ledge of this planet's star as a result - -

END OF TAPE

r
SL III PC-60J/I
TIME: 16:25 CDT
8/21/73

QUERY the advance of man's knowledge of

this planet's star as a result of observations llke this.
MACQUEEN Well, the observations with the corona-
graph are particularly unique in this regard. As you know,
of course, the coronagraph permits us to have an artificial
solar eclipse every day. Time periods much shorter than a
day. The outer corona is the most poorly observed aspect of
the Sun, simply because one has had, up until the last year
or so, to wait until the time of total solar eclipses to
observe the solar corona. So I think that the observations
that we are making with the ATM coronagraph are going to make
an extremely significant contribution towards our knowledge
of the solar corona and that's because there just isn't any-
thing before us. So in a very real sense, I think that the
coronagraph contribution is going to be relatively speaking,
a very major contribution to our knowledge of the general
magnetic field of the Sun, for example, which corona maps out,
in a real sense and to the character of the outer solar
atmosphere. And I guess what I'm Saying, in brief, is, be-
cause it's so difficult to observe, and we finally now got
those observations, it's going to have a very major impact
on our knowledge of the outer solar atmosphere.
PAO Any further questions? Thank you.

END OF TAPE
 SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
Houston, Texas

Skylab III - S052 Solar Activity Review

Johnson Space Center
August 22, 1973
10:08 am CDT

PARTICIPANTS:

Dr. Robert 1iacQueen, S052 P.I.

PAO, Joe Jones

PC-61
 SL-III PC61A/I
Time: i0:08 CDT, 26/15:08 GMT
8/22/73

_ MACQUEEN All right weVre going to _e the TV

down-link that occurred around 14:40 yesterday, _corded by
Commander Bean. He is rolling the ATM canister now so that
the arch that you see extending out beyond _e _ge of the
occulting disc is moving, relative to the center of the picture.
Also present of the field of view is Alpha Leo, a star which
is currently close to the Sun. The arch, which is the expanding
prominence material from the Sun which is erupted some hour
or so earlier, extends out to about 3 _dii from the Sun center.
You can see it's a very diffused blob _ the TV system, which
is some factor of three poor resolution in our actual photo-
graphic film data. I believe that AI Bean commented that he
could see a good deal of structure and bright spots within
this arch and presumably we've seen some degradation in the
down-link here. But now the size of this arch is mughly com-
parabable to the size of the solar disc, which of course is
hidden behind the _ccultin_ disc. That_ans _ course it's
several hundred times the size of the earth. This _ing is a
massive event in proportion, and this is XUV monitor, broad
band XUV wave lengths, showing the edge of the Sun from which
the prominence was ejected. And I understand there were bright
spots visible on the XUV monitor, recorded by the crewmen
earlier. Presumably these were associated, or actually the
minor x-ray event that occurred preceding the eruptive prominence
or at least simultaneous with the eruptive prominence.
f
PAO And I believe that concludes _e picture.
Now we'd llke to get your questions _ the record also.
So wait for the mike, please.
PAO Any questions?
PAO Everybody's satisfied?
PAO Okay. Thank you very much.

END OF TAPE
 SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
HOUSTON, TEXAS

CHANGE OF SHIFT BRIEFING

JOHNSON SPACE CENTER
AUGUST 22_ 1973
4:31 pm CDT

PARTICIPANTS:

NElL B. HUTCHINSON, FLIGHT DIRECTOR

DAVID GARRETT, PAO

PC-62
SL-III PC-62A/I
Time: 16:31 CDT
8/22/73

PAO We're ready to get started with our

change-of-shift briefing. This afternoon we have with us
the off-going Flight Director, Nell Hutchinson. Nell.
HUTCHINSON Okay. I look like I came prepared. I
really didn't. I'm prepared to go to another meeting as
usual. Talk a little bit about what went on today, and about
our EVA plan. Let me get over to stuff that went on today
very quickly. And I probably won't do this very much in
order. And there's not a whole heck of a lot. We saw some
significant oscillations in rate gyro Y-2, today, probably
the worst we've seen yet. And broke into these oscillations
about 19:00 Zulu, I guess, about 2-1/2 hours ago. And
subsequently had been packed down to what - what we've been
seeing on that gyro. I guess that adds smoke to the fire
on doing the six-pack installation. S019 as you know, got
jammed in the SAL earlier in the week, and we got it un - got
it freed yesterday. And last night the crew did some trouble-
shooting on it including tightening up some belts in the
drive mechanism, the tension on some belts on the drive
mechanism. And we had a little ditty with SO19 today, it
turned out, when we tightened the belts in a similar fashion
in the model in the trainer, it malfunctioned on us. And
basically, I guess, I don't know a lot about the inside of
the device, hut it's possible to get the belt out of sync
with one another, as such that the drive mechanism will jam
if you get more tension on one than you get on the other.
We had the crew pull SO19 beck out of the SAL, today before
they extended it. And they operated it about half a dozen
times in the cabin, moved the mirror up and down and ran it full
in and full out, observing the mechanism and observing the drag
or tensions on the crank you turn it out with, to make sure
that it was going in and out in a uniform manner, and that
we didn't have the tension on the drive chains skewed in
anyway, and we didn't and it worked fine. And we're back
to completely normal SO19 operations, this afternoon. The
alrlock module primary coolant loop continues to get a little
lower each day. It seems to get a - it doesn't seem, it
gets lower at night when there's not a lot of heat load on
the coolant loop. Last night, the coldest we've seen, or
the lowest pressure we've seen. We saw it early this morn-
ing just prior, shortly after crew wakeup. It was down to
9 psi. As you know, our shut off criteria is 5 psi in the
in the pump inlet and it wouldn't surprise me if we hit that
tonight. So we may be seeing the last of the primary air-
lock loop, today. It's back up to 18 by the way_ during
the day when they get a lot of gear powered up and some
heat load in the cabin. We've been looking at the temperatures
 SL-III PC-62A/2
Time: 16:31 CDT
8/22/73

temperature readouts on the six-pack gyros that we've been

taking over the last 24 hours, since we've turned them on.
They all look good and it looks like they're temperature
stabilizing fairly well. Now. Let me get to the EVA with-
out - We have an EVA basic Flight Plan built. Hatch open
will probably occur somewhere around 15:00 Zulu on Friday.
That'll be I0 o'clock. About in the middle of the day-
light pass, we expect the EVA to last somewhere between
3-1/2 to 4 hours nominally. The two crewmen doing the EVA
will be the SPT, Owen Garriott, and the PLT_ Jack Lousma.
And this is a change from what we had nominally planned for
this EVA. It was We changed it at the request of the CDR
this morning. He called down and gave us some thoughts on
how he thought he'd like to conduct the EVA, which by the
way, we're completely in sync with what we had been laying
it out. And also, on who he thought ought to go out. Now
he didn't give all that rationale about why he felt Jack
ought to go out instead of himself. However, in retrospect
I guess, that's a completely logical decision for a couple
or three reasons. As a matter of fact, we probably miBht
have even suggested o_rselves had we thought of it. As you - -

END OF TAPE
f
 SL-III PC62B/I
Time: 16:31 CDT
8/22/73

HUTCHINSON ... you call decision for a couple of

"- three reasons. As a matter of fact we probably might even
have suggested that ourselves had we had thought of it. As
you know, during the six-pack installation there is quite
a bit of fooling around with the APCS. In a minute we'll
go over that if you have some questions on that later. St
does get reconfigured; there's a lot of DAS entries. Some
of the monitoring after the slx-pack is installed involves
the APCS. The CSM G&N is brought up prior to - to committing
to the EVA for the purpose of backup attitude control in case
we have any problems getting the six-pack rehooked upj or
have any significant attitude excursions during the slx-pack
installation. And the CDR is considerably more versed in
both those subjects than the PLT and so it's only natural
that he would choose to be the fellow who did the CSM work
if any were required and do the CSM G&N work and was at the
APCS console during the reconfiguring. Also, another thing
that's maybe not as strong a point but certainly is a point;
the slx-pack installation does involve moving - removing
several connectors outside the vehicle which we don't expect
to have any problem with, but Jack is considerably stronger
and since it involves a lot of arm motion and a lot of
physical prowess in getting the connectors off, that's
another reason for him doing it. Anyway, we concurred with
the decision to do that, to have the SPT and the PLT go out.
And basically the EVA plan is to have - we're going to do
p- the six-pack first and that's probably - all total that'll
end up taking us about an hour. It's probably about 15 minutes
worth of work, but the basic plan is we'll probably open -
we'll open the hatch somewhere there around 1500 about half-
way through that daylight cycle. And Jack is going to go out
and do a little reconnaissance work. He's going to look
over the two places where we're going change connectors_
one of them is down there on this trunnion plate down to
the lower right of the EVA path. And the other one is a
WCIU which is a box with a lot of connectors going into it
essentially right under the ladder that goes up the ATM.
And he'll be looking at the connectors and kind of assessing
the general situation while - while Owen is getting all the
cables and stuff we're going replace laid out there in
the alrlock area. Then we'll go into darkness and we'll -
Jack will go hack and get the - all the cable stuff straightened
out and probably take his - take the cables on out. And when
daylight - back around to daylight again as soon as sunrise
comes we'll start the external part of the six-pack
installation. And he'll work on that - the trunnion plate
SL-III PC62B/2
Time: 16:31 CDT
8/22/73

part of it first. And about halfway through that daylight

cycle, and at this time they will have been out about a
rev, we'll go into the so-called free drift mode which really
is a misnomer because it's not free drift because we do have
some semblance of attitude control using the CMGs in an
open loop configuration with a eontinous nominal cage signal
being put to them. And Jack will complete the rest of the
slx-pack which is two cables down at the - two ends of the
same cable down at the - the WCIU end of the thing. And
then we've got some ATM film work and we've got in the
process of doing that we have to take down this S149 and
move it back, and I'm not I haven't looked at the procedures
yet, hut they're going to basically temporarily close S149
and take it down, take it back to the airlock area. They'll
do the work on the ATM sun and work station - sun and work
station then they'll put it back up and open it up before
they leave. And we have one more task, and by the way, that's
going to be done by Owen. Owen will do the ATM film replacement.
And Owen will also do - we have a couple of patches of
JSC sail material that are being put out for an engineering
evaluation that were flown up on Skylab III, and they'll
be on a clipboard and going to be fastened to a handrail
down on the airlock just down to the right of the EVA path.
And the last task we have is the removal of two more of
those door latches - ramp latches they're called the - -

END OF TAPE
 SL-III PC-62C/I
Time: 16:31 CDT
__ 8/22/73

HUTCHINSON The last task we have is the removal of

two more of those door latches, ramp latches they're called,
the sliding latch configuration on two ATH doors that's
on SO82A, and SO56. This is the same operation that we
performed last EVA on S055. And we think all that will
probably take about 2 or 2-1/2 hours. So, we end up being
out maybe 3-1/2 hours or 4 hours at the outside. Now, of
course, if they take their time extremely much, llke they did
the last time, which wouldn't surprise me, we could be out
a little bit longer. And that's pretty much the layout of
the EVA, and what went on today. And we've spent an awful
lot of time working on the EVA today, especially on the
six-pack stuff. That's pretty much it.
QUERY Nell, I'm sorry I wasn't here yesterday.
So, I may be repeat a few things. The few questions from
reading yesterday's briefing. I understood earlier, that
once you make the disconnection, you've dlconnected all
nine of the original gyros, and you're replacing all nine
with six. In other words you won't have but 2 in each axis.
And according to one of your answers yesterday, you're
only replacing six of the nine, and keeping the three good
ones. And I don't understand how you do that.
HUTCHINSON Well, the answer that I gave yesterday
is correct. And we are retaining three of the good gyros.
In a basically, see if it's - how we can explain it. There
is a box - The EVA cable that's taken out that's done on
the EVA part of this thing has basically four connectors
to be connected. Okay. And in the middle of it is a box
about this square with three switches on it - in it. And
those three switches allow us to - Basically inside that
cable there you can almost look at it like two parallel sets
of cables. One of them will continue the continuity of the
old rate gyros to get the data from the rate gyros down to
the C&D panel and into the WCIU. This isn't exactly how it
works, but just think of it this way. The other one will
allow the new six-pack signals to get to the WCIU and into
the computer. Of course, the WCIU is nothing but a box that
takes things from the external world and gets them into the
computer, the ATM DC. Now, that little box, it's a little
metal box with a lld on it is the thing that we use to
select - See there's nine - Look at it as nine wires. There
aren't nine wires. But, say there are nine wires inside the
cable and we're using up six of them with the new gyros and
that leaves three spares. Now coming out of the rack, out
of the ATM are nine wires from the old gyros. So we've got
nine wires and three spare wires in this new cable we're
putting in, and what that little box does - and this is awful
SL-III PC-62C/2
Time: 16:31 CDT
8/22/73

gross. But, what that little box does, is select any three
of those nine to feed on into the ATM DC and into the ATM
control panel. And we have to decide before we go out, and
we will be deciding, we've pretty much decided now, but we
have to decide which one of the three in each axis, you get
one in each axis, you're going to pick. And those switches
are preset, and then they're fixed forever, unless you want to go
do another EVA and change them. You can change them if you
want to go back out and open the lid and change them. And
you could pick three other of the rack gyros. Now, basically,
the three wires that we use, were the wires that were
designated as the third gyro in each axis, if you will. So,
the six-pack, like six-pack XS, and X6, which are the desig-
nations on the six-pack gyros and the X-axls, are now gyros
one and two on the X-axis, and the old gyro will probably be
X-I, will be the third rate gyro in the X-axis. Or, it'll
now become X3.
QUERY Well, could you just really take us
step by step through this? Where do they bring this cable
through? Is there an opening in the airlock module there
someplace where you can bring i.t through? Where actually
do you make the connections, and so on? It's really not
quite clear. And what is this trunnion you're talking about?
HUTCHINSON Okay. The - I wish I would have had
time to bring some pictures over. Because they're really
worth a thousand words. And I have got some very - I did
bring with me about a fifth-order copy of a checklist that
we're using, if I got it out here. I did. That has some
pictures in it. And they're very poor, but it might give
you an idea - in fact, I've probably got something else after
the fact here, I can show you the pictures, about where the
trunnion is relative to - The trunnion plate is a Joint. In
fact, I might as well show you right now, I think I can do
it with the handbook picture, better than I can - The
trunnion plate is a Joint down in the lower right hand side
where it's a position on the ATM. I'm not sure you can see
this. You'll probably have to come up kind of close. But
that drawing ought to look familiar to you. Here's the
ATM up here. And here's the airloek, and there's the support
assemlby. That thing right there is the trunnion plate. Okay.
And on the back side of that plate is nothing but this big
electrical box that has a lot of connectors going in and
out of it, that interfaces cable - -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC62D/i
Time: 16:31 CDT
8/22/73

HUTCHINSON It's nothing but this big electrical

box that has a lot of connectors going in and out of it
that interfaces cables with the inside of the vehicle with
up - with stuff up here on the rack. Now, the WCIU is right
underneath there to another cable box underneath there.
And we aren't - no cables are connected basically from the
from the inside to the outside. We're using cables that
are already - all the connections are broken outside. In
other words, you take out this new cable and it's a - it's
a cable with four - four connectors on it.
QUERY How long is the cable, by the way?
HUTCHINSON Oh, boy, well, it has to go from - you
can get an idea, it's about - Boy, I can't answer. I think it's
around 20 feet long. But, we better get him an - we ought to get
him an answer on that; how long the external cable is. It runs
from - from this area up to the WCIU. And the connectors
he has to - he has to make, and it's best to go back to
this other picture here, he basically - I got another
drawing here. I have to get out my electrical schematic
to do the connectors. I should have come better prepared
for this and better pictures. Anyway, the - the connectors
he estimate - basically he takes apart a connector and now
he has a male and a female. And he takes this cable he's
got and he puts one end of it in - It's a pigtail arrangement.
Right? He has four connectors; two on each end. And down
at the base plate he'll put one into one side of the
connection he broke, and then he'll have a loose cable in
the other one, yon know. For example, let me Just - Suppose
you had a light socket and you had a cord plugged into it.
You pull the cord out of the light socket and now you have
an extension cable and you put one end of the cord into
one end of the extension cable, and you put the other
end of the extension cable back into the light socket.
Now, that's one side of this pigtail arrangement. He turns
right around and does the same thing with another connector
up on the WCIU. And in between these two sets of connectors,
two on each end, is this box which has the gyro seleetings
in it. So, all the connections are - are made and broken
outside. Now of course, there's some additional connections
to be made and broken inside that have to interface the
slx-pack with - with the C&D panel, and with these new
cables we put in. So, basically the way we get through
the pressure vessel is to use the existing wiring. And
then when we get outside the pressure vessel and inside
the pressure vessel we split off at a parallel arrangement
to allow on the inside the installation of the six-pack
 SL-III PC62D/2
Time: 16:31 CDT
8/22/73

_ and on the outside to allow the intergration of the six-pack

and the rack rate gyros that we want to keep; the three
we want to keep. And I got a drawing here that might show
you the - I might be able to explain the cable connectors
a little better. Let me - this electrical drawing looks
complicated, but it's really very simple. If you look at -
look at this thing on the inside, this is the C&D panel,
the ATM C&D panel. There's the - this whole arrangement right
here is the new slx-pack so you don't have to worry about
that for a minute. Here's that trunnion plate I was talking
about, and here's the WCIU and all this over here is the -
Just think of that as the old rate gyro system. Now the
cable I told you were taken out, one is a plc - this hash
llne here is the new cable. And here's that box I was telling
you about that has the switches on it. One end of the
cable has two connectors, the other end of the cable has
two connectors. Now, you used to have the path you used
to have before you did any of this installation - you see
my dotted - here's the ATM C&D panel. You had a cable right
here; it went out of the ATM C&D panel, this black line,
it went through the pressure vessel, through the MDA cable
trayp outside and here's the second connection you broke
was right here, the one down there in the trunnion plate.
Then the cable went right on over here and right on up to
the - to rate gyro - the old rate gyros. Now what you do
is the first thing you do inside is you take this apart
_ from right here and you stick this partial pigtail in. You
see? One end goes in there, one end goes in there. In other
words, every Joint you break you reconnect with one of these
cables we've taken out. That puts the slx-pack in - into the -
in llne - -

END OF TAPE
 SL-III PC-62E/I
Time: 16:31 CDT
8/22/73

HUTCHINSON In other wordsp every Joint you break you

reconnect with one of these cables we've taken out. That
puts the six-pack into the - in line inside the vehicle.
Now when you get outside the vehicle you go down to the
trunnion plate and you - this connection right here used
to be in there. That's the plug we've pulled apart. And
you Just stick that pigtail right in the middle. One end of it
goes in one end and one end goes in the other. Then you
go down here to the WCIU and this thing used to be plugged
in there; pull it apart, put one end of the pigtail in there
and the other end of the pigtail in there. Now what that's
done, effectively, is it's put the a selected three of
this old rate gyros in the loop _nd it's put the new six-pack
in the loop. That's kind of complicated.
QUERY Is there a period here in the drift llne -
this connection is open. I mean there's one period - there's
one period where you don't have any gyroscope control at all?
HUTCHINSON That's correct.
QUERY And that's why AI will be in the command
module Just in case something goes wrong at that period.
HUTCHINSON Well, he won't be in the command module,
but the command mod - he may be in there periodically to
check these attitudes. The command module will be powered
up and will be capable of taking over attitude control.
The - AI has quite a few operations to do with the APCS in
_ connection with going to this free-drlft mode. And basically
it involves getting all the power off of all these cables.
Because up - right up until the time when we break the con-
nections, these cables all have signals going through them,
because they're still controlling attitude with the APCS.
And we have to - he has to go into the computer - through
the computer with some commands and power down - for example,
he has to turn off all the rack rate gyros, because
they're still feeding signals through those cables and we
don't want the guys disconnecting hot cables. In addition
to getting the gear off, he also has to reconfigure the
attitude control system to this nominal H-cage which in
simple terms is a continual open loop caging of the gyros -
the big rate gyros - the CMG - the big rack - the CMGs,
the control moment gyros, to nominal momentum, which in -
without any rate gyro feedback, they're all open loop. In
other words, they don't know where the vehicle is. We're
just going to arbitrarily keep putting the signal in there
and this will help to stabilize the vehicle while it's -
while he has these connections disconnected. And then as
soon as they get everything connected, AI has to back out
of this whole thing. He goes back and turns on all the rack
 SL-III PC-62E/2
Time: 16:31 CDT
8/22/73

HUTCHINSON rate gyros, he puts the attitude control

system back in control, and so on and so forth. And in the
meantime, of course, we've got the CSM up the whole time.
QUERY Could you use any kind of combinations of
the gyros then. Like, for instance, if you think of the old
ones, could you use let's say X-I and Y-3 and Z-2.
HUTCHINSON Only - yes and no. You have to decide before
you go back in which ones you want to use of the old gyros
and you're stuck with them until another EVA. Now as far
as combinations, you can use any combination of the old and
new as long as you - you know, the three you've picked of
the old and then, of course, you can use them in any combina-
tion with the new the two new ones.
QUERY A couple of things, Nell. When - on these
connections how big around is the cables they're going to be
working with and I'm not real sure when you're talking about
pulling one plug out and all, is it just llke a wall - say
a lamp plug or has it got a whole lot of little connections.
HUTCHINSON Oh, no. There are many, many, many connec-
tions in there. That's okay; I'ii get them. The - to give
you an idea - let me just count them here. Oh, there's
probably, for example, in a typical one of them, there's
25 or 30 signals. And I'm not sure the - in fact I am sure.
I can tell - in fact, I've got something here that has - I
had something here. That's typical. I don't think it's
"_ important that you need to know the exact number, but there
are llke 20 or 25 or 30 signals in each one and there are
20 or 25 or 30 little pins, llke there are two plns in your
light socket. And the plugs are in general, they vary in
size but the wires that you're talking about - the cables
are, of course, all little wires rolled up into one big wire
llke a coaxial cable. They're probably as big around as my
finger. Some of them - maybe some of them as big around as
my thumb, that's the general size of them. The connectors
on the end, in general, are llke that big around and maybe - -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-62F/I
Time: 16:31 CDT
8122173

HUTCHINSON - - around as my thumb. That's the

general size of them. The connectors on the end, in general,
are llke that big around. And maybe a couple of them are
as big around as the end of this microphone.
QUERY Are you talking about then - You're
talking about one- to two-inch overall dimension - or diameter
of the cable itself?
HUTCHINSON No, no. I was talking about a cable
that was the size of my finger going into a plug on the end
of it that was about that big around. Maybe one- or two-lnch
diameter.
QUERY But there'd be no problem if they
disconnected the current cables? They pull those out -
there'd be no problem plugging them back up.
HUTCHINSON None whatsoever.
QUERY You're fully confident that Jack's
not going to give it a big heave-ho and bend some of those
things or anything. I mean it's - -
HUTCHINSON I have done it. In fact, last night I went
over there, worked on a couple of them inside. We were talking
about trying to get a couple of them off inside without
taking a bit kick-plate off that covers them up down there at
the bottom of the C&D. And it requires you getting inside
with your hands and with the pliers and - I can say with
utmost confidence, you would really have to be off center
to mess them up, either connectlng them or nnconnecting them - al-
most physically impossible. One ithing, Bruce, they're
keyed. And you can't mate the thing together with a male
and female ends. You can't get the pins to touch the female
recepticle unless you're in the slots on the keys, unless
you get the keys in. Now, if you took it here's one
end, and if you took the other end of it and went in side-
ways like this, at about a - I'd say you'd have to go in
at about a 60-degree angle. You could touch the pins with
a hard metal surface, but it would be almost - I mean it's
unbelie - Just completely unlikely. And, of course, all
these external connections are nice and laying out there
right flat, where you can, you know, get you hands around
them and work on them and so on, and so forth. And he is -
does have, of course, we've got the cable tools that we
took up with us, for this purpose.
QUERY How does he use the cable tools?
HUTCHINSON Basically, to break the initial torque
on the end connec - on the connectors. They're nothing
but a fancy pair of pliers, a mighty big pair, about this
long, with a specially curved ends and a rubber device that
grips the or rubber coating - and say it's not rubber. I
don't know what it is, a rough surface inside, that grips
the end of the cable, and the deueh connector, or whatever
 SL-III PC-62F/2
Time: 16:31 CDT
8/22/73

you want to call them. And you use that as an initial

force to break the torque on the thing and then you can
get it with your hand and turn it.
QUERY You said you were going to bring up
the CSM G&N. If you have to use the CM attitude control
system, you would still keep quads B and D inhibited, would
you?
HUTCHINSON Yes. We have, as you know, developed an
attitude control mode, using the auto pilot, hands off,
essentially fully automatic attitude control, not essentially,
exactly fully attitude control with the 555 deadband, using
the CSM G&N, using only quads A and C.
QUERY And have you anything yet on TV during
the EVA. Plans, timelines, et cetera?
HUTCHINSON No. But I did bring a Flight Plan with
me. And the coverage during the first part of it is fairly
poor, in fact, unfortunately, the time that is scheduled,
we're going - it's not over the states, no, sir. In fact,
none of it will be. Before we get anywhere near the states
we'll be, should be well back inside. We're running it,
the beginning of it, pretty much Hawaii, Vanguard, Hawaii,
Vanguard. It gets a little better, but television coverage
is going to be after the fact, I'm afraid.
Q_ERY How long would the drift period be
under normal circumstances?
f_ HUTCHINSON Five minutes. I wish you wouldn't call
it drift. It's not really. It's open loop attitude control,
is what it is. Now, it really is. There is a definite
attitude control system in control of the vehicle. And, the
fact of the matter is, you just don't have any device measur-
ing attitude drifts, if you get a lot of external torques.
If we don't get - If we didn't have any other torques in
the vehicle but gravity gradient, it wouldn't move a bit.
But of course, the crewmen are out there, moving around. And
they supply some amount of torque. So the vehicle is going
to move, and we expect it to drift off some small amount,
i0 or - -

END OF TAPE
 SL III PC-62G/I
TIME: 16:31 CDT
8/22/73

_" HUTCHINSON But of course the crewmen are out there

moving around and they supply some amount of torque so the
vehicle is going to move. And we do expect it to drift off
some small amount, i0 or 15 degrees, maybe.
QUERY Are thereany plates or anything they have
to remove to get at any of these connections?
HUTCHINSON No, sir.
QUERY And my other question. Is there any
concern about - during the EVA you only have one coolant
loop left?
HUTCHINSON No, sir.
QUERY Are you going put TV on the VTR then?
HUTCHINSON Yes.
QUERY What would you have to see on that RCS -
I mean on the drift to cause you to use the RCS?
• HUTCHINSON Well, basically we've kind of tried to
cook up some ground rules, and you would have to see some-
thing pretty bad. The crew has the option, of course, on
any kind of a real -time evaluation to use the CSM if they
feel that the APCS is not doing the thing right. We feel
that we're going to be disconnected so short a period of
time that we won't see any drifts at all. However, we have
established some criteria. Th% crew has a standard criteria
for use of the CSM. They always have, which is, you know,
any rates that they don't like, that they think that they
need to get stopped right away. We basically want the
vehicle back in solar inertial attitude by sunrise the next
sunrise. Within about 20 degrees of solar inertial attitude
the next sunrise. And I think if we had trouble with the
installation, for example, we got it disconnected and
couldn't get it reconnected and we got some bad drifts,
suppose we roll way over, or something like that, when it
came around to the next sunrise we would expect them to
use the CSM to get us back in solar inertial. We need to
be back there within reason, like within 15 or 20 degrees
for electrical power consideration. Now, so, they have
been given - or they will be given instructions to do that.
But we don't expect them to use them. To have to use them.
QUERY Well, what if this operation turned out
not to be as simple as you apparently think it's going to
be? Something was broken, Jack couldn't handle it. What
would the procedure be then, or do you have any ground
rules.
HUTCHINSON Oh yeah. Of course, if - We'll be in
contact with them and if, for example, if we got the thing
unhooked and plugged in the new rate gyros and we didn't
like it, we'd back out. We'd go right back down and re-
connect up the old ones, because we aren't in trouble on
 SL IIl MC-62G/2
TIME: 16:51 CDT
8/22/73

the old ones yet. And you can hold attitude with the CSM
for a long time. We've looked at the attitude control costs,
if indeed the attitude was deviating beyond something you
could tolerate with the electrical power situation. Cost
is somewhere less than i0 pounds in orbit of RCS fuel to
hold attitude in the 555 deadband, and we have plenty of
RCS above the red lines on the service module RCS deorbit, like
a hundred pounds or something. We could hold orbit all day
long with the CSM if we got into that posture, in order to
back out. The - If it takes them longer than we expect
again, the evaluation is going to have to be made as to
whether we're coping with the attitude control thing relative
to the Suu and if we're not, use of the CSM is prescribed,
because of course, you can't do any more with the APCS than
we're doing with the cables disconnected. You can only
nominal cage the CMGs and of course, continuous use of the
CSM is not necessary, you can take it back to solar inertial
and let loose of it with the CSM and see if the CMGs can
cope with it. For example, if the guy got to moving around
violently or something for some reason and the attitude
started off and you took it back with the CSM, hopefully
you will have taken the rates out and you can let loose of
it with the CSM and let the APCS continue to nominal H-cage
and probably bold you there. And now we wouldp you know, in
all situations like that, it's llke when we went out for
the solar panel or anything else, you know, you've got to
.f make decisions at the time, based on how the crew's doing.
Whether to press on or whether to discontinue what you're
doing. We really don't expect to have any trouble and I'm
not trying to minimize it, because it is a significant
thing we're doing here, replacing the basic guts of the
attitude control system, but, on the other hand, we're
really just disconnecting four cables and reconnecting them,
and that doesn't look to us llke it's going to present much
of a task.
QUERY Well, you're also playing with an RCS
system that you don't know a lot about and you had trouble
with, aren't you?
HUTCHINSON Well, we think we understand the RCS system,
and of course, we're using the two quads that don't have any
anomalies at all in them. And we have definite established
guidelines on how much of that RCS that we can use, and we
know how much it's going to cost us -

END OF TAPE
 SL-III PC62H/I
Time: 16:31 CDT
8/22/73

HUTCHINSON . .. don't have any anomalies at all

in them. And we have definite established guidelines on
how much of that RCS we can use and we know how much it's
going to cost us to run this attitude control configuration
if we have to go to the CSM which we don't expect anyway.
So, I don't think that presents any particular worry.
QUERY Without the - the rate gyros you have
either the Just letting the nominal H-cage with the C - CMGs
control or you've got the command service module RCS and
that's it. Right?
HUTCHINSON Yes.

QUERY In other words, you have no other form of backup.

And there's no way for the ground to work with the CMGs
other than nominal. Is that also correct?
HUTCHINSON No. And in fact - in fact we did in-
vestigate a plan where we would do some things we call
momentum bias. We could cage them to any place we wanted.
And we looked at that and decided that the procedures
were complicated enough and required enough commanding
- in fact a significant amount of commanding on the part
of the crewmen because they have to do it because we're
out of station contact a lot of the time that we chose
not to bias momentum. The answer to the question is that
yes we could control the vehicle from the ground using a -
_ by caging the CMGs to different - different places based
on whatever torques we were getting. Of course, you can't
do that continually and that would he a - a tough task.
QUERY You'd really only be able to control
it in a gross fashion, but you really don't know where it
is.
HUTCHINSON Yes.

QUERY The rate gyros would be telling you

precisely the attitude.
HUTCHINSON Well we do know where it is because
the CSM is up. That's one of the prime reasons for bringing
the CSM up. It's very accurate attitude control, because
the platform will be up. And that's on telemetry and on
crew displace.
QUERY In one other area - Did they lose the
film on the H-alpha? Seem like on the alr-to-ground some-
one said that they thought it was out on the ground, so
they were going to check it.
HUTCHINSON Oh, no. That was - no, that was a
question on our part to get a hack on exactly where we
were on the film on the H-alpha by asking the crew for a
readout. And let me see, we left H-alpha on a night patrol
 SL-III PC62H/2
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8/22/73

or something. I don't recall the exact circumstances, but

one time over a nightside pass during the day-to-day
H-alpha was left running and we weren't sure when they got
it off. And in able to re-anchor our frame count here on
the ground for budgeting purposes we asked the crew for
readout. I think that's all that amounted to.
QUERY Also, will you have full telemetry with -
with the slx-pack that you had with the others?
HUTCHINSON Yes.
QUERY I wonder why we got such bad information when
this thing was sent out. We were told there would be no
telemetry work with it. But you got full - Just like the built
in gyros. You have - this is Just as good as having the
original six.
HUTCHINSON Yes, to my knowledge. Maybe you know
something I don't. Bruce, I'm - as a matter of fact, I've
even seen a - I think I've seen a plan for a change in
some some calibration curves in the computers here.
Best to my - best to my knowledge Now there is some -
there probably is some telemetry we don't have. We don't
have we've got the telemetry out of the computer. The
basic guts of what the gyros' doing we have. There is some
telemetry we don't have. We don't have the temperature
measurements like we have on the real gyros. The crew
has to make those by putting that connector in. We don't
f have the rod gyro outputs; we only have what the computer
see. The crew again gets the rod gyro outputs. So you're
right that we don't have all the telemetry. But we got
the real basic telemetry which is the gryo inputs that
the computers see and the intergration of those inputs to
see what kind of attitudes errors they're measuring and
so on and so forth, which is what you really need to assess
the help of the grye, or how well it's performing. But
you're right that we don't have it all.
QUERY Will they be operative as soon as
they're connected up, or will it take some time to warm
them up (garble)?
HUTCHINSON Oh, it's a second - minute and a half.
PAO Any further questions? If not, I have
an announcement that we Just received from Washington.
william C. Schneider, Skylab Program Director, announced
today that the second manned Skylab mission has been given
approval for the first 7 day continuation beyond 28 days,
the longest previous manned spaceflight. Beyond the
successful completion of the 28 day first Skylab manned
mlssion_ decision was made by Dr. James Fletcher, the
NASA Administrator the continuation of Skylab beyond the
28 day duration would be made for 7 day periods. Decisions

r
 SL-III PC62H/3
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8/22/73

for each seven-day increment would follow review of the

inflight medical data and the recommendation of the NASA
Director for Life Sciences, Dr. Charles A. Berry. The mid-
term review was completed this week at the Johnson Space
Center with participation - -

END OF TAPE

F-
SL-III PC-621/I
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PAO - - dation of the NASA Director for

Life Sciences, Dr. Charles A. Berry. The mld-term review
was completed this week at the Johnson Space Center with
participation of the medical Principal InvestiEators, the
Principal CoordinatlnE Scientists, the Medical Operations
personnel and the NASA Director for Life Sciences. Following
this review, the medical findings were discussed with the
Skylab ProEram Director, the Associate Administrator for
Manned Space Flight and with the NASA Administrator and
selected members of a Medical Consultation Group. The
approval for this mission continuation, until at least
August 31, 1973, followed these discussions. Weekly reviews
for additional seven day continuations are scheduled with
the Skylab Program Director and the NASA Administrator for Life
Sciences. Thank you.
SPEAKER Thank you. I do have one more question.
PA0 One more question.
QUERY The FliEht Plan today, called for
Owen to do a practice on a science demonstration. Did he
do it and do you know what he was practicinE? And when he's
liable to do the actual demonstration on TV?
HUTCHINSON Was it scheduled to be done before I
left over there?
QUERY About 9:00 o'clock this mornlnE, or
something like that.
HUTCHINSON Yeah. l'm sure that he did it. And
I can't answer when itts going to appear in the FliEht
Plan as a regular demonstration. But we ouEht to be able
to get them that answer. Also, l'm goin E to answer on the
cable. How - exactly how lon E that cable is. I get too
tied up on EVA, I'm - -

END OF TAPE
 SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
Houston, Texas
x

Skylab III - Medical Status Briefing

Johnson Space Center
August 23, 1973
2:10 p.m. CDT

Participants:

Dr. Royce Hawkins, Flight Doctor

Dr. Gerald Homick, MI30 Medical Exp.
Dr. Robert Johnson, PI M092
Jack Riley, PAO

PC-64
 SL-III PC-64A/I
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PAO okay, we're ready to start the Medical

Status Briefing. Dr. Royce Hawkins, the executive director
of the Life Sciences here for medical operations, Dr. Robert
Johnson has the M092 experiment and Dr. Jerry Homlck, the
MI31 experiment. Dr. Hawkins would you llke to make a summary
of -

HAWKINS Okay, we'll try. Let's see we're really

right at the midpoint in the mission and we'll try to recap
what is what has happened concentrating mostly upon what has
really transpired since the last medical briefing we had for
you when - I believe Dr. Whittle and Mr. Michel and
Dr. Detline were here. The - as you know the crew got off
to a slow start with the development of motion sickness systems
during the first few days of the flight. It deflnletly slowed
down the activation period and I think we saw quite a
sufficient drop in body weights at that time, as a result
of the illness that they were experiencing and the fact of
course they were not able to take in the proper diet at that
time. Now this is all corrected itself, I think very
satisfactorily and the crew are eating well and the body
weights are really very stable. Now this doesn't mean that
they have gained back any of the initial weight loss but
they are at a satisfactory level, in both intake
and output is good and we feel very - very satisfied with
the general health and condition with the crew at this
time, I think that they're in excellent shape really. Now
what I would like to do is to have Dr. Johnson review for you
-- the results of the M092 studies to date and then Dr. Homick
to review for you the other very interesting study the MI31
the vestibular response. So and then after that I'll try to
recap a little hit of the MI71, the bicycle ergometer results
to date. Okay, Bob.
JOHNSON As you know the M092 experiment imposes
a stress on the cardiovascular system which simulates that
of gravity. The crew has now - all of them have accomplished
6 tests as of today with the Scientist Pilot getting his
seventh test today. In general they have shown responses quite
similar to what we saw in Skylah'2. Which - In which testing
was completed about this time. The leg volume changes during
lower body negative pressure have been quite similar to the
Skylab-2 crew and we're also seeing comparable losses in the
size of the calf in the legs. These amount to between 3/4 and 1
inch now, in each of the 3 crewmen. But we think that they're
doing quite well in the light of what we saw in Skylab-2. That's
all that I have.

HAWKINS Okay. I wonder if any of you have any

specific questions in this particular area right now, maybe
we ought to just go ahead and take those, one at a time.
PAO Okay.
QUERY Have all three of the astronauts been
able to do the full protocol -

END OF TAPE
 SL-III PC-64B/I
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QUERY Have all three of the astronauts been

able to do the full protocol on the lower body negative
pressure?
HAWKINS They have all maintained the original
protocol, which goes up to 50 millimeters of mercury differential
with three exceptions. On the first test, which was on
Mission day 5 in the case of the scientist pilot and mission
day 6 in the case of the pilot. They were not able to
complete the full protocol. And this happened again
on the commander's fourth test, but subsequently their
responses have been quite good again. We think the first
2 tests were that the results of those tests were related
to their motion sickness in the previous days before this
test was done.
QUERY What about the case of the commander
on the 4th test? What day was that, and how far was he
able to go?
HAWKINS That was on August 16th, on the mission
day 20.
QUERY Are the six and seven runs normal for
this ti - is this what you expected to have at this stage
of the mission, or are they behind?
HAWKINS This is very close to what we expected
We got started later and this is just one behind what we
were on Skylab-2. We did think that we would cut down some
r
on the first part of this mission.
QUERY _uld you go into it a little bit what
happened to the commander, in that he was not able to complete
the full protocol?
HAWKINS Well he developed a response, whleh we
saw also three times in the Skylab-2 crew, in which his
blood pressure narrowed to the point where there was pro-
duction of some symptoms of light headlness iand slight
nausea. And the test was stopped because of that.
QUERY Was that at the equlvalent level of the
Skylab-2, was it at 40?
HAWKINS It was at 40 in two cases. The first
two. And at 50 in the third.
QUERY But you decided to continue him on
the full protocol in spite of his response on day 20?
HAWKINS Yes. If you remember_ we did get back
on the protocol in the case of the scientist pilot and the
pilot, in Skylab-2. We haven't done that with this crew.
QUERY Where do you go from here, how many
more runs do you plan for the rest of the mission? And
are you going to concentrate them towards the end of the mission,
or what?
SL-III PC-64B/I
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HAWKINS The plan is to run these tests at

three day centers. Such as we tried to keep on Skylab-2
during the first 28 days. And during this mission, during
the first 28 days, it's been approximately on a 4 day center.
PAO O kay. We've had several called in from
Washington on this particular experiment. And I think Dr.
Johnson has covered all of those except perhaps one, and
that is, what were their pulse rates?
HAWKINS All of their - Do you know whether he's
referring to specific tests, or Just in general?
PAO No, sir. I think they're just talking
about giving general, max rates and max stress level (garble).
HAWKINS We're seeing slightly elevated resting
heart rates, that is before the stress is applied in the
test. And elevations in the neighborhood of probably
25 to 30 beats on the average, greater than they showed
in preflight, during the maximum stress.
QUERY What was the (garble) loss of the
SL-2 crew at the end of 28 days - -

END OF TAPE
 SL-III PC64C/I
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f_

QUERY ... the 10th loss of the SL-II crew that

ended 28 days, and when did they regain that loss?
HAWKINS The loss in two of the crewmen was Just
about where this crew is now; around i inch in each leg.
The third crewman, the Pilot, who had the largest leg to
start with lost about an inch and a half in leg girth. Now
we saw approximately these same differences that R plus 0,
only a slight increase, but that was only a few hours after
splashdown. And approximately the same curve of return of
size over the next 3 weeks, as the loss. A more rapid
return initially and then a leveling off. And at about
3 weeks they were all nearly back to their preflight size.
PAO Okay, can we - -
QUERY On the same llne, could you - can you
predict what the loss might be now over a 59 day mission
of the calf loss based on what you know now?
HAWKINS We can predict with, I guess, some assurance
that the greatest loss occurs early in the mission and that
now it appears to be proceeding in a much slower rate than
initially. At - at day 16 in the mission they were all close
to three quarters of an inch and they're - see now Just gone
at the most, a quarter of an inch further than that. And
whether it's going to level off completely we can't say, hut
at least it's going to be very much slower.
PAO Steve.
_ QUERY Before the flight Garriott said that
he was going to try some measurements on other parts of his
body like his - his arms and anything llke that. Has he
said anything about that?
HAWKINS He hasn't to my knowledge, Steven.
SPEAKER Jim, I'm not of - I - we have not gotten
any data down confirming that. I don't know honestly whether
he has tempted it or not. At that point I guess we ought
to try to find out, really.
PAO Okay, I guess we can go to the Doctor.
SPEAKER Okay, if we can press on then, I'd llke
to have Dr. Homlck cover for you then the results of the
131 studies.
SPEAKER Host of you, I'm sure, know by now we're
doing three different things with the MI31 experiment. We're
using the the occulogyral illusion threshold test to measure
the sensitivity of the semicircular canels of the crewmen
in flight. We are measuring the crewmens susceptibility
to motion sickness. And I believe you're all familiar with
this test that involves riding the rotating chair and performing
the standarlzed head movements. And lastly we are making
SL-III PC64C/2
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some periodic measurments of their space for orlentational

ability. On the occulogyro illusion threshold measurements
of the OGI, each crewman has been tested 3 times to date.
To qualify that_ the SPT and the PLT have been tested 3 times
to date. The responses we're seeing there are very similar
to those we observed on the Skylab II crew. From the data
we've received thus far itts obvious that the crewmen are able
to see this illusion as well as they would on the ground_ and
perhaps Just a tiny bit better. There's the slightest hint
that their ability to detect the illusion in zero gravity is
Just a little bit better than it was on the ground. On the
motion sensitivity test_ I think the events of the first
3 days have been pretty well documented by now. We did not
see them on the motion sensitivity test until mission day 5.
And at that time the SPT and the PLT went through the mock
rotation test. Now, in other words they were in the chair,
they performed the standarized head movements but the chair
was not rotated. This is the same thing we did on Skylab II.
It was planned and it was simply a - -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-64D/I
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HOMICK standardized head movements, but

the chair was not rotated. This is the same thing we did
on Skylab-2. It was planned. And it was simply a conservative
approach to exposing the crewmen tothls type of stress the
first time around in zero g. During that first test, both
crewmen went 150 head movements. The SPT had absolutely no
symptomatology, the pilot reported a very slight bit of
dizziness, which according to our standards would be almost
insignificant in terms of a symptom relative to motion
sickness. The pilot was again tested on mission day 8, and
at this time, the chair was rotated at 20 RPM, which was
the baseline RPM established for him. He went 150 head
movements with absolutely no symptoms. The SPT was tested
for the second time on mission day 12, at 20 RPM, performed
150 head movements with no symptoms. Both crewmen were
tested again, on mission day 18, and this time the chair
RPM was increased to 25. Again, they both performed 150
head movements, which is maximum allowable by our protocol,
with absolutely no symptoms. These two men will be tested
again Saturday if the schedule holds up and at that time,
we'll go to 30 RPM. Beyond Saturday, they'll each be tested
twice again, roughly about mission day 42 and then mission
day 52 and 53. On the spacial localization, measurements,
each crewman has been tested twice already, the second
measurement coming just yesterday. We haven't even taken
a look at that data yet. But on the basis of cursory look
at the data from the first run, which was around mission day 7 or 8
I believe, we're seeing the same kinds of very slight changes that
we observed on Skylab-2. In other words3 a very slight
shift relative to their baseline settings with the otollth
test goggle and the rod and sphere devlce_ and perhaps
a very slight increase in the variability on their settings,
but nothing that would indicate any problemsD whatsoever in that
area. One thing that I might comment on further is,
that relating back to Skylab-2, you recall that immediately
upon reentry into l-g_ the crewmen, particularly the scientist
pilot, exhibited some vestibular problems. As a result
of that, we are going to try and implement some immediate
post flight vestibular tests on this crew, so that we might
be able to quantify the changes that appear to occur fairly
rapidly upon reentry into l-g. And these of course, will
be done aboard the recovery ship and then followed up later
by the normal tests scheduled back here at JSC. That about
wraps up my comments.
QUERY This doesn't have anything to do with
your test specifically, but I wondered, since Bean got
sick, was he sick during Apollo 12, at all or have any
symptoms of motion sickness?
 SL-III PC-64D/2
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f_ 8/23/73

HAWKINS Jim, yes, I think he did. I don't believe that

we saw anything to the degree that was experienced with this
flight. But I believe that we can definitely say that
there were some of the early symptoms of stomach fullness
and that type of symptomatology, that has been experienced,
I think, by a majority of the crews. That is a part of
the symptomatology too. That feeling of stomach fullness
and awareness and all.
QUERY This is a general health question. Are
we ready for that now?
PAO I think we better stick with the 131's
and then we'll go to the general stuff. Does any body have
a ah - Howard.
QUERY Just to clarify this. You said that
Garrlott and Lousma, each_ had three turns at the MI31, how
many turns has Bean had?
HOMICK Okay. The commander is not scheduled
for this part of the experiment. And on Skylah-2 - -

END OF TAPE
 SL III MC-64E/I
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8123173

HAWKINS scheduled for this part of the experiment.

And on Skylab II, Pete Conrad wasn't run at all. We sort
of lucked into something, I think, on Skylab III, in that
the crew is now finding that they've got a little more free
time on their hands and they're asking for some constructive
things to do. And the one suggestion that had been made
was that AI Bean get a chance to ride the chair, and let
us get a data point on him. And, as a matter of fact, that
got scheduled in rather quickly and was accomplished late
yesterday afternoon, and we got the data back Just this
morning, and I haven't even had a chance to look at all of
it, but we do know that on the MS test, the motion sensitivity
test, we had him ride at 20 rmp, which was his baseline, and
he performed 150 head movements with no symptoms, so I be-
lieve that he's probably showing this tremendous change in
susceptibility, this relative immunity to motion sickness
now, just as are the other two crewmen. Whether or not
we'll get to test AI again the remainder of the mlssion_
I don't know yet.
HAWKINS Okay, let me go ahead then and briefly
cover the metabolic activity, the Ml71 study, primarily.
Now, I believe we've had, will have had through the day
four successive runs with each of the crewmen on the
bicycle ergometer. All the experiment protocols have been
completed. As of this morning, this afternoon's, we'll have
.._ seen. I'm sure that we'll find that it will be completed
as the others have been. We've - From a hardware stand-
point, we did have some problem, as I think you're aware of,
with the bicycle ergometer malfunction. Non experiment
related, but that seems to be working satisfactorily now,
and we're getting good data from the run. Now, from the
very onset, we have seen in all three of the crewmen, slightly
elevated heart rates and blood pressures. Not only at the
maximum stress levels, but also this seemed to persist even
at the resting and the recovery periods of the study. Now
we were interested to see whether this was going to continue
to show trends toward increasing through the mission or
Just what was going to happen with it. Actually it really
looks llke we're seeing a decrease now, back toward more of
their baseline of preflight values. We are however, still
running a little higher than the baselines at the maximum
stress - the third step level of the study. I
think from this exercise response, the crew looks very good,
and especially, this is important in light of the EVA
coming up tomorrow. I feel very satisfied with what we
have seen to date with all three of the crews and I have no
reservations about their taking part in the EVA activity
tomorrow as planned.
 SL III PC-64E/2
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_ 8/23/73

PAO Okay, Tom.

QUERY Dr. Hawkins last week during one of the
daily health status reports, Just sort of slipped in right
there at the end of the day that Dr. Cannon aald that the
doctors have no trepidation about going a full 59 days.
And is that an absolutely formal decision. Have you told
the administrator - program director, rather, about it?
HAWKINS Well, our position right at this point, and
we have Just had a very thorough review of what data we
have seen thus far in the mission, and compared that with
what we have seen in Skylab II, and if it is our recommendation
to Dr. Fletcher that we see nothing in the data thus far
that would indicate that we could not press on with the
mission, and being optimistic, as we are, we feel that we
can go the full 59 days as planned. But, we are taking
this on a week by week basis. Right now we've -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-64F/I
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HAWKINS - feel that we can go the full 59 days

as planned, but we are taking this on a week by week basis.
Right now, we've - Dr. Fletcher's heard our recommendation
and has made the announcement, "yes, we'll press on for another
week." Next week we'll review all the data up to that point.
And that is the program's plan, to do this on a week by
week basis.
QUERY We had the announcement yesterday. Does
that mean we can expect one every Wednesday from now on?
HAWKINS That's right.
PAO Jim?
QUERY Can you give us their weights now?
HAWKINS Jim, I don't have them - Wait a minute.
Maybe I do too. I can tell you what the Deltas are, but
that's - The commander's about 4 pounds under what his
launch weight was, Jim. And the other two about 6 pounds.
SPEAKER (garbel) were yesterday.
HAWKINS Is that varied out? Okay. To give
you the actual weights, as of yesterday. Which one is this?
SPEAKER That's commander Bean's.
HAWKINS What's this?
SPEAKER 230 was yesterday's.
HOMICK Oh, okay. Okay. So what is this, this
is Al's weight?
HAWKINS That's at the launch weight.
HOMICK This is, - Okay. All right. He was
146-1/2, that's AI, yesterday, Owen's weight was 129.7,
and Jack's weight was 188.8.
QUERY That was their weight yesterday?
HOMICK Yes, sir.
QUERY That - Those other weights the Deltas
were from launch?
HOMICK Yes. The ones I was quoting off from
the top of my head here. I think those - I think those will -
You subtract those from their original preflight, I think
that's Just about what they'll come out to, Jim. Give or take
a few points or 10ths of a pound or so.
QUERY How are they doing in their exercise
program?
HAWKINS I think they're doing really very well.
The pilot has been averaging something llke about 4000 watts-
watt minutes of exercise per day, which is Just about twice
the level the other two have been working toward. Now this
does compare very favorably with what the commander in
Skylab-2 was doing, except for the pilot, who is working
well and above the commander's, Skylab-2 commander's levels.
You understand, or did I muttle that? The two crew AI, and
Owen are working pretty much llke Pete did. And_ certainly,
at this time and Jack is working Just about twice that.
 SL-III PC-64F/2
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They're picking up more and more with this - with the

exercise. And I think that we'll probably see Owen and A1
doing more and more of this as the mission progresses. But
they're handling it very nicely, I think.
QUERY On the - The first Skylab crew you had
two members who were not able to complete the protocol in
lower body negative pressure. And on this mission, except
for Bean, which wasn't - didn't seem to be as serious as
the first Skylab crew, these don't - apparently, haven't
showed any deconditioning of the heart. Can you go into
any reasons for this?
HAWKINS Well, I think, that one factor, probably
is the higher exercise levels that they're maintaining in this
flight. The - I don't know that they really look much
different from the stand point of the M092 experiment than
the Skylab-2 crew did, though, from what they did. It was
we think, now that we could have gone - maintained the
original protocol - -

END OF TAPE

f_
 SL-III PC64G/I
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- 8123173

HAWKINS ... than the Skylab II crew did though.

From what they did it was a - We think now that we could have
gone - maintained the original protocol on the Skylab II crew
also.
QUERY Did the Commander - Did Bean's test
actually have to be stopped short?
HAWKINS Yes.
QUERY How much how -
HAWKINS One - On day 20 he was almost through
the test, he liked about a minute of finishing it. And the
other two times were first the first test and both of those
were stopped around 8 minutes early.
QUERY This was in the first Skylab crew?
HAWKINS No, in this crew. Their first - -
QUERY Oh.
HAWKINS - - test in flight.
QUERY Did the crew comment in any way on how
well they slept? And do you know how the sleep monitoring
experiments went?
HAWKINS Yeah. Let me - I think the interesting
differences here between Skylab II are the duration of sleep
which the Science Pilot is experiencing. He's sleeping
just about the same number of hours, or slightly more than
what he slept in preflight which is different from what
we saw on the Skylab II crew in that they were sleeping about
an hour- hour and a half less and seemingly requiring about
that much less than what they did preflight. Another interest-
ing difference we're seeing with Skylab III are the are the
stages of sleep. Like we - in II we saw more of the - the -
more in the stage four than what the crew crewmen experienced
preflight. Dr. Frost, the PI on this - on this experiment
has found that Owen is - is spending a little more time in
the stage 2, which seems to be the - the area that he's
concentrating most of his sleep in rather than in the deeper
stage. Now, what this means yet I don't - I don't know and
I don't know that Dr. Frost has really come to any conclusions
on it.
QUERY Would you define stage 4 and/or stage 2?
HAWKINS Well, they're just levels of depth of
sleep that you go through, and they have found that there
are four di - distinct stages that they can identify from
the brainwave traces, electroencephalogram, that they can
specifically and positively identify the depth at which the
man is sleeping.
QUERY Would 4 be considered deeper sleep than
2?
SL-III PC64G/2
Time: 14:10 CDT
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HAWKINS Deeper sleep than 2, right. One - stage

i, 2, 3, and 4 and then you have the rem sleep where you have
a lot of - of eye movement, and a lot of emotional activities
supposingly taking place within that period.
QUERY Dr. Hawkins, you sad that the Science
Pilot slep slightly more; how about the two other ones?
HAWKINS We're not measuring ECG - EKG, pardon,
EEG except on the one - one crewman. I wished we I wished
we - we had the opportunity to do that, but we don't. We
only monitor one man.
QUERY Have you looked at their sleeping times
the - the ones they report? I mean how do they compare to - to
the sleeping times of the SL II crew or to their presleeplng
times?
HAWKINS The - I'm not sure I quite understand
what you're - -
PAO He means how many hours a night are they
sleeping.
QUERY Yeah.
HAWKINS Well, it's averaging about 7 to 7-1/2
hours. This is pretty much the average for all three of the
crew. And supposedly good sleep; they seem to be well
rested.
QUERY Was there any meaningful loss of data
during those first oh, 3 or 4 days when they were - were
motion sick in any of the medical experiments?
HAWKINS Jim I don't think so. Might let Bob Johnson
talk about the - -

END OF TAPE
SL III PC-64H/I
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8/23/73

SPEAKER we might let Bob Johnson talk about the

M092 first run on their -
QUERY Bob, how much of that do you feel was a
positional thing on the - as opposed to a presyncopal in the
case of Bean -
JOHNSON That's a factor. He did - He was experienc-
ing some abdominal pain at the time that he had this first
episode on his first run and that plus the preceeding motion
sickness, I'm sure, both of those factors played a part in
it. I think that as far as experiment data is concerned
that we would have started the 92 one day earlier, we'd
have had runs on 4 and 5 rather than 5 and 6 day.
QUERY Let's say they were probably a little
dehydrated, and I was thinking more in that area, and then
some of your mineral balance loss studies, things llke that.
JOHNSON Well, those, of course,:those analyses will
have to wait until we get the samples back, so that we
understand. Now, we know their intakes were very much down
during that initial 4 or 5 day period there. Their intakes
dropped very drastically there and now they - immediately
then, as soon as the symptoms subsided they immediately
began to feel llke their normal selves and their appetites
returned and they immediately picked up with their food
intake, so that I feel llke the - over the next few days
then their nutritional state returned to a good balance.
But I think we're definitely going to see a very marked
effect upon the mineral electrolyte balance in that first 5 day
period. First 7 day period.
PAO Okay, I think you've managed through
brilliant questioning to cover all the other questions
from Washington so -
SPEAKER Okay.
PAO We adjourn. Thank you.
i

END OF TAPE i
 SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
Houston, Texas

Skylab III - Rate Gyro 6-Pack Installation Demo Press Conference

Johnson Space Center
August 23, 1973
1:05 p.m. CDT

Participants:

Rusty Schweickart, astronaut

Ted Buras, ATM Flight Crew InteEratlon Engineer
Jack Riley, PAO

PC-63
SL-III PC-63A/1
Time: 13:05 CDT
8/23/73

PAO Good afternoon, we're ready to start here.

I got Rusty Schweickart and Ted Buras here to talk to you about
the rate gyro 6-pack and it's installation during tomorrow's
EVA. We'll start off with Rusty with some basics on it I think
and then he has some video tape that hopely we will be able
to use on the monitor over there. Go ahead Rusty.
SCHWEICKART Okay, first I guess I would like to
introduce all of you who haven't met him to Ted Buras here
next to me. Ted is one of our support troops who has been
working with command module hardware and ATM hardware for
I don't know about the day 1, I guess and stayed right on
top of all of this hardware not just the rate gyro pack but
I mean the normal EVA, I mean the normal ATM hardware all the
controls and displays and the telescopes and the whole works
that since for about 2 years - -
BURAS 2 years.
SCHWEICKART 2 years anyway, and we work very closely
on all of this stuff. So Ted can answer later a lot of the
or any of the technical questions which come up on the hardware
itself and it's testing and that sort of thing.
PAO I would like to make note right there,
a couple of days ago was Ted Buras Day on Skylab.
SCHWEICKART Fine, yeah_ I think the 19th wasn't it.
BURAS Yesterday, was Julie London Day.
PAO (laugh)
SCHWEICKART Yeah. Well we all have our days.
MC (Laughter)
SCHWEICKART I think it, is the neck mike working. Okay.
Let me do some chalk board stuff first. Since arm wave,
should I pull this out for the sake of the camera back there? Okay.
We've got several bits and pieces associated with the rate gyro
pack. Internal to the MDA, let me put over here a little thing
and we'll call this the ATM -
SPEAKER Can you get some light on there?
SCHWEIKART How's that? Okay, the ATM control and
display console, almost directly across the MDA from it the
six-pack is mounted on the wall over there, we have a cable
that runs around here, that almost looks like a smile doesn't
it. We have a cable that runs around here with a plu_ on this
SL-III PC-63A/2
Time: 13:05 CDT
8/23/73

SCHWEIKART end and on this end it has 2 plugs and what

we call Y-cable. Another piece of equipment that we've got
then is the EVA cable and let me Just draw that cable for you.
Okay. And the EVA cable is got a box on it which is panel 161 and
which has 3 switches in it, X, Y and Z. And then we have a Y-cable
on each of that plug, a Y-adaptor sort of thing on each end. Those
are the major pieces of hardware, the 6-pack itself, the IVA cable,
and the EVA cable. Now during the EVA itsel, we'll be dealing
with all three of those items. The primary one of interest
is the EVA cable, it's that that we're going - we're not going
outside and (garble) while we are outside, we are going to be
installing that cable. What - what these various cables do
well let me say one more thing, at this end of the this cable

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC63B/I
Time: 13:06 CDT
8/23/73

SCHWEICKART We have a thing called the WCIU, which is

the workshop interface computer unit. This is the means of
getting into the computer. We have a whole row of connectors
across the top of it. This is EVA - this is out on the ATM
itself. And it's this connector that we have to get into.
This is the J-3 connector on the WCIU. The other end of this
thing goes into what we call the trunnion plug plate. The
trunnion plug plate is sort of a odd looking duck, - shaped
llke that. That's got a whole series of connectors on it
and the one down here is 8130A, and that's the particular one
that we have to break, and plug the other end of this EVA cable
into. Now the EVA task starts at sunrise. Jack Lousma
will be playing the role of EV-2 and Jack will be taking out
this end of the cable - this cable's all coiled up. Owen will -
Dr. Garrlott will he holding this end in the FAS area, just
outside the airlock. Jack will take out this end. He'll get
in position out on the MDA and I'ii - I guess I can show you
where that is in a minute on the model. He disconnects, using
a tool that we have, a cable - we call a cable plug removal tool.
It's just a pair of pliers to help you take the connectors
apart. He'll remove the plug that's in here. Let me Just
draw a wire with a plug on it to represent that.
He'll disconnect this - the existing plug from this location.
He'll take one end of this Y and plug it in here and the other
end, he plugs this the cable he took off into the other end
of this wire. So in other words, we end up with this cable
here in a configuration like this. At that point, he goes
down to the area of the WCIU - down on the EVA trail on the ATM -
with the other end of this cable. Aand he does exactly the same
thing here at the WCIU. That is, we already have - there is a
plug going in there with the rate gyro signals, going into the
computer. He disconnects that. He connects one end of it
in here and he connects this cable back to the other end. That's
the - the job of installing that cable. Now, I think probably
the best thing to do at this point, is to run that video tape.
Yon can see what that operation looks llke under water and then
we can later talk a little bit more about the sequencing of
things between A1 Bean, inside, handling the attitude control
of the spacecraft during all this and what he has to do, and
how we interleave that with this EVA operation. So why don't
we run that? Okay. It's on now. Again, this was run in the
water tank at Huntsville about a month ago. And you'll see
the cable coming out of the alrlock. No, thatls not the
cable coming out of the alrlock, that's me. And that's the
cable plug removal tool that's hanging on the tether there.
And you'll probably hear that referred to as the connector pliers.
 SL-III PC63B/2
Time: 13:06 CDT
_ 8/23/73

SCHWEICKART (CONT'D) I hope. It's a lot easier to say. Now

what's happening there, is that Charlie Cooper, who's one of
the Marshall Space Flight Center people who works in the
water tank a lot, is playing the role of EV-I and he's handing
me - or actually connecting on to my left wrist, this end
of the cable - Joining the plug plate. Okay, you can see it
there. Now you'll notice on these connectors that we're dealing
with here, they - they appear to be very large. What we've
done is, in order to make them more easily handled with an
EVA glove, with a pressurized glove, we've put long extensions
on the connector shells. They're Just - -

END OF TAPE
 SL-III PC-63C/I
Time: 13:06 CDT
_ 8/23/73

SCHEIKART and it Just makes them a lot easier

to handle. So you moved out, here let me get this model down
here, Ted can you help me lift this model down? Show at the
same time where we're going. Okay, we're about to breakup
the whole thing here Jack.
SPEAKER I think we're losing the solar shoe.
SCHWEICKART Ah, that's okay. All right we're a - what
we're doing now is moving out into this area here, I've come
out this handrail and I'm setting on the surface of the
MDA, this is that trunnion plug plate that I'm looking at,
now let me get a pointer. Here's a pointer. Okay, this is
the now we're moving away from it now. This is the connective
that has to be removed. The one right there. You can see
that this whole plate is full of connectors. Now whnt I'm
doing here is hooking the tether, the little attach point,
a little hook on the cable onto the edge of the trunnion plug
plate. And then you'll see me taking off this connector
and hooking in the one on the end of this cable, that's right there.
When your doing this, your sitting - your almost sitting on
the surface of the MDA and your legs are straddling - this
trunnion plug plate and it's a pretty nice location, you can
really let go with both hands and be relatively secure, now
you see what I do is Just put the pliers around that
connector and all you do is twist it and break the connector
F loose. Okay so there it's now disconnected. Now the other
end of that line that we just broke there, goes into the
ATM control display console. And that one - that one already
exist - it goes inside, the whole reason we're using that
breaking that connection is because we have existing wires which
go from the inside the control display console there to
the outside and all we're using is spare wires in that existing
cable in order to get these rate gyros signals from the
6-pack out to the computer. So we have to end up tapping in
at both ends of that existing cable. All right now it's bare
there and I don't know if you noticed what happen there, I
just took the connector pliers and pushed the bundle the
wire bundle, it is a very large bundle there, just pushed
it out of the way, so I had clear excess to the cable, here's
that connector there's a very good view of the connector.
This is the outer shell of the connector and the inner shell
and they Just both have long extension on them to make them
easy to handle and you can see you grab the inner shell
there, wind it up with - with a connector. The key way made
at that point and now I'm reaching in with the other hand
and just starting the just walking it on. And that's
relatively the high torque in order to get it to snap all the
way in place and so you get it part way on with your hands
SL-III PC-63C/2
Time: 13:06 CDT
8/23/73

SCHWEICKART then you take the pliers again put them

on there and lock it in. Isn't this exciting? Okay so that
connection is made now we still got the loose connector
down here that we took off and that's going to hook into the
other end of the Y. And that I've got in my hand here, you
can see, so you just looking at it to get the pins lined up
and - just a matter of screwing them together. Trying to
think just to give you an idea that cable, Ted do you remember
what the length of that cable was we measured 23 something -
BURAS That cable was (garble) 20 let me see
23 feet. 22.8 feet. 23 feet in length.
SCHWEICKART That's to give you an idea how long
the cable is. Okay, so these connections, then are all made,
and now at this point you go back down the handrail, pick
up the other end of the cable and then come out to the
WCIU which is underneath the double handrail on the EVA
trail. I guess what I'ii do to give you an idea what that
looks like is grab a couple of my photographs. Here, you
guys can pass that around if you want, that's that trunnion
plug plate, let me see what I've got here, let's see another
view of that, there we go. Okay here's the place we'll
be heading next which is - this photograph as it comes
around is the position you have to get into in order
to make the connection at the WCIU. And that's right in here
my body is right in where that pointer is with my face up
and feet that way, if you want to try and get a feeling for
orientation. You go out the normal EVA trail, it's right,
it's directly under the double handrail that we normally
use for all of the EVAs, our film retrieval. And now you
see on the video tape I've come back in to pick up the
other end of the cable and you'll see that this control box
here in the middle of the cable is, I Just violated what I
was going to say, this control box is at this end of the
cable.

END OF TAPE

1
SL-III PC63-D/I
Time: 13:06 CDT
8/23/73

SCHWEICKART (CONT'D) Violated what I was going to say. This

control box is at this end of the cable. In other words,
essentially, goes right throuBh it. All that control box
does - when we hook in this cable, what we do is connect the
six-pack which - which is six rate gyros to an each axis and
this control box then allows us to pick a third gyro one
additional gyro for each axis of the three which are already
on the, on the vehicle. That is, we keep one of the original
rate gyros in each axis and we hook two new ones in. And
it's that control box that allows us to pick whichever of the
existing rate gyros we want to keep. And for those who
follow the numbers, that'll be XI, YI, and Z3. Okay, now you
can see I'm going down the normal handrails on the EVA trail
and in Just a minute now - Okay, now, there's a control
box, you can see floating there. And then the next thing I
do is work my way down underneath the double handrail. Now,
the WCIU - I may end up blocking this thing, I guess. This is
the WCIU right in front of me here. It's that box and there's
a row of connectors that goes all the way down the front of
it. It's the bottom one. In this orientation, it's that one
right there that has to be disconnected. So, you can see that
I - you end up in a very nice position right in front of the
thing. Everybody got a chance to look at them. I don't
think there's any reason, unless somebody particularly wants
to continue with the video tape. You're doing the exactly
the same thing. Yon just break one connector, plug one in,
and plug the two loose ends together and that's the whole job.
So, unless we want to - Okay, good. I guess, to give you an
idea of the sequence here, and some of the additional consi-
derations, the existing rate gyros come into the computer at
this point. That's this J-3 connector on the WCIU. We - as
a general policy, do never make or break connectors with
power on them. That is, we take all the voltage off these
pins before we ever break connectors. For that reason, we
need to power down the rate gyros in order to break this
connector. Now when we power down the rate gyros, what that
means is we no longer have rate an attitude information going
into the onboard computer. In a sense, we - we are setting
ourselves into free drift. Now, that's not quite true. The
refinement on that gets very complex. But what we - what we
do instead of going into a completely free drift, is we drive
the - we know from solar inertial what the normal torques are
on the vehicle due to gravity effects and venting and that
kind of thing. The control moment gyros, the CMGs, are
independant of the rate gyros, which give us infor-
mation on attitude. So what we do starting - since we know
 SL-III PC63D/2
Time: 13:06 CDT,
8/23/73

SCHWEICKART (CONT'D) we're starting from solar inertial, is

we drive control moment gyros in what we call a nominal
way or a nominal momentum profile. Now what that means, is
we're - we're cont- we're positively controllin_ the vehicle
during this time that we've shut down the rate gyros, but
we're controlling it in a sort of ideal way, as though the
real torques, as though we really knew what the real torques
on the vehicle were doing, and we do know that to a first
approximation. So that we are positively controlling the
vehicle, but we're not really sensing the outside environment.
We're - that is we're handling a sort of ideal environment.
Now there are dlffenenees between the actual gravity gradient
torques and the torques that are modeled in the computer and
driving the CMGs. So that is, gradually we will beBin to
diverge from solar inertial during the time that we have the
rate gyros powered down. Now we've done a great deal of
simulation of this whole thing. Of course, the longer we
go in this standby control mode, the longer - the greater
the difference between our actual orientation and solar
inertial. We obviously would llke to stay in solar inertial
that keeps the solar arrays pointed toward the Sun. That means
when we put the rate gyros back on the llne, we get back into
solar inertial orientation immediately. So that we would
llke not to drift any further than we have to from it. We've
F- run a lot simulations of these procedures and it appears as
though - -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC63E/I
Time: 13:06 CDT
8/23/73

SCHWEICKART - - we would like not to drift any further

than we have to from it. We've run a lot of simulations of
these procedures and it appears as though we should drift no
more than - it all depends on how long it take to do the job.
But we would expect to drift no more than i0 degrees or so,
from solar inertial during this operation. Now the task you
Just saw on the video tape there, doing it for the first time
in neutral buoyancy took 12 minutes to do it. The only
time - well I think I'm going to answer your question here,
Bruce the only time actually in standby mode is not for the
whole EVA cable installation but Just when we breaker this
connector here from the time we break the J3 connector on the
WCIU until we have both EVA plugs made and then we have to also
make this J2 inside to the rate gyro pack after this conn -
after these connections are made outside. So, Jack will stop
in position to break this connector on the WCI_ and at that
point we have to wait for a certain amount of time that we
have some phasing involved in this thing with the orbit. But at
any rate, Jack will finish his end; he'll be ready to make the
connection at the WCIU at that point A1 will go into standby
with the control mode, Jack will proceed with the EVA activities.
Well Al's going to take the power off the rate gyro also at that time -
to take take the power off the plug. Jack will go ahead and
make this end when he gets done he will tell A1 he's completed
that. AI will make the J2 connection inside by powering down
the rate gyro pack plugging in and powering it back up again.
And at the point AI will begin to reconfigure power the rate
gyros all the rack rate gyros back up again and go back into
active control. So it's only a short period of time than
what you saw that 12 minutes it will actually - we should be
out of control. No that's a bad way to word it; not out of
control but in a standby control mode. (Laughter). I think
we're ready for questions. Yes.
QUERY I don't quite get the length of time it
was 12 minutes to do the EVA. How many minutes including A1
doing the stuff inside?
SCHWEICKART Okay, let me try and give you some of the
constraints there. We have several independent things. On
the orbital constraints, let's talk about the sort of hard
planned things. We intend to initiate this activity at sunrise
now the reason for that is the operations out here at the
trunnion plug plate we don't have proper lighting to do it at
night. So as a result we have to be in sunlight or we at least
think we have to be in sunlight. Moonlight maybe good enough
for a Marine llke Lousma we don't know. (Laughter) In any
case we're planning it so that we start right at sunrise Jack
will move out and start this just purely on lighting consideration
 SL-III PC63E/2
Time: 13:06 CDT
8/23/73

_-_ so at sunrise we anticipate starting this thing. Now we

want to stay in solar inertial for - until the batteries
are up to i00 percent state of charge that is they've discharged
in the previous night pass and now we want to get them up
to i00 percent state of charge. That will take about 20 no
22 minutes or so plus or minus 3 say. But it should be about
22 minutes for that. So even if Jack gets done early, we're
not going to go in the standby mode we want to get the
batteries all the way up. Now there's another event that
takes place and that is that the - we go through a series
of nominal H-cages - I hate to get to much to the alphabet
soup here but we do a series of actions with the CMGs one of
which is going into a TACS control mode and then doing what
we call a nominal H-cage with the CMGs. Now when you do that
you use TACS fuel in variable amounts depending upon where
you are in the orbit. There is optimum time to do that
and we plan to do it at the optimum time. That optimum time
is 45 degrees before local noon. In other words we
look at the earth the earth and we're coming around here
here's our local noon, 45 degrees before that point when we
go through this point right here. That's what we call a minimum
HT, that is a minimum total momentum.

END OF TAPE
 SL-III PC63F/I
Time: 13:06 CDT
8/23/73

SCHWEICKART - - total momentum situation at that

point we use the least amount of TACS in switching into the
TACS control mode and doing the nominal H-ca@e. Now if you'll
look at daylight orbital daylight here, from there to orbital
sunset we're talking right now about 62 minutes. The 20 minutes
will take us up somewhere short of this point 8o we're going
to wait until this point now, at this point you may hear us
talking about day remaining of 42 minutes. We have a clock
on board that says how much daylight remaining when we're in
daytime when you go past the terminator you get how much night-
time is remaining. So at day remaining equal 42 minutes we're
at this point here and we go into this nominal H-cage jazz
I was just talking about. Now we want ot stay in that TACS
control mode for 5 minutes minimum in order to let all the
rates stablize and everything settle down so in other words
this point would then be 37 minutes of day remaining. That will be
the earliest point we would go into standby - into a stand
by control mode. Now if you work all of that out that says
since we got 62 mlmutes a day that - if I can substract right
that's 25 minutes from sunrise is the earliest as we would be
going into standby here. All right. I think I substracted right
here. To that point. You look confused at me (chuckle)
but nothing new, huh.
QUERY What's the latest you would go into the
standby in the daylight cycle?
SCHWEICKART We don't really have a hard number on that
- I think it depends to a certain extent on what the crew feels
about having done the task up at the plug plate. We
certainly - we expect that the task will take you know this stand
by will take about - it's a 5 minute Job. We're allowing like
15 minutes maybe we'll only say 20 minutes of day remaining
everybody adds their little fudge factor on. And sunset isn't
really critical in the con this last connection - the J3
connection the WCIC is along the EVA trail so we have good
lighting and we can continue right on with that action even
into night. So we really have no hard constraint on the
latest time we would do this.
PAO Verner?
QUERY I see how you put the six-pack in but how
do you get rid of the six rate gyros you don't want anymore
of the orginial ones?
SCHWEICKART Well that's the function of this box here
we end up with this cable here which contains the output from
the 9 rate gyros coming in here at this point it actually
comes up into this box and then back out and then down into
the computer. This these three switches that I mentioned here
allow only one output from each of the three gyros in any
 SL-III PC63F/2
Time: 13:06 CDT
8/23/73

axis so in other words we can get one X-axis gyro, one Y-axis
and one Z-axis gyro signals coming all the way through all 9
come in only 3 come out and that's that switch selection right
there.
QUERY And this would be the ones that you would
switch in another EVA if you wanted to select other ones for
any reason at all?
SCHWEICKART Yes, that could be done we certainly wouldn't
anticipate doing that in that right now in Y in the Y--axls
the only really good gyro is Y-I. We can get some use out of
Y2 and then the Z-axis again the only purely healthy one is
Z3. So we wouldn't anticipate bringing any of the sick ones
back in in the X-axis on the other hand we got a couple of
good gyros and we've chosen XI because it's performing the best
but in that axis if something happened with X1 on a later in
between now and the next EVA we could go out and select X3_
on the next EVA if we wanted to. It's a very simply thing
all you do is open the cover of the box and switch to number
3.
QUERY A couple of things Rusty, first of all
what is the actual distance we got 22.8 feet length in the
cable what's the actual distance between the trunnion plate
and over to the WCIU, I mean is there much leeway for the
(garble).
SCHWEICKART Yes, we got 3 feet of slack.
"- QUERY The other thing is you talked about you
know time it takes and everyting else and water tank and all.
How would you describe the task as far as being either
strenuous or easy or is it really that easy?
SCHWEICKART Physically it's quite easy, one - about
the only well I was going to give it more credit that it
was worth the only anxiety-producing element in the thing is
that we cannot physically do this on the flight vehicle because
it's up there. Therefore we have done this on all the trainers
we have and for a sort of final approval on this technique
we used the backup flight vehicle up in St. Louis and the ATM
backup flight - the backup ATM which is in Huntsville Just to
verify that these connections were in fact properly designed
and again it looked just fine on those vehicles but we can't
physically say we tried it on the vehicle we're going to do it
up there. So that you - we've done the best we can to
insure that they are all built to the same drawings, but you
know you can run into surprises but as far as the physical
task is concerned it's not difficult.
QUERY Let's see now, at the beginning of the EVA
is he going to go out and do this right away_ or is there
going to be some reconnoitring first?
SL-III PC63F/3
Time: 13:06
8/23/73

SCHWEICKART I'm glad you brought that up. A1 asked

we would prefer not to fix the time of EVA hatch opening
you llke to do that essentlally whenever the crew is ready to
go out they'go out. Now as I said we want to start this whole
activity at sunrise back here so that we - we do have a maximum time
and daylight available to do the Job, as a result since we're
going to come out assychronous with that A1 has said that if he
comes out in daylight he'd like to have Jack go up and run
around this thing and make sure it all looks the way he
remembered it from training and that it looks like the photographs
that he has on board and that kind of thing. And Jack in all
likelihood will do that. Now since we want - that's just going
to take you know 4 or 5 minutes to do that sort of thing, there-
fore we do have some time between there and the next sunrise when we
would like to start the actual work and so during this
period this as you recognize is a variable. During that period
we will probably begin with the other EVA tasks only making sure
that we're in the position somewhere back here when we're ready
to go at sunrise on the slx-pack. So we expect to start
this cable installation at the first sunrise following EVA
hatch opening. But that maybe as much as - as one rev after,
an hour and a half, say after the hatch actually opens. You
could open the hatch right ofter sunrise and have to go all
the way around.
PA0 B arbara.
QUERY A t the time that you're doing that, will
the TV camera show us what you're doing? Is it in the right
position for us to see?
SCHWEICKART Gee, as someone else said, I'm not your best
witness on that. We will he taking the TV camera out. The
planned usage for the TV will be with respect to the normal EVA
activity. What we're going to be getting on the downlink
during the rate gyro cable installation, I really don't know.
I - I should have checked that before I came over but I didn't.

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC63G/I
Time: 13:06 CDT
8/23/73

BURAS (CONT'D) (garble) Nell Hutchinson said yesterday that

there'd be no llve TV because it's all Vanguard-Hawaii
type thing during those things.
SCHWEICKART And even if we do get - that's the point -
even if we do get TV, we wouldn't get live. But it's possible
we would get some TV which would be flown back from Hawaii or
Vanguard.
QUERY Is hatch opening still around i0 o'clock
tomorrow morning, central time?
SCHWEICKART (Laughter) It's been so long I've worked
in central time or anything other than - sunrise, I don't know.
15, i0, I really don't know. You probably know that more than
I do. Abby.
QUERY How long is the whole gyro-fix - should it take?
And how much of that time would you be in this standby mode?
SCHWEICKART We're talking about 40 minutes for the whole
thing and that's made up of 25 minutes here, up to the point
we can go into standby and then about - as I say, we expect or
allowing about anticipating, I should say 15 minutes to do
that job and get back with everything turned back on again.
Now there is no back door to that. That is, we can continue
right on through the night pass and on into the next daylight
pass, for that matter if we have to. But it's hard to imagine
what it is about that relatively simple Job that could take
that long.
QUERY Yesterday, I think some of the Flight controllers
were interpreting Bean's thought processes. And his deciding to
send Lousma instead of himself. And what are the reasons they
gave was of Lousma's superior strength. (Laughter) Is there any
eventuality out there in which you might - in which the superior
strength would - would be needed? You just got through saying it's a
very easy job and I was Just curious about that.
SCHWEICKART Yes. Well I'm not the one to challenge Jack's
strength, but I think a more important thing in Al's mind,
although he really did not say, but in trying to think about that,
AI has spent a considerable amount of time in working with the
APCS with the attitude control system on the cluster. Whereas
Jack did not. Jack spent his time on other things and since
there is a fair amount of manipulation in this process, other
than the control system, I think AI felt he was in a better
position to do that work, in case anything unanticipated came
up, he would be more familiar with that. A second element,
and not unrelated to it, is the fact that if for whatever reason,
something happens with the control of the spacecraft, the command
module is in a standby mode ready to - to take overactive
attitude control. And we certainly don't anticipate that
happening, but again, in case of that sort of thing happening,
Al's considerably more familiar with the command module control
system than Jack, who normally sits on the right hand side of
SL-III PC63G/2
Time: 13:06 CDT
8/23/73

SCHWEICKART (CONT'D) the command module. So, I think for

those two reasons, AI felt that would be - make more sense if he
stayed inside and Jack did the work outside.
QUERY So strength is not a factor.
SCHWEICKART I seriously doubt it, because there's nothing
associated with this which takes any kind of strength than - I'm
sure that Al's as human as anybody else would really prefer to
be out there looking at the world from that vantage point rather
that through a little window.
PAO Any other questions? Paul.
QUERY One other thing. The - in this nominal
control drive, or whatever it is, that's being controlled
by the computer, did it take into account any torque imported
by the astronauts stomping around on the outside there?
SCHWEICKART No, the nominal H-cage in the computer is
modeled strictly on gravity gradient torques on the vehicle.
And assumes zero venting torques or things of that kind. Now,
we really don't anticipate anything in the way of - of vent torques
during this period of time; that is, we have a lot of gas flowing
out of these EVA crewmen from their cooling from the suits,
but it's relatively non-dlrectional, but, now on the
other hand, if I'm standing up against a flat surface, the
gas can't go any way but that way, it obviously can't go
through it, so I would end up with some directionality to
it depending on where I am. But we really anticipate very
low torques on the whole associated with this operation.
During this period of time. Now, when we dump the lock
compartment in the beginning of the EVA, now you're dump-
ing a big volume of gas out in a relatively well defined
direction and that will disturb the momentum of the vehicle.
But that is prior to this time and since we do a nominal
H-cage back in this area here, we take care of any abnormal
momentum up to that point by doing this TACS control nominal
R-cage. Then here we go into STANDBY and go into a nominal
H-cage again, and they drive nominal H from that point on.
QUERY You mentioned a drift of 10 degrees. Is
that what you expect in the 15 minutes you are sort of anticip-
ating for the STANDBY.
SCHWEICKART I would expect that that's representative,
Abby, but again, that's what's indicated on all of our
simulations as sort of outside. But again, our simulations
do not, of necessity, include vent torques, which we really
don't know how to anticipate. So, those would gradually
cause an acceleration if they were oriented in a systematic
way. But_ as I say, we expect those to he very, very low,
if detectable at all. And so what we can anticipate due to
the procedural things, the control mode switching is some-
thing on the order of 10 degrees in that 15 minute period.
SL III PC-63G/3
TIME: 13:06 CDT
8/23/73

QUERY You talk about i0 degrees off solar inertial.

Are you talking about just the rolling over and say the
ATM kind of drifting over, or are you talking about a tilting
or how whould the spacecraft -
SCHWEICKART Well, it's a random, in any direction.
QUERY Just any direction of i0 degrees is what
you're talking about.
SCHWEICKART Yeah. And again, that's right, there's
no way to know.
PAO Okay. Thank you.
SCHWEICKART Did that clarify it all for you Abbe? I'ii
bet --

END OF TAPE
 SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
Houston_ Texas

Skylab III Change of Shift Briefing

Johnson Space Center
August 23, 1973
5:19 pm CDT

Participants:

Nell B. Hutchinson, Flight Director

Tom Andrews, PAO

PC-65
SL-III PC65A/I
Time: 17:19 CDT
8/23/73

PAO Okay, we're ready to start with this

afternoons change of shift briefing. And with us this
afternoon we have Nell Hutchinson, the offgoing Flight Director.
We'll start with a brief rundown from Nell.
HUTCHINSON Okayp today was another one of those -
not sure I'm hot. Today was another one of those systems
type days; we seem to get into several little systems days.
Probably one of them of most interest is the discovery of
some loose coolant fluid up in the command module. It's
kind of ironic we almost took the OWS apart looking for
coolant leaks and couldn't find any and we were up in the
command module today doing a standard comm_and module house-
keeping where we cycle the coolant loops in the colmmand
module and opened the panel and there was some, what appeared
to be water glycol in the area. As you know, we been watching
a very, very small and slow leak in the primary coolant loop
in the command module for several weeks now. We have done
this particular housekeeping once a week since the beginning
of the mission and had not seen anything in this area up
until today. Of course, today when the Commander went up
to do the housekeeping, it's panel 382 it's down in the
lower left hand equipment bay, and there are some valves
back there behind the panel that he modulates in the process
of doing the coolant loop check. This - the valves and the
panel itself actually is covered with a small door - hinge
door type of thing that he opens up, and when he opened the
door there was some loose fluid in there. He reported about
a third of a cup third of a pint. And we haven't determined
for absolutely certain that it is water glycol. However,
the crews assessment of the situation was that it - that's
what it was. It was greasy to the feel, it was definitely
not water, they said. Left a sticky residue on your hands
when it dried. I don't know whether those are particular
characteristics of water glycol or not. However, the crew
mopped it up and we did save the towel they used to mop it
up so if we want to do any test or anything on it later or
bring home some of it or something we can do that. The amount
of liquid that was found is more or less commensurate with
the amount we think we've lost out of the loop. And as you
know it's not a significant amount since we have the ability
to reservlce that loop from the glycol reservoir. And with
the leak rate that we're experiencing we have no quams
whatsoever of being able to maintain that loop for entry.
We're out of film in SO82B and H-alpha i, which is I guess is
not very significant since we're goln E out tomorrow and put
new film in there. We today ran battery capacity checks
SL-III PC65A/2
Time: 17:19 CDT
8/23/73

most - better part of the afternoon on two batteries on the

ATM. You Just heard the last one finish. Think it's kind
of early yet to draw any conclusions from the test. However,
both - at least this battery and I haven't heard the figures
from the other battery, but based on about when it came off
I suspect they'll be simular. Both batteries demonstrated
a capacity less than we had expected which goes pretty much
in line with the kind of number that we saw from the battery
7 that we tested before on the ATH. That's going to take
a while to evaluate this - what this really means to us in
terms of - of course, the implications of the batteries not
being - having as much capacity as we thought they had are
involved in a - in EREP, in EREP operations. It's way too
early to say - of course, we're going to continue to do
battery testing. We have a couple more scheduled, I think,
the day after EVA. And we're going to be taking a look at
- at several of these ATH batteries so we get a good cross-
section. We'll probably look at one of the air - one or
two of the alrlock module batteries in addition. So we get
a good cross section of what battery capability we have and
then we're going to have to go from there in terms of figuring
out what that really means in terms of EREP. We turned off
the airlock module primary coolant loop today at 1800 Zulu
And - -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-65B/I
Time: 17:19 CDT
8/23/73

HUTCHINSON - - we turned off the airlock module

primary coolant loop today, at 18:00 Zulu. And we didn't
turn it off on 5 psi. It got down to 5.8 last night Just
before the crew woke up, it was down to 5.8 was the lowest
cycle we saw in it last night. Based on the way it's been
cycling continually lower every night when the heat loads
are lower in the loop. We estimated that it would not go
through the night, tonight. And therefore, we chose to
turn it off today early, a little early. We probably could
have left it up until tonight. But to turn it off today,
so we could get a nice stable condition on the secondary
loop for our EVA - terms of the heat loads. We had another
busy crew day. Right now, of course, they're - and a good
part of today, people were thinking a lot about EVA. And
right now, they're in the EVA pre preps and we're looking
forward to getting out and fixing up our gyros, tomorrow.
That's about it. The EVA plan that I passed, yesterday,
as far as the Flight Plan goes, and the basic times, when
things are happening and who's doing what, an4 so on, and so
forth. We understand you got a big briefing from Rusty,
today, remains with only very, very minor chan_es, Just
about the way I described it yesterday.
PAO Okay. We'll have questions now.
QUERY Are you planning to put a new coolant
into the AM primary loop on SL-4? Has that been decided, yet?
HUTCHINSON It ah - I don't believe it's been - I
don't know, I don't have any firsthand knowledge. We are
proce - whether a decision has been made, I - a decision has
not been made. I think I can say that, because I'd know if
it had. We are proceeding ahead with keeping that option
open to us.
QUERY Nell, which of the batteries are - CBRMs
are now out or malfunctioning? The PAO again, has kind of
confused me with some numbers this afternoon. He said
something about i0 and 18.
HUTCHINSON Yeah. Now, 10 and 18 were the ones we
were testing. There's nothing wrong with them. They are
not out. We were just running a capacity test on them. The
only CBRM we don't have, is CBRM 3. That's the one with
the regulator with a short in it. It won't put out any-
thing. And you remember CBRM 15 was out for a considerable
time during Skylab-2, and that's the one we got back by
hammering on the - or tapping on the CBRM during EVA. The
CBRMs we've tested, are 7, i0, and 18. And 7 and 18 were
CBRMs that saw the heavy heat cycle - batteries that saw
the heavy heat cycle during the premanned period in Skylab-l.
 SL-III PC-65B/2
Time: 17:19 CDT
--- 8/23/73

And which, of course, we know - we expect to exhlbit a

characteristic of some amount of degradation, but not as
much, as you know, as we saw in 7, and again not as
much as we saw here in 18. Now, 10 was what is considered to be
a nominal battery, "it wasn't a hot battery and it's
never given us any problems, and it's not ever shaded during
EVA EREPs or anything. It's a run of the mill type". And
I don't have the figures on i0, because they just turned
it off just now. But it surprised me just a llttle bit that
they turned it off then. I would have expected it to go a little
longer, before it hit 2 - of course, he said 28 volts, which
means that's about a volt higher than we really expected the
barber pole to show up, and you've got to take all of that
into effect, and what the temperature was, and so on. And
it'll take them an hour or so, probably take them a day or
so, to come up with a really refined battery capacity numbers
based on these two checks.
QUERY Could you say to what degree the
batteries were down in percentages, or something llke that?
HUTCHINSON Yeah. Well, let's see. It'd probably
be easier, you can figure your own percentages. It'd be
easier to give them to you in terms of amperes. The name
plate rating on the batteries are 20 amperes. And we
really expected them to be somewhere in the area of 16 to 18
amperes. We expected some degradation, which is not
normal, of course, after a lot of cycles you expect some !
degredation. Now you know -

END OF TAPE
SL III PC-65C/I
TIME: 17:19 CDT
8/23/73

HUTCHINSON - powers there. We expected some degradation

which is not normal, of course, after a lot of cycles you
expect some degradation. Now, you know that we ran battery
tests on the ground in Huntsville, on these batteries that
got hot by running batteries through a thermal cycle similar
to the ones that - the environment that the batteries saw
on board in charging and discharging them, etc., to get an
understanding and sampling particular cells to see what
their capacity was to get an understanding of what to
expect on these batteries in flight. And when we tested
battery 7 a week and a half ago- what was it - a week ago,
I don't remember, but several days ago, it did not tag up
with the ground test data. And therefore, we proceeded on
to check these other two batteries, 18 being one which
experienced similar conditions to 7 and i0 being a perfectly
normal battery, and preliminary numbers from 18 indicate
it does not match the ground test data either. Now, if you
can figure the percentages, there we're talking about,
maybe at the very outside, I really hate to quote numbers
yet on battery 18, because the numbers aren't really out
yet, but a very rough hack at the numbers indicated we had
about 13 amp hours at the - optomistlcally in battery 18.
Now, we really expected somewhere around 16 or 17 probably.
And based on percentages, you can see that's 25 or 30 percent
less than we thought was in the battery. Now, the real
thing you think about here is that you got to think of the
long term picture. Now if they're 25 or 30 percent down
now, you know they're going to continue to stay down below
the curve where we expected them to be. That is going to
have a - there's no doubt about it, it's going to have an
effect later on down the way, on the length of EREPs.
Because we do have to protect the batteries against tripping
off and that of course, limits the amount of discharge, the
depth of discharge you can take them to and if there's only
13 amp hours in there, if you're protecting 5 amp hours,
you can only get 8 out. If there were 16 in there, you
could get ii out. So the total amount of energy you can
afford to take out of a battery is a function of how much
it's got in it, of course, to begin with.
PAO Any other questions? Okay. Thank you
very much.

END OF TAPE