NASA UAP D017 Preliminary Gemini 4 Crew Debriefing Part2 1965

• Authority: NW 91526 65 To urtfFj~fr{ft~E - - -- - -- -- - - " -== -- - - -~ l I By authority of-E---'-:---'--'-=--::....-~-=-__,___.c.....:::=---1 Cha nged bY--..£:::%:.:~~!l"~~==-- PRELIMINARY GT-4 FLIGHT CREW DEBRIEFING TRANSCRIPT PART II Prepared By Spacecraft Operations Branch Flight Crew Support Division June 18 , 1965 This material contains information affecting the national defense of the United States within the meaning of the Espionage Laws , Title 18. U. S. c. Section 793 and 794 , the transmission or revela­ tion of which in any manner to an unauthorized person is prohibited by law. Group 4: Downgrade at 3 year intervals Declassified after 12 years NOTICE: This document may be exempt from public disclosure under the Freedom of Infor­ mation Act (5 U.S.C. 552). Requests for its re­ lease to persons outside the U.S. Government should be handled under the provisions of NASA Policy Direct:ve 1382.2. • • I PREFACE This preliminary transcript was made from voice tape -recording3 of the GT-4 flight crew debriefing conducted aboard the recovery ship, the USS Wasp, on June~' 1965, and concluded at the Manned Spacecraft Center on June 12, 1965. Although all the material contained in this transcript crew debriefing conducted aboard the recovery ship, the USS Wasp, on June~' 1965, and concluded at the Manned Spacecraft Center on June 12, 1965. Although all the material contained in this transcript has been edited , the urgent need for the preliminary transcript by mission analysis personnel precluded a thorough editorial review prior to its publication. Errors in this transcript will be corrected as soon as possible and an official transcript will be published at a later date. Thia document contains a transcript of the second part of the total debriefing. A preliminary transcript of the first part was published on June 16 , 1965 , and it contains the crew ' s description of the mission from an operational standpoint. itit 4Fl8E!I ◄ • I Jlt'&' TABLE OF CONTENTS Paragraph 8 . 0 SYSTEMS OPERATION Page number 8 . 1 Pla tfo:r,n ................................................ . 1 O..AMS ....... ............ .........• ...... ...............• . 5 8 . 2 8 . 3 RCS ................................................ , ... 17 8 .4 Environmental Control System •••·················••••···22 8.5 CoDlDlunications ........................................ . 68 8 . 6 Electrical System ...................................... 82 8 . 7 Computer ............................................... 87 8.8 Crew Station .......................................... . 93 8 . 9 Bio-Medicat ........................................... 134 9 . 0 OPERATIONAL CHEDKS 9 . 1 Apollo Landmark Identification (D- 6) .................. 82 8 . 7 Computer ............................................... 87 8.8 Crew Station .......................................... . 93 8 . 9 Bio-Medicat ........................................... 134 9 . 0 OPERATIONAL CHEDKS 9 . 1 Apollo Landmark Identification (D- 6) .................. 144 9 . 2 Apollo Yaw Orientation •••·•··•·•••·•··••·•••···•·•·•••168 9 . 3 One Attitude Thruster Fai l ure Check ... ......... ....... 171 9.4 Horizon Scanner Track Check •·•••·•• ••·• · •• · •••• ·•·•••• 172 9. 5 Horizon Scanner Check ....................... ...... ~ ... 173 9 . 6 HF Transmission Reception Check ....................... 181 9·. 7 Orbit Navigation Check ................................ 182 9.8 Rela tive Humidity Test ................................ 185 Zodiacal Light Check .................................. 186 9.9 10.0 VISUAL SIGHTINGS Cotllltdo\.lll .................•.•........................ . 188 10.1 10. 2 . ................... ..... ..... ... ... . .. . 188 Powered Flight 10 . 3 Orbital Flight . ............................... ........ 191 10 .4 Reentry .................... . ......................... . 213 11 . 0 EXPERIMENTS 11 . 1 Two-Color Earth-Limb Photography (MSC-10) ............. 217 11 . 2 Synoptic Terrain and Weather Photography (S- 5 and S- 6) . 219 Simple Navigation with t he Sextant .... ......... ....... 219 11. 3 11.4 Electrostatic Charge (MSC- 1) .. .. ......... .....·........ 229 Proton- Electron Spectrometer Weather Photography (S- 5 and S- 6) . 219 Simple Navigation with t he Sextant .... ......... ....... 219 11. 3 11.4 Electrostatic Charge (MSC- 1) .. .. ......... .....·........ 229 Proton- Electron Spectrometer and Tri-Axis Flus-Ga.te 11.5 Magnetometer (MSC- 2 and MSC-3) ........................ 229 11 . 6 Radiation ( D-8) ........... ... ......................... 230 11 . 7 Inflight Exerciser (M-3) . ........ .. . . .. ... ... ......... 230 11 .8 Inflight Phonocardiogram (M-4) . . ...................... 232 11 . 9 Extravehicular Activity . ... ... ...... .. .......... ...... 232 11 . 10 Miscellaneous ................. . ....................... 232 12 . 0 PRE-MISSION PLANNING 12.1 Mi ssion Plan ( Trajectory) ....... .......... ...... .. .... 234 Flight Plan ..................... ... .. .. ............... 234 12 . 2 Spac ecraft Changes ............. ... . . .................. 239 12 . 3 12 . 4 Mission Rule s ........... ..... ... . ....... . . . .... . ...... 240 12. 5 Experiments ........................................... 241 12 . 6 Training Activities ................. .... . . ............ 24 5 13. 0 MISSION CONTROL GO/NO GO ' s ............. .. .............. .... ........... 249 13.1 PLA and CLA Updates ...................... . ............ 249 13 . 2 13. 3 Consumable s ............... ... ............... .. ........ 249 13.4 Flight Plan Changes ....................... .. .......... 250 Systems ............................................... 254 13. 5 14 .0 TRAINING 14 .1 Gemini Mission Simulator ..... . . .. ................ 249 13 . 2 13. 3 Consumable s ............... ... ............... .. ........ 249 13.4 Flight Plan Changes ....................... .. .......... 250 Systems ............................................... 254 13. 5 14 .0 TRAINING 14 .1 Gemini Mission Simulator ..... . . .. ................ .. .. . 255 LTV Simulation .................. . ...... . ........ .... .. 260 14. 2 14.3 Centrifuge ...................... .. .......... . ... ...... 261 14 .4 Translation and Docking Trainer ...... .. ............ ... 262 Planetarium ..................................... .. . ... 263 14. 5 Systems Briefings ................................ .. ... 266 14. 6 14. 7 Flight Expe rimen ts ............ ... .............. ... .... 267 Spacec raft Sys t ems Te s t .. . ...... ... ... . . .. .... ... .. ... 273 14 . 8 14 . 9 Egress Training ........................ .. ..... : .... . .. 274 14. 10 Parachute Training ................... . . ... ............ 275 14 . 11 Launch Simulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .............. . 276 14 .1 2 Network Simulation . .... . ............ . . .. . . . . . . . . . ..... 277 14. 13 Zero "G" Flight ........ . .......... ... . .. . .. . ... . ...... 278 14. 14 Flight Plan Traini ng .................... . ............. 279 8.0 SYSTEMS OPERATION 8. 1 Platform McDivitt Actually , the first portion of any alinement is to cage the thing. The case of caging the thing is much more important than the alinement itself. In the daytime I felt that I could cage the plat­ form to a first portion of any alinement is to cage the thing. The case of caging the thing is much more important than the alinement itself. In the daytime I felt that I could cage the plat­ form to a reference with an error plus or minus about 3 or 4 degrees in all axes . Did you think we could do that wel l? White Only in the daytime. McDivitt The yaw was a little problem. It took longer to get it, but if you kept after it for awhil e , I felt that you could get down to just a few degrees. White Within a couple of degrees . McDivitt The big thing is that you have to stop your yaw rates, and then sit there and look outside for awhile and see which way you're going, straight ahead or sideways . If you are going sideways you rotate around for awhil e and stop the rate and then look out a gain. Ri ght? I felt you could get the thing ca ged quite well. We. didn ' t do it BEF at all, did we? We never did cage in BEF. --, 2 White I ' m not sure. McDivitt The caging of the thing with small- end-forward in the daytime was r elative ly easy . At night I don't think it would be quite tha t simple . I think what you would have to do at night itt The caging of the thing with small- end-forward in the daytime was r elative ly easy . At night I don't think it would be quite tha t simple . I think what you would have to do at night time is to point the spacecraft down at the ground pretty much so you can see the track ac ross the ground, I could see which way the land was moving under me . I felt--although I never did this --that if I could do that and then roll around to where I had no bank angl e , and fac e in my yaw directi on, either small-end or blunt-end- forward , stop t he ro l l t her e and pitch up to the horizon I could cage there withi n plus or minus 10 degrees for sure . It was much less accurate at night, I fe lt, than in the daytime . White You aren' t kidding! We both felt that on those dark nights when you really couldn ' t see anything on the ground, pure star reference for yaw was pretty rough . McDivitt Pure s tar reference for yaw was almost impossible to use. That was the only place where that thing we decided not to take with us--the view of the stars through the window--might have been of some 3 use to us. We knew the stars along our track but you couldn't see enough of them. The quickest way not to take with us--the view of the stars through the window--might have been of some 3 use to us. We knew the stars along our track but you couldn't see enough of them. The quickest way to get the yaw reference was to look down at the ground. Once we got the platform caged, aline­ ment was quite simple . All you had to do was just hold the needles at zero and the platform alined itself. Of course you had to have the scanners on , The modes--the SEF and the EEF wer e identically the same except the spacecraft is pointing in different directions . You tended to null the needles by using pulses and just hold the needles very close to null and the platform alined itself through the horizon scanners . Orbit Rate was a satisfactory mode, I thought. As a matter of fact, it was very good. White I liked that Orbit Rate, McDivitt Yes, because we finally had a reference where we didn't have to look out and s ee the ground . It 's like having the old altitude indicator back in an airplane . The only thing was, we had the wrong orbit rate in the spacecraft because it was s e t for an orbit rate t hat was to take care of, I think, a 60 nautical mile circular orbit. This was to take care of the had the wrong orbit rate in the spacecraft because it was s e t for an orbit rate t hat was to take care of, I think, a 60 nautical mile circular orbit. This was to take care of the short period of time between ~~ SQ -lii4Q"itsll-lM.- . 4 going to Orbit Rate at T- 5 and firing the retros at TR. We wanted to have exactly the right rate in there so when we did our closed-loop reentry we wouldn ' t have an error. As I said , I had the most accurate platform in the world with nothing to do with it . I think the displays were adequate and the controls were adequate . After t he first couple of revs I really didn ' t have any confidence at all in the platform. I had done nothing to establish any confidence in it . I really didn't get the chance to get the thing alined, and I real ly didn ' t have the view out the window to check it with. We were hurrying and scurring through there . We finally shut the thing down before I really got a chance to use it very much . When we powered it up there on the third day and we saw that thing coming around there• -and cage properly, we compared the out- the- window attitudes and that old a ttitude reference was right there. That's when I powered it up there on the third day and we saw that thing coming around there• -and cage properly, we compared the out- the- window attitudes and that old a ttitude reference was right there. That's when I got some confidence in the platform. White This is where we lost a couple of bets . McDivitt That ' s right . We lost a couple of beers on that platform . At retrofire I had a lot of confidence in the platform , but the first two and a half to 5 three days I really didn't have anything with which to establish any confidence. It was just an unknown. White Jim did the majority of the work in this area and I think his comments reflect my opinion also . 8.2 OAMS McDivitt On the pad we did the thruster check that we wanted to. We went around one whole cycle and got nothing. We went around another whole cycle and got nothing until we got to the l ast one. We were going yaw left pitch-down, yaw right pitch-up, yaw left pitch- down, yaw right pitch­ up . When we got to that second pitch-up, I heard the thrusters fire for the first time . · White You can hear them. It was very distinct. McDivitt That's right. And then we went around and yawed left and they fired again. We -waited 20 seconds and usters fire for the first time . · White You can hear them. It was very distinct. McDivitt That's right. And then we went around and yawed left and they fired again. We -waited 20 seconds and fired a yaw left again, and they fired again . These were the bottom manifold jets. We said, "Okay, we're ready to go.", and that was the end of it. So, it -was a pretty straightforward check. The inflight checks--I got my operational checks on the OAMS systems while chasing the booster I had Direct, Pulse, and Rate Command in around. Le !~FllffiPMxMii t a J 6 there as I chased it around, and those were the only modes I intended to use right then . Later on, I checked out the Reentry Rate Command and I checked the Rate Command before we thrusted . It did seem to be operating fine . Why don ' t you go through the next part , Eli? White All right . We 're going to get into the source temperature and pressure , the regulated pressure , and the prope llant quantity . Let ' s take the temperature first . The temperature of our OAMS was 75 degrees all the way down the line . The i nit ial indications on the pressures were approxi­ mately 2800 psi for the source and 320 psi for the regulated pressure . McDivitt The AMS was 75 degrees all the way down the line . The i nit ial indications on the pressures were approxi­ mately 2800 psi for the source and 320 psi for the regulated pressure . McDivitt The quantity gage operated all right except that, as I mentioned earlier , the thing seemed to wander up and down somewhere between 2 and 4 percent , depending upon where you were in the mission . You ' d read it one time and it would be 60, and you'd read it a little while later and it would be 62, and you 'd r ead it a little while l ater and it 'd be back about 60 . The greatest variation in that thing that ever occurred was when I went to sleep one time with it reading 60 and woke up and 7 it was reading 56. Another hour or two after that it had climbed slowly back up to 60 again. I had a long time to look at it in the same position. When we ended the cha.sing-around at the end of the first hour, we were down to 70 percent indicated and we never got below 50 percent in four days. White I'll tell you, the position it seemed to stay for days and days was 59 to 60 percent. We fired in Pulse Mode for a long time with the gage at that position, and all of White I'll tell you, the position it seemed to stay for days and days was 59 to 60 percent. We fired in Pulse Mode for a long time with the gage at that position, and all of a sudden that one time it dropped down to about 55 percent . McDivitt But then it came back up to 60. White I guess it did , didn ' t it? The temperatures all stayed fairly constant. If I recall .right, they dropped down to around 70 degrees. It seemed to me they continually decreased throughout the flight. I noticed this particularly in the RCS, but I guess we'll get to that later. The propellart quantity though , I think we mentioned earlier , ended up on our gaging at about 3 percent at the end . We got a little bit of ground information on the 0AMS propellant. I felt a little suspicious of the gage when it kept staying there at 59 to 60 8 percent for so long. McDivitt We were pretty miserly with that OAMS fuel . We set out to save the fuel and we sure did it . White I think that in future missions , if they permit the crew to use the Puls e Mode in a saving-manner they could do a lot more with the mission--if you could use Pulse Mode instead of just free-drifting around. In other words , line , if they permit the crew to use the Puls e Mode in a saving-manner they could do a lot more with the mission--if you could use Pulse Mode instead of just free-drifting around. In other words , line yourself up so you can make some decent observations. McDivitt Shoot! We were in Horizon Scan Mode when we got the last data, and I don ' t think we used any more fue l than we were when we were in free drift. White That ' s right. We certainly got more out of the orbit than we did when we were just drifting free. McDivitt I 'll tell you one record that we ought to hold . We've looked at the earth from more different angles than anybody else in the world . Well, maybe not . I guess the Russians did , but we sure got a lot of different views of that earth as we rotated around. White I thi nk the ground information that they called up on the status of our OAMS wasn't as much as they could have called up to us, but I 'm really satis­ fied that our OAMS was staying pretty constant . McDivitt So did I. The way I felt was that I knew that we 9 had to be as miserly with the fuel as we possibly could, so we got as much out of as little fuel as possible . So did I. The way I felt was that I knew that we 9 had to be as miserly with the fuel as we possibly could, so we got as much out of as little fuel as possible . There wasn ' t going to be anything to change that velocity. We just went along and I really didn't care how they were plotting that fuel on the ground. I knew that we were starting to get ahead of the schedule, because I was plotting it roughly onboard the spacecraft . I could see we were ~p above the line that we needed to remain above to handle our OAMS retrofir~. White Actually , we followed the profile rather closely, We leveled off there at first, and then when we started using it , we we~c right down the profile, McDivitt We were a little below the line and we just held the same fuel level until we walked out across it and got up on top of i+ Then, we went on down above it. White I think the controls and the switches were all satisfactory. McDivitt I think so too. The attitude controller worked fine and dandy. We didn't have any trouble with it. The stick forces weren't too high. We didn't get a chance to use it in any other mode besides 10 Pulse . It seemed to wor k all right in Pulse . We didn't have any trouble with it. The stick forces weren't too high. We didn't get a chance to use it in any other mode besides 10 Pulse . It seemed to wor k all right in Pulse. I don't really have any comments to make on the atti ­ tude controller . White As a matter of fact, I didn't ~se any Rate Command . McDivitt Didn't you really? White We didn't use the Rate Command . I got to use Direct a couple of times . I used Pulse a lot . Everytime you 'd go to sleep, I ' d rea lly have a bal] McDivitt I could tell that by the wiggling. White No . That was real ly great--flying that spacecraft . McDivitt That ' s right, and I think Pulse is the mode . You ca.n do a lot with it . With a little bit of planning you could get to the attitude--if you start out 5 or 6 minutes ahead of time. That's what we were doing. At 10 minutes before I was supposed to be at a certain atti tude I ' d start, and one or two little pulses and you'd--boop, boop, boop, boop-- th€ bad thing was if you were in an attitude where you couldn ' t see the horizon and didn ' t know where you were. You would give it a pulses and you'd--boop, boop, boop, boop-- th€ bad thing was if you were in an attitude where you couldn ' t see the horizon and didn ' t know where you were. You would give it a couple of pulses and nothing would happen, and you ' d have to give it a couple of more pulses. It ' d t ake a long time sometimes before you would get to where you could see . As a matter of fact, if at 5 minutes be fore @i~FfDENTI>4ct 11 we were supposed to be at a certain attitude we weren't approaching it, I 'd start pulsing a little harder. White You'd hear a series of about five quick pulses. NcDivitt It was a very economical control mode. The ma.ne·,..;ver controller worked the way it was supposed to. White What about the deadband? Did you think the dead­ bands and breakouts were all satisfactory? McDivitt Yes, just like the one we used in the simulator. You've got a lot of slop in it when you're making gross maneuvers because you're not fixing your elbow and manipulating around tmt point. You're fixing your shoulder and your whole arm, and it's just like shoveling coal--you've got about that much finesse to it . I don't think there's much you can say about it. The controls You're fixing your shoulder and your whole arm, and it's just like shoveling coal--you've got about that much finesse to it . I don't think there's much you can say about it. The controls weren't too gross and they weren't too minor. The whole thing was adequate. We did have an inflight mal­ function, or irregularity. We were in Horizon Scanner Mode one time and Fd wanted to yaw around. He started to yaw and the thing rolled. The Horizon Scanner Mode fired the roll thrusters to level it back off-- 12 White I couldn ' t get the yaw . We had a circui t breaker off. McDivitt Finally , after you did that a couple of times I looked up and saw we had knocked a circuit breaker off. That was one thing that we didn't cover in EVA that I should have mentioned . Ed was a real hazar d to the switch positions in that he was all over with his feet, arms , and hands - - . White I don't think I threw any though . Did I? Come on now. You ' re not guilty until you ' re convic ted . McDivi tt I don ' t know . You kept putting your foot on the HF Reentry Antenna Switch and stepping on it . Ha . Ha . Ha . McDivitt As for the a tt i tude control modes --I mentioned the i tt I don ' t know . You kept putting your foot on the HF Reentry Antenna Switch and stepping on it . Ha . Ha . Ha . McDivitt As for the a tt i tude control modes --I mentioned the Rate Command in OAMS seemed to be tighter than the Rate Command i n RCS , a l though t hey use the same electroni cs, the same gyros , and the i,,rhole thing . It might ha.ve just been my imagination, but I felt that the Rate Command system in RCS was a lot looser than it was in OAMS . The Reentry Rate Command operated just the way it should . It had a 4 degree dea dband , and handled the spacecra ft very well during reentry . Direct had a lot more a uthor ity than I thought it would, but it was ~IDE►~llM. 13 pretty straightforward. I think Pulse was the best mode on the spacecraft for the orbit phase . We were able to save all kinds of fuel, it worked fine, and it was just about what the doctor ordered . We didn't use the Horizon Scan Mode during about the first three days of flight, except for the second orbit when I think I \\18.S in Horizon Sca.n so that I could have the freedom to help Ed prepare for his EVA. The last day we used the Horizon Sca.n Mode, and I found orbit when I think I \\18.S in Horizon Sca.n so that I could have the freedom to help Ed prepare for his EVA. The last day we used the Horizon Sca.n Mode, and I found it to be an excellent mode . There was only one case when it broke lock and didn ' t recover. Wasn't that it, F.d.? White You've got it in the book . McDiYitt We've got in the book and we'll check on that . The Ho~izon Scan Mode worked essentially for 24 hours without any problem ~and I think it' s an excellent control mode, It seemed to be very economical on fuel . We were doing a lot of yawing around and right at sunrise a.nd sunset it seemed to get a l ittle nervous , especially if we had the horizon scanner pointed within about plus or minus 45 degrees of the sun. The moon didn ' t seem to affect it at all. I noticed that, occa­ sionally, we would ~et some thruster blips with the sun n&Q·tslfiO EtslltAIA · 14 :iObJFIDE1'4 Tf,t(ilfr pointed toward the hori zon scanner although we never got an unlock light . We wouldn ' t get an unlock light , but we 'd ~et a bunch of maybe four or five thruster blips right there. White Particularly at sunrise . Mc hori zon scanner although we never got an unlock light . We wouldn ' t get an unlock light , but we 'd ~et a bunch of maybe four or five thruster blips right there. White Particularly at sunrise . McDivitt It would hold . I thought the Ho rizon Scan-- Whi te It was definitely getting some spurious signals through but not enough to break it out all the way . McDivitt I thought the Horizon Scan Mode was an excel l ent attitude-hold mode. White Did you notice the water boiler venting, Jim? McDivitt Yes, I did. We kept yawing around to the left . I believe it was left. I did notice the fact that we were yawing , but not very much . We were yawing a t rates that we r e extremely low and it just took a pulse every once in a while to handle the thing. As a matter of fact, when we were chasing the booster around a lot a t the beginning, I never even noticed. It was when we were i n the Pulse Con­ trol Mode for a period of time,when we didn ' t do much thrusting in yaw, that I noticed we did start drifting off in yaw . So I did notice the water boiler venting. • 15 White