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Apollo 11 Highlights

Day 1

PAO ...T-10, 9, 8, we have a GO for main engine start. We have main engine 

start, 4, 3, 2, 1, O. 

PAO Thirty seconds and counting. Astronauts report it feels good. T minus 25 

seconds. 20 seconds and counting. T minus 15 seconds. Guidance is internal. 12, 11, 

10, 9. Ignition sequence starts. 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0. All engines running. Liftoff. We 

have a liftoff, 32 minutes past the hour, liftoff on Apollo 11. Tower cleared.

SC One Bravo.

CAPCOM 11, Houston, you’re good at one minute.

CAPCOM Shut down right on time.

SC 101.4 by 103.6

CAPCOM Roger. Shut down and we copy 101.4 by 103.6.

CAPCOM Apollo 11, this is Houston. You are confirmed to go for orbit.

SC Roger.

CAPCOM Apollo 11, this is Houston. You are go for TLI. Over.

SC Apollo 11. Thank you.

CAPCOM Roger. Out.

SC Ignition.

CAPCOM We confirm ignition and the thrust is GO. 

CAPCOM Apollo 11, this is Houston at one minute. Trajectory and guidance looks 

good and the stage is good. Over.

SC Apollo 11, roger.

PAO Speed 5000 feet per second

PAO Cut out. We’re showing velocity 35, 570 feet per second. A ltitude 177 

nautical miles.
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SC Okay, Houston, Apollo 11. That Saturn gave us a magnificent ride

CAPCOM Ah, Roger, 11, we’ll pass that on and it’s certainly looks like you’re rolling 

your way now.

PAO That was Neil Armstrong praising the launch vehicle.

SC We have no complaints with any of those three stages on, on that, that 

ride. It was beautiful.

CAPCOM Roger. We copy. No transients at staging of any significance? Over.

SC That’s right. It was nominal, all a good ride.

CAPCOM Houston, roger, out.

CAPCOM Apollo 11, this is Houston. For your information we expect the maneuver 

to separation attitude to begin at 3 plus 05 plus 03 and to be completed at plus 09 plus 

20. Separation at 3 plus 15 plus 00. 

SC Roger, time to begin maneuvers in 30503 complete 30920 and separation 

3 plus 15 00.

CAPCOM Roger. That’s separation should be 3 plus 15 03, my error in reading up.

SC Roger.

PAO This is Apollo Control. The velocity falling off now. I mmediately after 

shutdown we’re showing 34,000 feet per second now, that the altitude building, 512 

nautical miles.

CAPCOM Apollo 11, this is Houston. A ll the booster functions are proceeding 

normally. The sequencing is in good shape and it doesn’t look like they’re having any 

problems at all. Over.

SC Roger.

PAO This is Apollo Control and we’re showing orbital weight now, 138 892. 9 

pounds.

CAPCOM Apollo 11, Apollo 11, this is Houston. Over.

SC Hello, Houston. Hello, Houston. This is Apollo 11. I’m reading you loud 

and clear. Go ahead, over.
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CAPCOM Roger, 11, this is Houston. We had to shift stations. We weren’t reading 

you through Gulfstone. We show pyro A armed and pyro B not armed at the present 

time. Over.

SC That’s affirmative, Houston. It’s affirmative.

CAPCOM Roger.

PAO The S-IVB has completed its maneuver to separation attitude. 

PAO 4 minutes away from separation, 4 minutes. 

PAO At 3 hours 11 minutes into the mission, velocity 26,314 feet per second, 

distance from Earth 3, 140 nautical miles. 

PAO The S-IVB is reported in a stable attitude for this separation. 

PAO Rates are less than 1/10th of a foot per second in all axis. One minute to 

separation. 

CAPCOM Apollo 11, this is Houston. Y ou are GO for separation. Our system’s 

recommendation is arm both pyro busses. Over. 

SC Okay, Pyro B coming armed. My intent is to use bottle primary 1 as per

the checklist. Therefore I just A on. 

CAPCOM Roger, we confer with the logic. 

PAO We are waiting confirmation of separation. 

SC And (garbled) secondary propellant B went (garbled).

CAPCOM That was secondary propellant on quad BRAVO?

SC Quad BRAVO, yes. Both the primary and secondary (garbled).

SC Houston, stand by.

CAPCOM Apollo 11, this is Houston. Radio check. Over. 

CAPCOM Roger. We’re copying you about 5 by 2, very weak. Can you give us a 

status report, please?

SC Roger. We are docked and we do want acquisition with the high gain at 

this time, I think.
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CAPCOM Understand you are using the high gain, over.

SC That’s affirmative.

CAPCOM Roger. I read you very loud and clear, Buzz. Mike is pretty weak.

SC Roger. We’ve got the high gain locked on now, I believe, auto tracking 

now.

CAPCOM Okay. You’re coming in loud and clear but Mike is just barely readable.

SC That was Neil. How you reading Mike?

CAPCOM Ah, loud and clear now, Mike, and we understand that you are docked. 

SC That is affirmative.

SC Houston, CDR how do you read (garbled).

CAPCOM 11, CDR, loud and clear, Neil. 

SC Okay.

PAO This is Apollo Control. Apollo 11’s velocity now 21,096 feet per second, 

distance from Earth 6,649 nautical miles.

CAPCOM Alright, 11, this is Houston. Over.

SC Houston, Apollo 11, go ahead.

CAPCOM Ah, Roger. When you commented on that BRAVO problem at separation, 

you were a little weak. Could you go through what you did after you noticed the talkback again, please?

CAPCOM We copied the primary and s econdary propellant talkback SM RCS 

BRAVO 1 (garbled). 

SC Roger. Roger, that is affirmative and we moved that switch to the open 

position and they went back to gray. Over.

PAO This is Apollo Control. We are at 34 minutes away from extraction from 

extraction from the lunar module from its adaptor in the third stage of the Saturn. The 

crew has started pressurizing the LM.

CAPCOM Apollo 11, this is Houston. Over.
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SC Roger. Houston, Apollo 11, go ahead.

CAPCOM Roger. C ould you give us some comments on how the transposition 

docking went? Over.

SC I thought it went pretty well, Houston, although I suspect I used more gas 

than I’ve been using in the simulator. The turnaround maneuver, I went pitch, accel 

command and started to pitch up and then when I put the manual attitude pitch back to 

rate command, for some reason it, it stopped its pitch rate and I had to go back to excel 

command and hit what I thought was an extra proceed on the DSKY key. Then during 

the course of that, we drifted slightly further away from the S-IV B than I expected. I 

expected to be out about 66 feet and my guess would be I was around a hundred or so 

and, therefore, I expect I used a bit more coming back in but except for using a little 

more gas, and I’d be interested in your numbers, everything went nominally.

CAPCOM This is Houston. Roger. We copy.

PAO That was Mike Collins giving the description on t he transposition and 

docking.

SC This is Apollo 11. Over.

CAPCOM Go ahead, 11.

SC Bruce, we’re working on the pressurization on the LM now and working off 

the decal of the SM LM pressure equalization and we’re down to Step 13 where we’re 

waiting for the cabin pressure to be 5 or it should be roughly 5 before we turn the 

repress package O2 valve to FILL. Instead of 5 we’re running about 4.4. Over.

CAPCOM Ah, Roger. Stand by a second. 

SC And, Houston, Apollo 11, we just put the repress package O2 valve to FILL 

momentarily there in Step 13 and we have filled the bottles back up partially. What’s 

the pressure reading on them? 

SC We have about 450 PSI in the, in the 3 1-pound bottles.

CAPCOM Stand by a second, please.

SC Roger. Standing by. And the repress package valve is now in the OFF

position. What’s the cabin pressure now, Buzz? Cabin pressure is now 4.5.

PAO At 3 hours 46 minutes, velocity is 18,917 feet per second, distance from 

Earth 9,002 nautical miles.
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SC Houston, Apollo 11. We think these readings are within normal 

tolerances. We just wanted to get your concurrence before we press down any further

with the decals.

CAPCOM Okay, Captain.

SC Ah, Houston, Apollo 11. How do you read?

CAPCOM Apollo 11, this is Houston. Go ahead.

SC LM looks to be in pretty fine shape from about all we can see from here.

CAPCOM Okay, and in reference to your question on this Step 13 on the decal, I 

understand that you have used up the contents of the repress O2 and at that time 

instead of being up to 5 PSI, you were reading 4.4. Is that correct?

SC Okay. 4-4, yes, sir. 

CAPCOM Okay, and y ou want to know if you can go ahead and use additional 

oxygen to bring the command module up to 5,.0 and continue the equalization? Over.

SC We think it’s within normal balance, Bruce, but we just wanted your 

concurrence before we press on with this procedure.

CAPCOM Roger, Apollo 11. Go ahead.

SC Okay. We’re pressing on with the procedure.

CAPCOM And 11, Houston. We have a r equest for you. On the service module, 

secondary propellant fuel pressurization valve, as a precautionary measure, we’d like 

you to momentarily cycle the 4 switches to the close position and then release. As you 

know, we have no TM or talkback on these value positions and it’s conceivable that one 

of them might also have been moved into a different position by the shock of separation. 

Over.

SC Okay. Good idea. That’s being done.

CAPCOM Houston, roger. Out.

CAPCOM Apollo 11, Houston. We’re doing a non-propulsive vat on the booster at 

the present time. You may see some sort of a cloud coming out of it and when you’re 

ready I have your evasive maneuver pad.

SC Roger. That’s coming out.

CAPCOM Roger. Out.
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SC It’s a haze. It’s going by toward our minus X direction and several small 

particles are moving along with it. A natural velocity is fairly high. At least it appears to 

be high and we’ve got an O2 high, flow high right now.

CAPCOM Houston, roger. Out.

SC And Houston, you might be interested that out my firsthand window right 

now I can observe the entire continent of North America, Alaska, over the pole down to 

the Yucatan Peninsula, Cuba, northern part of South America and then I run out of 

window.

CAPCOM Roger. We copy.

PAO That was Neil Armstrong with that report.

SC Houston. Apollo 11. All twelve latches are locked.

CAPCOM Roger 11. This is Houston. Understand 12 latches locked.

PAO And that was Buzz Aldrin reporting that all 12 of the latches in the docking 

mechanism had locked.

SC 11, Houston. Whenever you’re possessed of a free moment, we’ve got 

this Evasive Maneuver Pad.

CAPCOM Okay.

SC Go ahead, Houston. Apollo 11 ready to copy.

CAPCOM Apollo 11, this is Houston. Evasive Maneuver, SPS G&N 63481 plus 095 

minus 020. GTI is 004 40 01 00 plus 000 51 plus all balls plus 00190. ROLL is your 

option. PITCH 213 357. NOUN 44 is NA ∆VT is 00 197 003 00152. The rest of the 

pad is NA. No ullage. LM weight 33290. Read back. Over.

CAPCOM Apollo 11, this is Houston, standing by for your read back. Over. 

CAPCOM 11, Houston. Do you read? Over. 

CAPCOM Apollo 11, this is Houston. Do you read? Over.

SC Alright. All of a sudden, we had a little click and the signal strength began 

to start dropping off. Your transmissions were cut off very abruptly. How do you read 

now?
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CAPCOM Roger. Loud and clear. We had a handover to Madrid about the time, I 

was I guess halfway through the pad. If you could give me the last value you read, I’ll 

pick up there. Over.

SC Okay. Start with ∆VA. Over.

CAPCOM Roger. ∆ VZ is plus 00190. R OLL your option. P ITCH 213 357 and 

NOUN 44 is NA ∆ VT is 00 197 003 00152. The rest of the pad is NA and no ullage. 

LM weight 33290. Read back. Over.

SC Roger. H ouston. Evasive Maneuver SPS G&N 63481 plus 095 minus

020. 004 40 01 00 plus 000 51 plus all zeroes plus 00190. ROLL, crew option. 213

357 NA 00 197 003 00152. LM weight 33290. Over.

CAPCOM 11, this is Houston. Read back correct. Out.

PAO This is Apollo Control at 4 hours 4 minutes. Apollo’s velocity now is 17, 

014 feet per second. It’s distance from Earth, 11,753 nautical miles. We’re about 5 

minutes away from ejection of the lunar module and about 35 minutes away from this 

evasive maneuver. The ignition on the evasive maneuver an elapsed time of 4 hours 

40 minutes 1 second. It will be a service propulsion system burn of 3 seconds duration, 

∆V 19.7 feet per second.

SC Houston. Apollo 11.

CAPCOM Go ahead 11.

SC We’d like to arm our logic switches.

CAPCOM Okay, go ahead with the logic.

SC Okay, mark logic 1 and 2 armed.

CAPCOM Roger. We show the logic armed and you’re GO for pyro alarm.

SC Houston, we’re ready for LM ejection.

CAPCOM Roger, you’re go for LM ejection.

SC Thank you.

SC Houston, we are sep. We have a cryo press light.

CAPCOM Roger, copy. Cryo press light.
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CAPCOM Roger, 11. We recommend that you turn the O2 fans on manually and 

insure that the O2 heaters are in the automatic position.

SC Roger, O2 heaters are on and we’re going to cycle the O2 fans now.

CAPCOM Roger, O2 heaters to auto or you can watch them in the armed position 

and O2 fans manual on.

CAPCOM Apollo 11, this is Houston, over.

SC This is Apollo 11.

CAPCOM Roger. In reference to your question on RCS usage, it looks like you are 

about 18, maybe 20 pounds below nominal at the present time. N o problem at all. 

Over.

SC Great.

SC Wanted to be 18 – 20 pounds above nominal.

CAPCOM Sorry about that.

PAO This is Apollo Control at 4 hour s 34 minutes. A pollo 11’s velocity is 

14,972 feet per second. Its distance from Earth is 15,895 nautical miles. Spacecraft 

weight 96,760.9 pounds. We’re about 5 minutes from the Evasive Maneuver – that one 

sure there will be n o problems of re contact between the spacecraft and the S IV B 

stage of the launch vehicle.

CAPCOM 11, Houston. Your systems are looking good. We’re standing by for the 

burn.

PAO The duration of this burn will be 3 seconds. Delta V 19.7 feet per second.

PAO Ignition. Shut down.

SC Houston, Apollo 11. Could you confirm that pitch gimbal motor turned off? 

We just shut all 4 off and we got a questionable indication on the ECS on PITCH 1.

CAPCOM Roger. Stand by a second.

CAPCOM Apollo 11, this is Houston. Stand by, please.

SC Go ahead, Houston. Did you copy our residuals?

CAPCOM Roger. We got 00 and .2 it looks like.
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SC We had .1 a while ago. It just went to .2.

CAPCOM Okay.

SC That EMS Delta-V counter is minus 4.0.

CAPCOM Minus 4.0, roger.

SC And how about pitch gimbal 1? Can you confirm that off?

CAPCOM Can you stand by just a second on that? At the present time, we cannot 

confirm it off. We saw a current drop indicating that several gimbal motors had gone off. 

We’ll be back with you in just a second on it, over.

SC Okay. If necessary, we can recycle it.

CAPCOM Apollo 11, this is Houston. If you go ahead and cycle Pitch gimbal motor 

number 1 on and then off and give us a mark and we’ll tell you what we see. Over.

SC Okay, fine. It’s coming back on, ready, mark. It’s going back off, ready, 

mark. And that time we got an on board indication, Houston. Thank you a lot.

CAPCOM Roger, we confirm that it is off.

SC Yah, we do likewise.

PAO This is Apollo Control at 4 hours 44 minutes. A news conference at the 

Kennedy Space Center is about to begin. We will take down the live circuits and tape 

air to ground during this news conference, play it back after the conference. This is 

Mission Control Houston.

PAO This is Apollo Control at 5 hours 11 minutes into the mission. The S IV B 

slingshot maneuver was completed about 5 minutes ago, designed to put the third stage 

of the launch vehicle into a trajectory, will take it behind the trailing edge of the moon 

and then into a solar orbit. The crew did not witness this maneuver. The Command 

Module was not in the proper attitude where they could see the S IV B at the time. 

We’ve advised the crew that we do not believe we will do the first mid-course correction, 

that we’ll wait for mid-course correction 2 tomorrow and ex pect a D elta-V to be 

performed in that maneuver of about 21.3 feet per second. We’ve also had some other 

brief transmissions including comments from Neil Armstrong on the view out the window 

and a weather report on a part of the world he can see. We have the tape of these 

transmissions that have occurred during the news conference at the Cape. We’ll play 

that for you now and then catch up live.

SC Houston, Apollo 11. We’re starting our maneuver to observe the S IV B 

slingshot.
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CAPCOM Roger, 11. We’ve got an updated attitude for you on t he slingshot 

operation.

SC Okay, say the angle please.

CAPCOM Roger, ROLL 002.5. P ITCH 289.3. Y AW 357.5 and there’s also an 

update, minor correction to your attitude for the P 52. Over.

SC Roger, I have ROLL 2.5. PITCH 289.3 and YAW 357.5. Over.

CAPCOM Roger, and for your P 52 and optics calibration it’ll be ROLL 346.5. PITCH 

345.0. YAW 0007.8, over.

SC Roger, 346.5, 345.0 and 7.8. Thank you.

CAPCOM Houston, roger, out.

CAPCOM Apollo 11, this is Houston.

SC Roger, go ahead, Houston. Apollo 11.

CAPCOM Roger, we’re going to go ahead and enable the S IV B for the slingshot 

maneuver. The LOX dump will start about 12 minutes from now, over.

SC Okay, LOX dump about, I guess that’ll make it about 0.1 up.

CAPCOM All right, I’ll try to give you a little closer update as we approach it.

SC All right.

CAPCOM And 11, for your information, the magnitude of mid-course correction 

number 1, if we burned it, looks like about 17 feet per second. We’re presently 

considering not burning it. This would make mid-course correction 2 tomorrow about 

21.3, over.

SC That sounds good to us.

CAPCOM Roger, you’re looking good now.

SC We didn’t have much time, Houston, to talk to about our views out the 

window when we were preparing for LM ejection but up to that time we had the entire 

northern part of the lighted hemisphere including North America, the North Atlantic and 

Europe and Northern Africa. We could see that the weather was good, just about 

everywhere. T here was one c yclonic depression in Northern Canada and the 

Athabaska, probably east of Athabaska area. Greenland was clear and it appeared to 
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be, we were seeing just the ice cap in Greenland. All North Atlantic was pretty good in 

Europe and Northern Africa seemed to be clear. Most of the United States was clear. 

There was a, looked like a front stretching from the center of the country up ac ross 

north of the Great Lakes and into Newfoundland.

CAPCOM Roger, we copy.

SC And I don’t know what I was looking at, but I sure did like it.

CAPCOM Okay. I guess the view must be pretty good from up there. We show you 

just roughly somewhere around 19,000 miles out now.

SC I didn’t have much outside my window.

CAPCOM We’ll get you into PTC one of these days and take turns looking.

SC Houston, Apollo 11. We’re, we’ve completed our maneuver to observe the 

slingshot attitude but we don’t see anything, no Earth and no S IV B. 

CAPCOM Roger, stand by. I n GET I have a LO X dump start time for you. I t’s 

supposed to start at 5 plus 03 plus 07 and stop at 5 plus 04 plus 55. LH burn starts at 5 

plus 37 plus 47, stops at 5 plus 42 plus 7. Over.

SC Roger, thank you.

CAPCOM 11, Houston.

SC Go ahead, Houston.

CAPCOM Roger. We now recommend the following attitude. ROLL 307.0. PITCH 

354.0. YAW 019.5 and the LOX dump has already been enabled so we can’t hold it off 

any longer.

SC That’s okay. Go ahead. We’ll maneuver around at 307, 354, and 19 1⁄2. 

Thank you.

CAPCOM Roger.

CAPCOM 11, Houston. It doesn’t look to us like you’ll be able to make it around to 

this observation attitude in two minutes. We recommend that you save the fuel. Over.

SC Okay, Houston. We’ve, you got to us just a little late. Our maneuver’s 

already begun so it’s going to cost just about the same amount of fuel to stop it no 

matter where we stop it and we may as well keep going.

CAPCOM Roger, go ahead.
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CAPCOM 11, Houston, LOX dump initiated.

CAPCOM 11, Houston, LOX dump has been terminated, over.

SC Roger. We still don’t have the – 

CAPCOM Roger, out.

CAPCOM Apollo 11, this is Houston, over.

SC Go ahead.

CAPCOM Roger, if you’ll give us ACCEPT and stay in POO, we’ll set your trunnion

bias to 0 and I have a plan for balancing your oxygen cryos, over.

SC You got it.

CAPCOM Roger.

SC Houston, Apollo 11. We’ve got what appears to be the S IV B in sight only 

it has to be a couple of miles away. It’s at our number 5 window and the dump appears 

to be coming out of two radially opposite directions from the S IV B.

CAPCOM Roger. T hey’re continuing with the non-propulsive vent from the liquid 

oxygen tank. It would be radially opposite then. And boosters tell me, tells me it’s the 

continuous vents system, they’re also dumping a small amount of fuel at this time. You 

got about 23 1⁄2 minutes or so until the APS burn. Over.

SC Roger.

CAPCOM 11, Houston. We have a r ecommended configuration for your cryo 

switches to even up the load between oxygen tanks 1 and 2. Over.

SC Okay.

CAPCOM You’re coming in very weakly there. We’re recommending O2 tank 1 

heater OFF, O2 tank 2 heater to AUTO, O2 tank 1 and 2 fans both OFF. H1, H2 tank 1 

heaters to AUTO and H2 tank 2 heaters to OFF. Over.

SC Rog, we have that except the last one w as H2 fans to OFF. I s that 

affirmed?

SC The configuration we have now is hydrogen heaters, we got 1 AUTO, 2 

OFF, oxygen heaters 1 OFF, 2 AUTO and we have all the fans off.
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CAPCOM This is Houston. Roger, we concur. Out.

CAPCOM 11, this is Houston. We’ve completed the trunnion zero bias setting. You 

can retrieve the computer and go to BLOCK.

SC Roger, I thank you.

CAPCOM 11, this is Houston. We’re just maneuvering to view the slingshot. I guess 

we missed copying LM CM Delta P reading. Over.

SC Stand by, we’ll give you a recent one. Right now reading 0.2, Bruce.

CAPCOM Roger, 0.2.

CAPCOM Okay, Mike, and could you verify that your waste compartment valve is in 

VENT then?

SC Roger, waste compartment valve has been in VENT for, oh, 45 minutes or 

so. 

CAPCOM Roger, we copy.

SC If we’re late in answering, it’s because we’re munching sandwiches.

CAPCOM Roger, I wish I could do the same here.

SC Don’t leave the console.

CAPCOM Don’t worry. I won’t.

SC Frank doesn’t like it. How is Frank today?

CAPCOM Oh, he’s doing quite well.

PAO This is Apollo Control at 5 hours 22 minutes. We’re back live now. The 

Delta-P you heard discussed is the difference in pressure between the LM and the 

Command Module, cabin pressure. Apollo 11 coming up on 22,000 miles distance from 

the Earth now. Velocity 12, 914 feet per second.
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