The Saga of Apollo 13 - Part IV
4 June 1970
Apollo 13
MET: 130:15:22 (59 hours to Entry Interface)
Manned Spacecraft Center - MOCR
29° 33’ 47” N 95° 05’ 28” W
Krantz had shed his customary vest and his plain black tie was loosened. Kraft and Lunney gave him their full attention and he spoke quickly, but clearly. “I’ve got the White Team into separate Tiger Teams now. They’re each taking one issue that we’re going to face on the way back in. Guys from EECOM and TELMU are working on the CO2 scrubbers. They’re figuring something out with the suit hoses to filter Aquarius’s air. Recovery and Guidance are still figuring out if it’s worth it to do a burn. We lost the PC+2 opportunity, but there might be something we can do with what we have left in
Aquarius.”
Kraft interjected, “That’s not much, considering what we had to use for the ascent and rendezvous.”
Krantz said, “Yeah, we’re low on fuel in the LEM. It may be worth it though, considering the water situation. John Aaron’s team is working on how to get a cold CM powered up again. That’s gonna be the worst of it, I think.”
Lunney nodded, “It’ll still be cold in the
Odyssey four days from now.”
“I’ve been thinking about that. We may want to try to see if we can seal that hole and then feed O2 into the cabin. After we get the scrubbers sorted out, we’ll figure out how much air we can spare to feed into
Odyssey to get the computers going before reentry.”
Kraft raised an eyebrow, “Let it leak intentionally?”
“Yeah, if we can keep air in the cabin for maybe an hour or two before entry, we can get the AGC going again and it’ll hold out through splashdown.”
Lunney asked, “We need to figure out if venting that much will affect the entry angle.”
Krantz nodded, “And what may happen if we’re still venting after entry interface.”
Kraft spoke up, “That’s pretty dicey, Gene.”
“We’ve got to have the AGC up and running before interface. The AGC needs air around it to function for any extended period. We can try to minimize the effects of everything else and I think we can get it down pretty good. We’ve got 2 days to figure that out.”
Kraft pondered for a moment. Technically, Krantz was in charge, but there was no one at NASA who wouldn’t be interested in the opinion of Christopher Columbus Kraft Jr. when it came to matters of crew safety. After a moment, he realized that Krantz and Lunney were waiting for him to speak, “What? That’s what we’ve got to do. Let’s get to it.”
---
*Down the hall, in the GNC backroom, Gold Team’s Gary Coen was having a very unusual conversation with a rep from the subcontractor who had built the AGC.
“I need you to consult your manufacturing records and see what experience you have powering up an inertial maneuvering unit from a completely cold state to a fully operational state.”
“A completely cold state?” the engineer asked.
“Completely. No heaters.” Coen replied.
“That’s easy. We don’t have any experience with that.”
“None?” Coen asked.
“None. Why would we? That unit’s supposed to be heated. We already know that if you fly without the heaters, the thing’s not going to work.”
“So, you’ve got no data on this at all?” Coen asked.
“Well,” the engineer said, after a pause, “one of our people up in Boston did take a guidance unit home with him one night and accidentally left it in his station wagon ‘til morning. It got down to about 30 degrees, but the next day the thing started right up with no problem.”
“That’s it?” Coen asked, with a raised eyebrow.
The engineer shrugged, “Sorry.”*
4 June 1970
Apollo 13
MET: T+ 148:20:09
Callsign: Aquarius
41 hours to Entry Interface
They’d let them sleep after pressurization was complete and stable. Lovell, Haise and Mattingly had managed to find comfortable spots in
Aquarius, despite the cramped space. Mattingly had chosen to curl up over the ascent engine, behind Lovell and Haise, who more or less slept standing up, not that the term had any meaning in zero-G.
When they woke,
Houston began a run down of the new flight plan. In an ordinary flight, the trip home was relatively uneventful. It was as close as an astronaut would get to a vacation in space. Sure, there were a few occasional observations to make, or a bit of housekeeping to take care of, but, for the most part, the return from the Moon had a fair bit of downtime.
Not for the crew of Apollo 13.
With Aquarius being designed to hold 2 men for 2 days, the first priority was to extend her consumables. In order of priority, these were power, water, and air.
In order to get more power into
Aquarius, they would need to activate the
Odyssey to back up the LEM’s power supply. This was a procedure which was only to be used for the flight out to the Moon, should a problem develop with the LEM’s batteries.
In order to initiate the power transfer sequence,
Odyssey’s computers would have to be activated. In order to activate the computers, they’d have to be brought to a stable temperature; which meant repressurizing
Odyssey. In order to repressurize
Odyssey, it would need to be patched.
So, in a space that would be dwarfed by a walk-in closet, one by one, the men of Apollo 13 donned their space suits.
Haise grinned despite the situation. He said to Lovell as he sealed him up, “First you needed a screwdriver, now I’d give my right arm for a good caulking gun.”
Vance Brand was working CAPCOM today. He called back, “Roger that, Fred. I’m betting we’ll have all sorts of new additions to the in-flight tool kit on the next trip.”
Haise sheepishly shrugged, reminding himself that they were on VOX and Houston was copying their every word.
The EVA would have two objectives. First was to refresh the jerry-rigged oxygen tank from
Aquarius, using
Odyssey’s oxygen system. Ken Mattingly would handle that, sitting in the left-hand seat of the
Odyssey. At the same time, Lovell would go through
Odyssey’s hatch and, armed with duct tape and a few loose nuts and bolts, would attempt to patch the hole in
Odyssey’s hull.
Truthfully, the engineers of the MOCR weren’t very confident in the repair plan, but, if successful, it would be very helpful. The greater purpose was to prepare the spacecraft for a pressurization and power-up, to look for potential difficulties in doing so before reentry. The idea being, if the fix held, all the better, if not, they’d have a test run for Saturday.
Lovell led the way through the tunnel between
Odyssey and
Aquarius, armed with a roll of duct tape, a couple of washers and screws and his Hasselblad 500EL surface camera. The plan was to diagnose the hole from up close. The tape would be his main tool. If he could jam a screw into the hole, that might be worth a try, but he was loathed to risk making it any worse. He carried along the Hasselblad so that
Houston would be able to get a good look at the hole once they got back.
Houston had batted around the idea of using the surface video camera, but that idea was nixed as it would likely be in direct sunlight, and would risk frying the circuitry. Lovell had been against using it too, since the video camera was more cumbersome. He was fairly comfortable with the Hasselblad at this point. He’d taken a training model on several vacations with Marilyn and the kids.
Haise followed behind him, a bungee cord connected Haise’s hand to Lovell’s left foot. It wasn’t really necessary, but it was an extra layer of safety, on a flight where plenty of safety had leaked out with the oxygen.
Mattingly brought up the rear, cradling the
Aquarius’s oxygen tank like a running back with a football. He assisted Lovell with opening the
Odyssey’s hatch, then got to work on connecting the oxygen tank to the output.
“Okay,
Houston. I am out the door. Let’s see what kind of hand we’ve been dealt here.” Lovell said.
“Roger, Jim. We’d love to get your descriptions on this before we start the repair.”
“Copy that,
Houston. There’s not much to this hole. It looks a lot like someone shot the
Odyssey with a big BB gun. It’s maybe twice the size of his thumbnail with some wrinkling around it. The hull itself appears to have been scorched, likely scoring from the heat generated by the high-speed of the impact.”
He managed to photograph the damage from all sides. “
Houston, I think I can see a bit of the rock itself. It looks like a piece of it wedged in one of these tiny little ridges on the outer hull.”
Vance Brand’s voice was excited, “Roger that, Jim. We’re definitely gonna want you to bag that piece and bring it back.”
“Copy,
Houston. Freddo, if you could please, disengage my line and get me a sample return bag.”
A few minutes later, Fred handed him a bag through the hatch. Lovell very carefully pried out the piece of stone and bagged it. Returning it to Fred’s outstretched hand with the gentleness one would usually reserve for an infant.
“Okay,
Houston. That’s sample number 13290 for when we get back home. Now, let’s see about getting this hole fixed.” Lovell said.
He stretched out a piece of duct tape, about half a foot long. He placed it over the hole and pressed it home. In vacuum, no one was sure how well it would hold up. It laid flat and didn’t peel up, which was a good sign. He took a photo of the first strip laid down. The wrinkles were troubling. The ridges around the hole made ridges in the tape. It wasn’t ideal, but there was nothing to be done for it. He applied more strips to either side of the first, then another layer on top, then put two strips on each end, perpendicular, like the logs on a raft. It was all he could think of. He relayed as much to Houston. Time would tell if the patch was airtight, or if it would last even a minute with the 5 psi of
Odyssey pushing against the vast nothingness of the entire universe.
It was best not to think about it.
Ten minutes later, he was back inside. They stayed in the suits, with the
Aquarius sealed up behind them. If the seal failed after they reached full pressure, it was probably best to have
Aquarius cut off from any of the issues that may result.
Mattingly, being the CMP, was given the left-hand seat for the test.
“Okay,
Houston. Opening the valves now. Let me know how it reads down there.”
At the EECOM station, Liebergot monitored the console over the shoulder of Black Team’s EECOM. They had switched to a secondary channel for the telemetry, and were able to monitor the rising pressure within the spacecraft.
Back in
Houston, Glynn Lunney was Flight for the moment. “EECOM, give us a rolling commentary if you will please.”
“Copy, Flight. Point five psi. One. One point five...”
Over the next few minutes, Odyssey refilled with pure oxygen from the service module. There was a collective sigh of relief when the spacecraft got back to 5 psi.
Lunney didn’t want to signal any relief, to his controllers, or the world listening in. “People, we’re not out of the woods by any stretch. We have no idea how long this’ll last. Let’s use this time to sort out as much as we can. GNC, let’s start in with the AGC initialization procedures.”
5 June 1970
Apollo 13
MET: T+ 158:32:12 (30 hours to Entry Interface)
Manned Spacecraft Center - MOCR
29° 33’ 47” N 95° 05’ 28” W
The seal had held for 108 minutes. That was better than expected. The crew had used the time to get the last of the
Odyssey’s potable water into bags. That had helped immensely with replenishing
Aquarius’s tank and keeping the LEM’s hardware cool. They had also managed to restart the AGC and get power transferred to the LEM batteries.
Liebergot had worked closely with a couple of the reps from Grumman and North American and they’d been able to relay a procedure that allowed the batteries to continuously draw from
Odyssey. It would be nerve-wracking to monitor the power feeds for the trip home, but it was well within Houston’s capabilities.
The crew had stayed in suits for the entire time, and it came as no surprise when they had to move back to the
Aquarius. They’d dutifully preserved as much air as they could from the
Odyssey’s tanks, then took the AGC through a by-the-book shutdown, to avoid any further damage.
After a rest period, Vance Brand called up 13 to get a handle on the next situation before it became a crisis.
“
Aquarius,
Houston.”
“
Houston,
Aquarius.”
“Fred, we have some new instructions on your CO2 situation up there. Are you guys awake? Ready to start the day?”
“Roger that,
Houston. We’re good to go. What have you got?”
Brand looked through the extensive wad of notes that he’d been handed by the engineers, “Okay. Just some info. We're working up a procedure for you to use to—to use command module LiOH canisters to connect to your hoses—the outlet hoses in the LM so that, as time passes in the mission, you can continue scrubbing the LM atmosphere. And this whole thing requires modifying a kit so that you can attach the hose modifying a LiOH canister, so you can attach the hose to it. Over.”
Haise replied, “Roger,
Houston. Whenever you’re ready, we’ll start in. You guys just tell me what sort of material you had in mind to build this out of, and Ken and I will go to work on trying to construct that thing. Assume we'll use the space-age baling wire or the gray tape?”
“That's affirm. We have a lengthy procedure here; but, in short, you use plastic as a covering for the whole thing. You put some kind of a stiffener at the top so the plastic doesn't suck against the LOI—LiOH enter—entrance side. You'll—You need gray tape to stick the whole thing together, and you need something like a sock to put in the—the bottom so that the outlet side is plugged up. As it turns out, the flow is rather U-shaped through the cartridge, Fred. It, if you plug up the bottom, it comes in one side of the top and goes out the other.”
There was silence for a few minutes as materials were gathered. Lovell used the time to fine tune the PTC barbecue roll, which had given them trouble, with
Aquarius carrying
Odyssey’s bulk on her back.
Mattingly came on the line, “Okay, Vance. A couple of items we uncovered for that cartridge MOD. One is the special dust covering bag that we were going to use on the tote bags, that is pretty thick and nonporous; and we retrieved a fairly large—enclosed—enclosure made of plastic that those drink bags are in that I think we can scissor and also make do for a cover, taping it on, if that's appropriate.”
“Stand by,
Aquarius. I want to get Joe Kerwin on comm. He was on the team that put this thing together. Let me put him on the line.”
Kerwin’s voice came over a moment later, “Okay; right. Okay. I'm ready to start into the procedure. When you answer me back, speak up—speak up into the microphone, because our downlink is pretty noisy. The first thing we want you to do, and we'll do this on one canister, and then let you go ahead and repeat it on the second. So take one of the LCGs and cut off the outer bag. By cutting along one the heat seals; do it carefully and close to the heat seal, because we may have to use the outer bag if we damage the inner bag. So go ahead and do that, and then we'll do the next step.”
“Take an LCG, cut the outer bag by the heat seal, but don’t damage the inner, right?”
“Right, just cut along one side.”
“Okay, we’ve done that.”
“Now, remove the inner bag from the outer, cut the inner bag, also along one of the heat seals, down one side.”
Over the next half hour, Kerwin walked Haise and Mattingly through the construction of the “mailbox” device that filtered
Aquarius’s air.
6 June 1970
Apollo 13
MET: T+ 180:17:06
Callsign: Aquarius
8 hours to Entry Interface
Jim Lovell woke up from a fitful sleep with Ken Mattingly’s hand on his shoulder. He reached for it instinctively and Mattingly held him steady.
Mattingly nodded towards the still sleeping Fred Haise, floating in his corner of the cramped
Aquarius cockpit. Mattingly put a finger to his lips and Lovell nodded and checked that the microphones were off of VOX.
Lovell whispered, “What’s up, Ken?”
“I’ve been thinking about entry interface.”
“You and me both.”
“Jim, there’s something I want to recommend, but… it’s not something I want to talk about.”
Lovell tilted his head. Mattingly looked very troubled. “What’s on your mind, Ken?”
“Mission rules call for us to go to VOX before interface. Hot mikes all the way down.”
Lovell nodded, “Yeah, it’s just one less thing to worry about.”
“I think we should go to manual transmission.”
“Oookay, but why does it matter.”
“In case it doesn’t go according to plan.”
“What do you mean?”
“The blackout should last for 3 minutes, but there’s no guarantee when it’ll lift. It’s a little bit different for every flight.”
“Yeah, but I still don’t see…”
“If we have a burn through, there’s no way to know when…”
“We’re not gonna have a burn through.”
“With the impact, and we may be venting… There’s no way that tape will hold up. And we don’t know if it’ll get hot in the Odyssey with that exposure… or how hot it might get. And we don’t know how any of this may have affected the chutes.”
Lovell nodded. He’d been trying not to think about that as there was nothing to do for it. The parachutes could be heated after power-up of the
Odyssey, but, like the computer, they weren’t designed to be flash-frozen either.
He could see where Ken was going with this, but it was worth saying, “What does this have to do with the comms?”
“If we come in ballistic… or not at all… I think it’d be better if we did it silently, as far as the air-to-ground loop.”
Lovell nodded, “Bad for the program.”
“It’ll be bad anyway, but it’s one less thing to put on the news.”
“We’re a public records agency.”
“Yeah, and I really don’t want my parents to hear anything like that, if the worst happens.”
Lovell agreed with that. The idea of Marilyn or the kids hearing something like that was too terrible to contemplate.
“Ken, it’s gonna be fine.”
“I know. I’m just saying…”
A beat passed between them.
“Yeah… yeah, okay. I’ll keep it in mind.”
Haise grumbled through a snore and woke up slowly, “Morning fellas. I didn’t hear the rooster crow.”
Lovell left the grim nature of the conversation behind, “Homecoming day. Let’s get some breakfast before we head back into the office.”
6 June 1970
Apollo 13
MET: T+ 188:50:06
Callsign: Aquarius
10 minutes to Entry Interface
The new seal was in place,
Odyssey was pressurized and powered up. They’d gotten it all done with less than half an hour to spare.
Aquarius had departed like an old friend. They silently watched her tumble away, awaiting her fiery fate over the Pacific.
If the 108 minutes of the first patch was a guide, they could expect air pressure to stay constant through entry interface, but no one believed that a duct tape patch job would hold up against the plasma. The crew had stayed on suit oxygen since leaving
Aquarius.
Mattingly had the left-hand seat. Lovell had complete trust in his CMP. Jim had said a few thank you’s to the various technicians and engineers in
Houston, as well as those in dozens of other sites around the country. Before switching off the VOX feed, he allowed himself one final word to the two men that he was closest to.
“Gentlemen, it’s been a privilege flying with you.”
The heat of reentry from a lunar flight is such that, if one were to put a diamond on the heat shield of the command module, there was a decent chance that it would literally melt during the descent. The energy generated was enough to lift every living person one foot off the ground, or to light up a major city.
So, 8 strips of duct tape were reduced to a cinder in approximately 12 seconds. The crew was spared the knowledge of exactly when the patch failed. Reentry was like flying through a neon tube. The man-made aurora they flew through would have been beautiful, if it didn’t come with the knowledge of the dangers it created.
With the patch gone and Odyssey leaking her precious oxygen, the ship began a slow shudder. The leaking air quickly caught fire and began to melt the weakened metal around the puncture. Later analysis would indicate that if the hole had managed to reach 5cm, it would have been enough to put the
Odyssey into a tilt that would have doomed the spacecraft.
In later years, visitors to the Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. would often have their pictures taken with the
Odyssey’s puncture prominently displayed. Docents at the museum eventually added a ruler to the display, showing that the hole itself was 1.5 inches across. About 3.8cm for those who used the metric system.
Mattingly heard the call for Noun 67 from Houston. Neither he nor Lovell could understand at first why
Houston wasn’t hearing their calls after the drogue chutes opened.
Lovell laughed as he finally remembered to key the mike switch. He tapped Mattingly on the shoulder and pointed. Around 9000 feet of altitude, just as the mains were deploying, Lovell replied to the hails, “
Houston, this is
Odyssey. It’s good to see you again.”
*The section with Gary Coen's conversation has been taken, largely verbatim, from Jim Lovell's book,
Apollo 13.
Please click any of the Houston links in Part IV to learn how you can help the victims of OTL Hurricane Harvey. Each link is unique. Find the one (or two, or 12) that works for you.