Iluminando la noche | El lanzamiento del Apolo 17

Video from the channel Manned Space about Apollo 17, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 8:40. Language: English. Video type: Launch.

A montage with launch control audio and NASA footage of the countdown and night launch of Apollo 17. The Saturn V lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center with Gene Cernan in command.

The final countdown was proceeding normally: the tanks were pressurized, the vehicle switched to internal power, and ignition was set for T-minus 8.9 seconds, with a thrust of 7.6 million pounds. At T-minus 30 seconds, the terminal sequencer automatically halted the countdown because it had not issued the order to pressurize the third stage's liquid oxygen tanks. Access arm number 9 moved back toward the spacecraft, and control reported that the launch window extended to 1:31. The count was recycled to T-minus 22 minutes and then held again at T-minus 8 minutes, while the team prepared an alternative procedure: the tank had in fact been pressurized, though manually, and the indication received by the sequencer had to be bypassed. The count resumed at T-minus 7 minutes 54 seconds, and Cernan performed the final guidance alignment.

The liftoff lit up the area as if it were daytime. The rocket completed its roll and pitch maneuvers and passed through the planned abort modes without incident. The center engine and the first stage shut down on schedule, and the interstage skirt and the escape tower then separated. With guidance already converged, Mission Control confirmed at four and a half minutes that everything remained in order, and the crew described the night launch as a spectacular sight.