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Apollo 11 Highlights

Day 6

CAPCOM Tranquility Base, Houston.

TRANQUILITY Roger. Go ahead.

CAPCOM Roger. Our guidance recommendation is PGNCS and you’re 

cleared for takeoff.

TRANQUILITY Roger, understand. We’re number one on the runway.

CAPCOM Roger.

ARMSTRONG Bait scale 25.

ALDRIN 25.

ARMSTRONG Ascent translation 4 jets. Balance couple on.

ALDRIN Balance couple on.

ARMSTRONG BTCHS, balance push button reset, board to stage reset.

ALDRIN Reset.

ARMSTRONG Headband minimum, bat control to mode control, earth control auto, 

both

ALDRIN Auto, auto.

PA0 Crew of Eagle going through their preadmission checklist.

ARMSTRONG The team is standing by for 2 minutes to - for the guidance steering 

in the AGS.

CAPCOM Eagle, Houston, you're locking good to us · 

TRANQUILITY Roger.

TRANQUILITY ...9, 8, 7, 6, 5, abort stage, engine arm ascent, proceed, That was 

beautiful. 26, 36 feet per second up. Be advised for the pitch over. Very smooth. Aldrin's

(garbled) logged. Very quiet ride. There's that one crater down there.

PAO 1000 feet high, 80 feet per second vertical rise.
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CAPCOM Eagle, Houston. Request manual start over ride.

EAGLE Roger.

PAO 2600 feet altitude.

 

EAGLE (Garbled)

CAPCOM Eagle, Houston, 1 minute and you're looking good.

CAPCOM Columbia, Houston. We need the sec arm circuit breakers CLOSED.

COLUMBIA Okay. Going in touch time Bat A and Bat B.

CAPCOM Columbia, Houston. Logic looks good. You can arm your PYROs at your 

convenience.

COLUMBIA Thank you.

COLUMBIA Eagle, you can find your start to maneuver to CSI.

EAGLE Okay.

PAO This is Apollo Control about 6 and 1/2 minutes to ignition on the thermal 

phase maneuver in which the crew of Eagle will thrust along the line of sight toward 

Columbia. Distance now between the two spacecraft some 38.6 nautical miles closing

at a rate of 110 feet per second.

CAPCOM All your selections looks good to us. Out.

EAGLE And, Mike, if you want our target Delta-v, I'll give it to you.

COLUMBIA Ready to copy.

EAGLE 127 03 3082 +20 2.7 +1.7 -10.6, over.

COLUMBIA 127 03 3082 +20 2.7 +1.7 -10.6, thank you.

EAGLE I'm showing a good bit of out of plane velocity on my cross pointers. Mike.

COLUMBIA Rog, I have no indication of it.

COLUMBIA Coming up on 1 minute to TIG, Neil, how's it looking?

EAGLE Pretty good.
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COLUMBIA Good.

EAGLE COLUMBIA Burn complete.

EAGLE Read, burn complete.

COLUMBIA Roger, thank you.

CAPCOM Eagle, Houston, AFT OMNO, low bit rate and we'll see you at 1 27 +51.

EAGLE I'm not going to do a thing, Mike. I'm just letting her hold in attitude hold.

COLUMBIA Okay.

EAGLE (Garbled)

COLUMBIA Okay.

COLUMBIA I'm pumping up cabin pressures.

COLUMBIA That was a funny one. You know, I didn't feel it strike and I thought things 

were pretty steady. I went to retract there, and that's when all hell broke loose. For you 

guys, did it appear to you to be that you were jerking around quite a bit during the 

retrack cycle?

EAGLE Yah. It seemed to happen at the time I put the contact thrust to it, and 

apparently it wasn't centered because somehow or other I accidentally got off in attitude 

and then the attitude hold system started firing.

COLUMBIA Yah, I was sure busy there for a couple of seconds. Are you hearing me 

alright? I've got a horrible squeal.

EAGLE Yes, I agree with that, but we hear you okay.

COLUMBIA Houston, Apollo 11. Over.

CAPCOM Apollo 11, Houston. Go.

COLUMBIA Roger. I'm supposed to adjust the oxygen flow in this thing at six tenths of 

a pound per hour, but being as how this transducer is not working right, could you give 

me an updated number? 

CAPCOM Affirmative. You want to go ahead and adjust your 02 flow until it just goes 

off the peg, and then crank the direct 02 valve back down about 5 degrees. Over.
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COLUMBIA Boy, you were really waiting for that one, weren't you? Okay, Ron, thank 

you.

CAPCOM Hello Apollo 11, Houston. How did it go? Over.

SC Time to open up the LRL doors, Charlie.

CAPCOM Roger. We got you coming home. It's well stocked.

SC Okay. Burn status, LP20. Burn time was 2 plus 30. Pads angles DELTA 

FEPX after, well, after trim was .1, ZGY .9, BGZ .1. Delta VC minus 17.9 Fuel 10.6 

OCS 10.4. Unbalance minus 50.

CAPCOM Roger. Copy, Neil. Sounds good to us. And Apollo 11, Houston. All your 

systems look real good to us. We'll keep you posted.

SC Roger. Hey, Charlie boy, looking good here. That was a beautiful burn. 

They don't come any finer.

CAPCOM Rog. Apollo 11, Houston. I wondered if you compared your state vector 

accuracy with the one in the LM flights? Over.

SC Yes sir, and it looked very nice. Verb 83 was plus 00070 and minus 

00008.

CAPCOM Rog. 11, Houston. I was looking at your bank Bravo nitrogen tank, it didn't 

leak a bit – correction - didn't leak a bit this time. Over.

SC Roger, looked good here. Cabin pressure was hanging in there around 

100 the latter part of the burn. It started oscillating a little bit and got down a little bit 

below 100.

CAPCOM Roger.

SC 96 or so.

CAPCOM Roger.

PAO Most of the conversations so far has been from Neil Armstrong and Mike 

Collins. That last comment came from Collins. Our first report after acquisition was from 

Neil Armstrong. That trans-earth injection burn was very close to nominal. At this time 

we show the spacecraft traveling at a speed of 7,603 feet per second. The velocity

already beginning to drop off and we're at an altitude of 445 nautical miles now from the 

moon. This is Apollo Control. We now show the spacecraft traveling at 7,378 feet per 

second.
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Altitude 568 nautical miles. The next order of business will Director, Gene Kranz, 

requested his flight controllers, prior to acquisition of signal to review their procedures 

and to take as many steps as possible to get the crew to sleep as soon as possible. 

There will be a press conference in the Building 1 auditorium and we estimate the time 

on that at about 12:30 Central Daylight Time. And our LM telecommunications engineer 

reports that we've just had acquisition of signal from Eagle which is still in lunar orbit. 

The last fix that we had on Eagle's orbit showed an apogee of 64. 1 and a para,

apocynthion rather of 64. 1 and a paracynthion of 64.4 nautical miles. The spacecraft 

altitude is now climbed to almost 700 nautical miles from the moon. We show a weight 

of 26,510 pounds, about 10,000 pounds less than what we had actually about 1100 or 

11,000 pounds – let’s correct that - about 10,100 pounds less than what we had prior to 

the transearth injection burn.

CAPCOM Apollo 11, Houston. Would you give us PU and accept. We've got a 

REFSMMAT for you/ Over.

SC Okay.

CAPCOM Thank you.

CAPCOM Hello Apollo 11, Houston. We've got the load in. You can go back to 

block. Over.

SC We're there.

CAPCOM Rog.

SC Your command module sound seems to be working out pretty well, 

Charlie, the amount we carried. Looks like we carried just about what we needed.

CAPCOM Wonderful.

SC We have one 16 millimeter roll on the ASA 1000 color interior film. We 

were thinking of shooting that during entry window number 4 on bracket and try and get 

the camera guide sometime in the last couple of days. Give us all a good time for that.

CAPCOM Roger.

PAO This is Apollo Control. The flight dynamics officer reports that the burn 

very nominal, almost precisely as planned, the burn duration was about 3 seconds long, 

but the velocity change was almost precisely what we had been expecting. At the 

present time, Apollo 1t is 1076 nautical miles from the moon. The velocity continuing to 

drop off, down now to 6698 feet per second.

PAO This is Apollo Control at 136 hours, 44 minutes. Apollo 11 is now 3,720 

nautical miles from the moon and traveling at a speed of 5,367 feet per second. During 
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the press conference we accumulated about 4 minutes of taped conversation with the 

crew. The crew reports at this time that they are completing taking pictures and they are 

getting ready to realign their guidance system platform. We'll pick up the tape

conversation and then stand by for any following live communications with the crew. We 

anticipate that they will be shortly beginning their pre-sleep checklist in preparation for a 

well-deserved rest period.

CAPCOM Hello Apollo 11, Houston. I wondered if during the TEl burn you utilized 

the oxidizer flow valve on the valve on the PUGS? Over.

SC Yes we did. Based on your very excellent briefing I was expecting the 

thing to continue desiring increase for the whole time since we started out with it in

increase and I saw that we pretty quickly crossed the line and started falling about 6 or 

7 percent behind. So I was still expecting it to move up and then I went down to full

decrease and brought it back down to a difference of 2 percent. Over.

CAPCOM Roger. Thank you very much, Buzz.

SC 2 tenths of a percent, I'm sorry.

CAPCOM Right. Thank you. Apollo 11, Houston. You can go to PTC attitude and 

torque at your, and do the P52 and torque at your convenience. Over.

SC Hey, we got to take some more pictures, Charlie. Is there any constraint 

normally in staying here for a while?

CAPCOM No sir.

SC Thank you.

CAPCOM Go ahead 11. Over.

SC How does that tracking look or is it too early to tell?

CAPCOM Stand by, Mike.

CAPCOM FIDO's are looking at the data. It's too early to tell yet exactly. It's looking 

real good so far. We'll have you some answers shortly on trajectory. Over.

SC Yeah. What FIDO is it?

CAPCOM Jay Green.

SC Howdy Jay.

CAPCOM 11, Houston. We have a DAP CSM update for you.
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SC Go ahead.

CAPCOM Rog. That CSM weight, Mike, 26370. Over.

SC Thank you, sir.

CAPCOM You're welcome. Apollo 11, Houston. We've taken your onboard vector 

and propagated it for you and it's looking real good. We only got about 24 minutes 

tracking now and it’s really too early to tell on the radar. Over.

SC Roger, I understand.

CAPCOM Hello Apollo 11, Houston. Mike, did you notice any transients at ignition on 

TEI? Over.

SC Yah. The transients are more noticeable than on previous burn, Charlie. I 

just wrote it off on the fact that we had a light command module but there was 

considerable roll activity which dampened down after the first 20 seconds, I would 

guess, after the burn but then there was also some pitch and yaw activity. I don't believe 

it was abnormal and seemed to be deadbanding fatherly crisply in roll plus or minus 

about 8 degrees inside the center line and after the first couple of, oh, after the first 20 

seconds or so the gimbals were quiet and pitch and yaw were relatively quiet. Before 

that there was some oscillation but mostly just in rates-total attitude hung in there pretty 

well.

CAPCOM Roger. Thank you very much. We were looking at the playback and we 

saw some things that rather stood out. We'll be back with you later on that.

SC Okay.

CAPCOM Apollo 11, Houston. Have you finished taking pictures? Over.

SC We're just finishing up, Charlie.

CAPCOM Roger. 

SC We'll get started on the P52 here pretty soon.

CAPCOM Copy.

SC (Garbled). 

PAO This is Apollo Control. That brings us up to date with the taped 

conversation. We'll stand by for any further live communication from the crew before

they begin their sleep period. We've gotten some preliminary figures from the Flight 

Dynamics Officer on that transearth injection burn after a review of the telemetry data 
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and it shows that our change in velocity was nominal 3,283.5 feet per second. We also 

show a nominal burn time of 2 minutes, 28 seconds. The crew reported the burn time 

about 2 to 3 seconds long based on their onboard data. The ground data shows 

the burn to have been just about nominal. Based on the preliminary tracking it would 

appear that the splash down would occur almost precisely as predicted or planned in 

the flight plan. That would be at 195 hours 18 minutes 40 seconds ground elapse time. 

And we would expect that splash down time to change somewhat during the transearth

coast particularly as the need or lack of need for midcourse correction becomes more 

apparent with additional tracking. At this time Apollo 11 is 4,086 nautical miles from the 

moon traveling at almost precisely 1 mile per second, 5,283 feet per second, and that's 

just updated 5,280 feet per second.

CAPCOM Hello Apollo 11, Houston. You can crank up on the PTC at any time. Over.

SC Thank you.

CAPCOM Apollo 11, Houston.

SC Go ahead, Houston.

CAPCOM Rog, 11. This is the regional CAPCOM. Congratulations on an 

outstanding job. You guys have really put on a great show up there. I think it's about 

time you power down and got a little rest though you've had a mighty long day here. 

Hope you're all going to get a good sleep on the way back. I look forward to seeing you 

when you get back here. Don't fraternize with any of those bugs in route except for the 

Hornet.

SC Okay. Thank you boss. We’ll, we're looking forward to a little rest and a 

restful trip back and see you when we get there·

CAPCOM Right. You've earned it.

PAO That exchange was between Donald K., Deke, Slayton, Director of Flight 

Crew Operations at the Manned Spacecraft Center and astronaut Nell Armstrong.

CAPCOM Hello, Apollo 11, Houston. We'd like you to turn off 02 tank number 1 

heaters. Over.

SC It's off. Thank you.

CAPCOM Rog.

CAPCOM Hello, Apollo 11, Houston. For your information, the LGC in Eagle just 

went sailing up about 7 hours. Over. 
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SC Okay. It's very good, then (garbled), death of a real winner there. Charlie, 

we're going to rotate about pitch 270 degrees on the way home vice 1 - or 090 on the 

way out. Right?

CAPCOM Right, sir.

SC Okay, We're reporting in a maneuver to that attitude is in progress.

CAPCOM Rog.

SC Houston, this status report Radiation CDR 11017, CMP 10019, LMP 

09020. No medication.

CAPCOM Say again, please, Neil. You were breaking up. We missed that. Over.

SC Okay. This is crew status report. Radiation CDR. 11017, CMP 10019, LMP 

09020. No medication.

CAPCOM Roger. Thank you. And we didn't get any crew status report from you this 

morning. Wondered if you could give us an estimate of sleep last night. Over.

SC (Garbled) Okay. I'll take a guess at 10, 11 and try to give us

(garbled)....CDR 3 and LMP 4.

CAPCOM Roger. Thank you very much.

SC And Charlie, you want the (garbled) cycling, right?

CAPCOM That's affirmative and we'd like you to disable our quads Charlie and 

Delta. Over.

CAPCOM Apollo i1, Houston. If it's convenient, we'd like to go through your onboard 

readout. Over.

SC Of what?

CAPCOM Oh, excuse me. It's on the flight plan 3102. We'd like to have Bat send 

RCS. Over.

SC Ready to copy it? 

CAPCOM Roger. Go ahead.

SC That's Charlie 370, pyro bat A 370, bat B 370, RCS 55, 65, 64, and 62. 

Over.
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CAPCOM Roger. We copy all that. Thank you much.

CAPCOM Apollo 11, Houston. A couple of questions for the moon walkers, if 

you got a second. Over.

ARMSTRONG Go ahead.

CAPCOM Roger, Neil. We're seeing some temperature rises on the passive 

seismic experiment that are a little higher than normal and were wondering if you could

verify the deployed position. We understand it is about 40 feet from the LM in the 11 

o'clock position B. Over.

ARMSTRONG No, it's about in the 9 or 9:30 position and I'd say it's about 50 or 60 

feet.

CAPCOM Roger. Copy. Also did you notice, was there any indication of any 

dust cloud as you lifted off? Over.

ARMSTRONG Not very much. There was quite a bit of Kapton and parts of the LM 

that went out in all directions and usually in the same distance as far as I can tell, but I

don't remember seeing anything of a dust cloud to speak of.

CAPCOM Roger. I understand all you could see was parts of the LM going 

out. What was your first comment? Over.

ARMSTRONG I don’t remember. Just say Kapton and other parts of the LM of 

staging scattering all around the area for great distances but I didn't see dust. 

CAPCOM Right. Thank you very much.

PAO This is Apollo control at 137 hours, 27 minutes. At this time, Apollo 

11 is traveling at a speed of about 4982 feet per second. At about 5900 nautical miles 

from the moon, and about 198 900 nautical miles from earth. A short while ago, you 

heard Neil Armstrong make a few descriptive comments of the scene on the lunar 

surface at the time the planned ascent stage lifted off. Armstrong reported seeing very 

little dust, but quite a bit of debris from the LM. He referred to the Kapton, which is a 

plastic-like insulation material generally silver or gold in color which is found on the 

outside surface of the LM. And, we also had a report at 136 hours, 54 minutes, about 40 

minutes or so ago, that the LM guidance computer had finally stopped putting out any 

data, and that was about 7 hours, 13 minutes after the primary guidance system was 

deprived of the coolant, in a test of how the system would continue to operate without

coolant. The platform apparently begin to become unusable after about 4 hours and the 

computer itself finally gave up after about 7 hours and 13 minutes. Both items going 

considerably, considerably longer than had previously been predicted. The lunar 
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module ascent stage still in lunar orbit. We are continuing to get data from it. Ail other 

systems appear to be functioning well at this time. The LM orbit we show is currently 

64.4 nautical miles for height of apocynthion, 54.4 nautical miles for pericynthion. And 

the LM is in its 23rd revolution, and here's a call to the crew.

CAPCOM Over.

SC Thank you, Charlie, and I think we'll bring you up to date on our 

chlorination status. In compartment B4, we have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 - correction - we have 

8 pockets for chlorine and buffer ampules of which - let me correct that. We have 7 

pockets of which one is empty and always has been empty, leaving 6 remaining. In the 

other side, over there in the BT, we have another container with 7 pockets, so we have 

a total of 7 plus 6 and those are filled with 6 chlorines and 7 buffers. Now I've been

using one chlorine and one buffer per day which, at this point and time, prior to this 

chlorination I'm about to do, leaves me one chlorine and two buffers. Seems to me I'm

one chlorine short, and that being the case, I'd like to ask your advice on postponing this 

chlorination using the last container until some later date like maybe tomorrow. Over.

CAPCOM Roger. We copy, Mike. Stand by.

CAPCOM Hello Apollo 11, Houston. Check in A1, Mike, and see what you can find in 

there. Over. We think you might have some more chlorine up in Al. Over.

CAPCOM Hello Apollo 11, Houston. Apollo 11, Houston. Do you read? You're

breaking up. Over.

SC Roger. We hear.

CAPCOM Roger, 11. You're breaking up. Mike, please look in component Al. We 

think there might be some more chlorine up there. Over.

SC Eureka!

CAPCOM 11, Houston. Reading you about 1 by. Over. 

CAPCOM Apollo 11, Houston. We're having a downlink problem, the reason we can't 

read you. We're switching sides. Stand by. Hello Apollo 11, Houston. How do you read 

now? Over.

 

SC Fine.

CAPCOM Rog. You're 5 by on that too, Mike. Thank you much. Did you copy that 

about Al on that chlorine?

SC Eureka! 
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CAPCOM How about that, sports fans? 

CAPCOM Apollo 11, Houston. We're having a little trouble getting the yaw rate 

damped out to the appropriate value. We'd like you all to be quiet like mice for a couple 

of minutes and let's see if that’ll help it out. Over.

CAPCOM 11, Houston. You did great work there. We're ready to spin it up. Over.

CAPCOM 11, Houston. Did you copy? Over.

SC Yes. We read you, Charlie? Would you stand by a minute?

CAPCOM Roger. No hurry.

CAPCOM 11, Houston. Shift change time here. White team bids you good night. 

We'll see you tomorrow. Over.

SC Okay, Charlie. Thank you.

SC Night, Charlie. Thank you.

SC Adios. 

CAPCOM Adios. Thanks again, for a great show, you guys.

SC Thanks for a great show down there.

PAO This is Apollo Control at 137 hours 52 minutes. Apollo 11 crew has signed 

off for the night, starting a well-deserved rest period. Duration of the rest period is 

programmed for 10 hours, however, the wake up time is not critical. It's very likely that 

we'll let them sleep ‘til they wake up of their own accord. At this time Columbia is 7,045 

nautical miles away from the moon, headed toward home at a velocity of 4,868 feet per 

second. 

PAO This is Apollo Control at 138 hours 02 minutes. CAPCOM Owen Garriott 

has just put in a call to the crew and is passing up some antenna information to them. 

Here's that conversation.

CAPCOM Howdy there, Mike. We're ready to go ahead and have you put your OMNI 

position for your sleep period, and we would like the following high gain put positions:

your high gain antenna in MANUAL, beam was WIDE, pitch is minus 50, and yaw is a 

plus 270 and just follow the flight plan for remaining comm configuration. Over.

SC Roger. (garbled)...pretty hard.

CAPCOM Your comm is pretty weak at this point, Mike. Please say again.
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SC Roger. (Garbled).

PAO That coming at 137 hours 55 minutes elapsed time. At that time the 

battery power fell below the level where the secondary guidance system could hold the 

attitude of the vehicle within the steerable of antenna limits. We do not expect to 

establish contact with Eagle again. We'll continue to stand by here live. There may be a 

bit little more conversation before the crew turns in for the night.

CAPCOM Apollo 11, Houston. We'd like for you to go ahead and put on S-Band 

antenna OMNI to OMNI and OMNI B. Over.

CAPCOM Apollo 11, Houston. How do you read me through Honeysuckle now? 

Over.

SC You're loud and clear. Over.

CAPCOM Very good. Reading you better now and did you copy we'd appreciate 

going S-Band OMNI and OMNI B at this time? Over.

SC Roger. (Garbled).

CAPCOM Okay, thank you. 

SC (Garbled).

PAO This is Apollo Control at 138 hours 11 minutes. We do not intend to 

contact the crew during this rest period again. We will take this lying down now and 

come back up if there is further conversation. This is Mission Control, Houston.