50 Years Ago: One Month til Apollo 11 Liftoff - UNIVERSE

The achievement of President John F. Kennedy’s goal of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth was just one month away. Between May 18 and 26, 1969, Apollo 10 astronauts Thomas P. Stafford, Eugene A. Cernan, and John W. Young successfully carried out a dress rehearsal for the Moon landing mission. On June 3, they met with the Apollo 11 crew of Neil A. Armstrong, Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin, and Michael Collins to describe their mission to them and pass along all the lessons they learned. As Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins intensified their training for the historic mission, NASA was preparing to support the mission as well as the return of the crew from the Moon. On June 5, Armstrong and Aldrin conducted a simulation of the lunar surface Extravehicular Activity (EVA) at the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC), now the Johnson Space Center in Houston. On June 11, Apollo Program Director at NASA Headquarters Lt. Gen. Sam C. Phillips announced that it was NASA’s intention to carry out the first human lunar landing during the Apollo 11 mission in July pending successful completion of all required preflight activities. The decision was based on the results from the successful Apollo 10 mission and the readiness of mission preparations for Apollo 11. The launch would take place on July 16 and the landing on July 20.

 

Left(top): Apollo 10 and 11 astronauts (clockwise from left) Collins, Aldrin, Cernan, Stafford, Armstrong, and Young
meet to discuss the lessons learned from the Apollo 10 mission. Right: Apollo 11 astronauts Aldrin (left) and
Armstrong during a training session for their lunar EVA at MSC on June 5.
 

On June 5, NASA and the US Navy designated the aircraft carrier USS Hornet (CVS-12) as the prime ship to recover the Apollo 11 astronauts and their Command Module (CM) following splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. The Hornet had previously recovered the unpiloted Apollo 202 CM on Aug. 25, 1966, after that spacecraft completed three-quarters of an orbit around the Earth. The Hornet had returned to its home port in Long Beach, California, on May 12, 1969, from its third and final deployment in the western Pacific Ocean, and immediately began preparations for its new role to recover the first humans to have walked on the Moon. As part of a normal change of command rotation, Captain Carl J. Seiberlich became Hornet’s new commanding officer, and as such also commander of all recovery forces in the primary landing area. The Apollo 11 recovery was the most complex one for two reasons - special back-contamination procedures including the use of Biological Isolation Garments (BIGs) in effect for the returning astronauts and the presence of President Richard M. Nixon onboard Hornet to welcome home the first lunar landing crew. Heightened media attention on the flight meant that reporters from a variety of news agencies would also be onboard the ship. While Hornet was in dock in Long Beach, workers loaded communications and other gear to support these activities. Fortuitously, the USS Princeton (LPH-5), the prime recovery ship for Apollo 10 in May, was also docked in Long Beach. This allowed personnel from Princeton to personally pass along their after-action report and lessons learned from the recovery operations to Hornet’s crew, and also eased the transfer of specialized equipment required for the recovery. US Navy Frogmen from Underwater Demolition Team-11 (UDT-11) had recovered Apollo 10 and were also assigned as the primary recovery team for Apollo 11. During the month of June, they used Princeton as a staging platform to practice the unique recovery operations required by the Moon landing mission using a boilerplate Apollo CM.
 

Source & for more information about this article: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/50-years-ago-one-month-til-apollo-11-liftoff