Apollo 16 - Full Mission Day 5 (Landing at Descartes)
Video from the channel lunarmodule5 about Apollo 16, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 7:11:53. Language: English. Video type: Archive footage.
What it shows
A chronological compilation of mission control audio from day five of Apollo 16 (AS-511). The day begins with crew wake-up at around 91 hours 24 minutes into the mission. John Young and Charlie Duke move into the lunar module Orion, activate it and undock it from the command module Casper, where Ken Mattingly stays behind. Before Casper's circularization burn, a secondary circuit of the SPS engine's thrust vector control fails: the yaw gimbal oscillates on the backup system. The maneuver is cancelled and the two spacecraft are kept together, with the distance reduced to about 700 feet, while Houston studies alternatives. These include redocking and using Orion's descent engine to return to Earth.
When and where it was filmed
The communications date from April 1972, between the Houston Control Center and the two spacecraft in lunar orbit. Communications with each craft are handled separately: Ed Mitchell talks to Casper and Jim Irwin to Orion. On the ground, the flight teams of Jerry Griffin, Pete Frank and Gene Kranz rotate shifts. Orion lands in the Descartes region at 104 hours 29 minutes 36 seconds into the mission, 20:23 Houston time. It lands about three revolutions (roughly 6 hours) later than planned, near the crater Double Spot.
Context
After tests in Houston and at the manufacturer's plant in Downey, Christopher C. Kraft Jr. gives the go-ahead to land on revolution 16: the system was still controllable and there was no structural risk. Orion also carries other problems. The steerable S-band antenna won't move in yaw, and it appears the burst disk on RCS system A has failed. After landing, Young and Duke describe the terrain: boulders they attribute to the crater South Ray, very white rocks that could be breccia, and the elevations of Stone Mountain, Smoky Mountain and Survey Ridge. Since time has been lost, the first EVA is postponed until after the rest period. Mattingly, in orbit, continues with the orbital science and deploys the mapping camera. The coverage ends with the crew asleep.