Apollo 15 Mission (part 1) - Crew, Rover, Launch, Landing, TV , Hadley, Training, Retro, Documentary
Video from the channel Retro Space HD about Apollo 15, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 52:13. Language: English. Video type: Archive footage.
What it shows
A compilation of period footage from mission AS-510 (Apollo 15) covering its first half: introduction of the crew and objectives, the landing site, the experiments, training with the lunar rover, the countdown and launch, trans-lunar injection, docking with the lunar module, lunar orbit insertion, undocking, and the powered descent to touchdown. It adds no new narration, relying instead on astronaut statements, mission control commentary, and air-to-ground communications.
When and where it was filmed
The footage comes from preparation and flight: training at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston and in New Mexico's Rio Grande gorge, the firing room at Kennedy Space Center, mission control in Houston, and television broadcast from the spacecraft in lunar orbit. Liftoff took place at 9:34 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time; Kennedy's narration mentions more than a million spectators in the area.
Background
Commander David Scott, 40, was flying his third mission after Gemini 8 and Apollo 9; Jim Irwin, 41, was the lunar module pilot, and Al Worden, 39, the command module pilot. The destination was Hadley Rille, at the foot of the Apennine mountains, with a planned stay of 67 hours and three moonwalks supported by a four-wheeled electric rover. In orbit, Worden was to operate the service module's scientific instrument bay, release a subsatellite to map the Moon's gravitational field, and later retrieve the camera film during a spacewalk. The video records flight incidents: a cracked glass cover on a lunar module indicator and a delay in undocking because a docking probe umbilical wasn't properly seated; Worden fixed it and undocking was completed at 100 hours, 39 minutes, 39 seconds. It ends with the Falcon settled on the Hadley plain.