1968: Apollo 5 (NASA)

The Apollo 5 mission was intended to test the Lunar Module in a space environment, in particular its descent and ascent engine systems, and its ability to separate the ascent and descent stages. The descent engine would become the first throttleable rocket engine fired in space.

The mission was also intended to perform a "fire in the hole" test - as depicted in the mission's insignia - whereby the engine of the ascent stage would be fired whilst still attached to the descent stage. This would simulate the conditions experienced in an abort during descent to the lunar surface.

It had been planned to launch Apollo 5 in April 1967 and so delivery at the Cape was hoped for around September 1966. But delays kept occurring. Although the lunar module was fully designed, there was trouble fabricating the custom made parts. The all important engines were also having problems. The descent engine was not burning smoothly and the ascent engine was having fabrication and welding difficulties.

The launch vehicle for Apollo 5 was the Saturn IB, a smaller rocket than the Saturn V but capable of launching an Apollo spacecraft into Earth orbit.

On 22 January 1968, eight months after the planned launch date, Apollo 5 lifted off just before sunset. The Saturn IB worked perfectly, inserting the second stage and LM into a 163 x 222 km orbit. The Lunar Module separated 45 minutes later, and after two orbits started a planned 39 second burn of its descent engine. This was curtailed after four seconds by the onboard guidance computer, which detected that the engine's thrust was not building up rapidly enough. This was due to a software bug; the propellant tanks were only partially pressurised, and it took longer than the programmed four seconds to reach full acceleration.

The ground controllers moved to an alternate plan. They turned off the guidance computer and started an automatic sequence programmed into the onboard computer. This fired the descent engine two more times. It then performed the "fire in the hole" test and another ascent engine burn.

After four orbits the mission was over, and the two stages were left to decay into the Pacific several hundred kilometres southwest of Guam on 12 February.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• 1968
• nasa
• iaf
• space
• apollo

[iafastro]

We would be very interested in locating (and adding) any videos of Apollo 5 and Apollo 6. All we can find are stills so far...

[krisdevalle]

there really is a ridiculous amount of evidence proving that the US made it. The anomalous evidence suggesting a hoax is sketchy, and sparse. There's no 'hoaxer' who could accurately explain how the US might fake every single part of the missions. that's what you need to do. Put each theory to the test - and in the end, it is much more likely that it happened, than it didn't. You can make your own conclusions - but it's worth thrashing out each theory, every part of it.

[boomshanka]

When will retards like you ever going to STFU and accept the fact that the landings really did take place?

[GGE47]

What about the Apollo 1 fire?Were astronauts Grissom,White,and Chaffe really killed in the fire or are did they willingly give their lives to fake the manned space program? Were seven astronauts killed in the Challenger explosion,or are they still alive?What about the astronauts in Columbia as it disintegrated during re-entry?All of this to fake anything seems rediculous.

[andrelebaron]

@boomshanka they will never stop.  It's the one thing that allows them to believe, despite all evidence to the contrary, that they're smarter than everyone else.

[dirac33]

@dirac33 More Apollo 5 trivia - the LM windows shattered in a test pressurization, so they were replaced with aluminum plates for this test - so the bug was crippled and blind too :) The booster was the S-IB rocket that would have been used on Apollo 1 - it was not damaged in the pad fire and got selected for this test of the blind and legless bug. A strange history for SA-204.

[dirac33]

@mrsgollum Not to mention Borman and Schweickart puking all over the capsule! :) Well the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera has recorded the LM descent stages left on the Moon for all 6 landing missions, and people have found Venus in photos of the lunar sky, including yours truly, so the hoaxers are basically SOL with their "evidence".

[dirac33]

Poor pitiful bug had no legs :)

[stormrider620331]

LOL Hoaxers ,,get a job and pay some taxes

[mrsgollum]

CONT'D....learned by actually going there. It was found that when viewing a lunar surface vista, depth perception and judgement of distances is very difficult, as everything is crystal clear, no matter how far away, and there are no objects, such as traffic signs or post boxes, to give scale to anything.

Also, it is extremely difficult to recognise individual craters and other features from surface level, as distinct from viewing a map, so using them for navigation is almost impossible.

[mrsgollum]

CONT'D...subject, made a few years ago, dealt with the question of whether the landings were faked and the 'moonwalks' filmed on a set of a fake moonscape, by doing just what the skeptics claimed.. setting up a fake moonscape and filming a faked moonwalk.

The resulting film proved the moonwalks could not have been faked and look authentic. For example, the backpacks jolted from side to side in 1G.

Other things about what it is really like to walk on the moon could only have been

..CONT'D

[mrsgollum]

CONT'D....system of the SM, which delayed the LM descent several hours, John Young tripping over the leads of the heat flow experiment and ripping them out of the housing, ruining the expt, just as Charlie Duke was saying 'Look at that beauty (the redesigned drill bit) go!', the failure to find basalt, or anything else but breccias and a few bits of anorthosite, on 16...How would any of these things happened if the missions were faked?

In addition, one of the documentaries on this ...CONT'D

[mrsgollum]

The best evidence that the landings were genuine is all of the things that went wrong on the landing missions. The failed camera, Apollo 12, the whole 13 mission, the failure of the docking mechanism, the faulty abort switch which delayed the descent, and the failure to reach Cone Crater on 14, the drill bit which couldn't drill far into the hard surface, spoiling the heat flow experiment on 15, the particles coming of the LM, the faulty electrical circuit in the thrust vector control... Cont'd