Apollo 16 - failed to circularize orbit

Watching the Apollo 16 DVD, they said that the landing may be delayed
for one orbit because the CSM failed to circularize its orbit. Did
the SM engine fail? What happened?
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On Sun, 03 Sep 2006 22:07:19 -0400, Jud McCranie
wrote:

Watching the Apollo 16 DVD, they said that the landing may be delayed
for one orbit because the CSM failed to circularize its orbit. Did
the SM engine fail? What happened?

....Jud, you've *got* to spend a week over at EA. It's worth your
reputation around here to do so. Or, at least, go hit Eric Jones' site
for a while.

From the ASLJ:

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a16/a16.summary.html

*********
Although Young and Duke flew a near perfect landing, setting down as
close to their target as prudence and the rolling terrain permitted,
they landed some six hours late. In orbit, after they powered up the
lander and separated from the Command Module, Mattingly had been
scheduled to perform an engine burn to put himself in a position that
he could come to the rescue in the event of an aborted landing.
However, during tests of the control systems for the Command Module's
steerable rocket engine, a malfunction was detected in the backup
system. Mission rules dictated that, at this point, the two spacecraft
rendezvous in case it was decided that the crew would have to use the
LM engines to get back to Earth. However, after six hours of tests and
analysis, Houston decided that the engine problem could be worked
around and that the landing could proceed.
*********

....Note that the general post-flight analysis concluded that the most
likely culprit was an intermittent failure with a malfunction in a yaw
gimbal servo cable in the main service propulsion system (SPS) on the
CSM stack. Apparently when the engine gimballed along the yaw axis,
the cable was stretched and one or more of the wires suffered varying
degrees of connectivity loss between the controlling systems and the
engine gimbal mechanism. As a result, the engine began to gyrate and
shake the stack at a totally unacceptable rate. They'd apparently seen
this problem in ground test, but was considered rare enough that it
wasn't a threat under standard manufacturing procedures.

(Cue Henry and/or Pat to fill in the data gaps. I've got Rosemary
Woods's ghost doing my transcribing right now..)


OM
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On Mon, 04 Sep 2006 03:04:09 -0500, OM
wrote:

...Jud, you've *got* to spend a week over at EA. It's worth your
reputation around here to do so. Or, at least, go hit Eric Jones' site
for a while.

I don't know what EA is.

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Replace you know what by j to email

On Mon, 04 Sep 2006 10:27:03 -0400, Jud McCranie
wrote:

I don't know what EA is.

Encyclopedia Astronautica. It's Mark Wade's site at-
http://www.astronautix.com/

It's quite the reference site. You won't learn everything
there, but it's a great place to start with any questions
you have. Probably has the answers to most of them.

Personally, I like the discussions that follow interesting
questions asked here, even if they might be answered
on some website...

Dale

On Mon, 4 Sep 2006 09:27:03 -0500, Jud McCranie wrote
(in article ):

On Mon, 04 Sep 2006 03:04:09 -0500, OM
wrote:

...Jud, you've *got* to spend a week over at EA. It's worth your
reputation around here to do so. Or, at least, go hit Eric Jones' site
for a while.

I don't know what EA is.

Encyclopedia Astronautica.

http://www.astronautix.com/


--
Herb Schaltegger
"You can run on for a long time . . . sooner or later, God'll cut you
down." - Johnny Cash
http://www.angryherb.net

On Mon, 04 Sep 2006 08:07:53 -0700, Dale wrote:

Personally, I like the discussions that follow interesting
questions asked here, even if they might be answered
on some website...

Ignore OM for the moment... he's just
feeling insecure right now...

Dale

--
Chuck Stewart
"Anime-style catgirls: Threat? Menace? Or just studying algebra?"

On Mon, 04 Sep 2006 08:07:53 -0700, Dale wrote:

Personally, I like the discussions that follow interesting
questions asked here, even if they might be answered
on some website...

Me too. If I can't find the answer easily, usually someone here
knows, is happy to share their knowledge, and can explain it in
layman's terms.
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Replace you know what by j to email

On Mon, 04 Sep 2006 15:16:51 GMT, Chuck Stewart
wrote:

Ignore OM for the moment... he's just
feeling insecure right now...

....I gotcher insecure right here, Chuckles :-P

OM
--
]=====================================[
] OMBlog - http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld [
] Let's face it: Sometimes you *need* [
] an obnoxious opinion in your day! [
]=====================================[

On Mon, 04 Sep 2006 08:07:53 -0700, Dale wrote:

Personally, I like the discussions that follow interesting
questions asked here, even if they might be answered
on some website...

....So do I. But I guarantee that once Jud spends some time going
through EA's vast suppository of knowledge, rest assured that he'll
come back asking the same questions, only far more detailed in the
information requested. Then we'll just refer him to Henry :-)

OM
--
]=====================================[
] OMBlog - http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld [
] Let's face it: Sometimes you *need* [
] an obnoxious opinion in your day! [
]=====================================[