Earth and Space News: Apollo 10 Command Module Charlie Brown

Showing posts with label Apollo 10 Command Module Charlie Brown. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

London Science Museum Displays Apollo 10 Command Module Charlie Brown

Summary: The United Kingdom’s London Science Museum displays Apollo 10 Command Module Charlie Brown as a loan from the Smithsonian Institution.

The United Kingdom’s London Science Museum displays Apollo 10 Command Module Charlie Brown in the museum’s Making the Modern World Gallery, located on Level 0 (ground floor).

Apollo 10 launched Sunday, May 18, 1969, from central Florida’s John F. Kennedy Space Center at 16:49:00 Greenwich Mean Time/Coordinated Universal Time (11:49 p.m. Eastern Standard Time; 12:49 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time). Liftoff marked the first mission launch at Launch Pad 39B.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Apollo 10 Press Kit, released Wednesday, May 7, 1969, had described the mission’s three astronauts as “recycled from the Apollo 7 backup crew” (page 3). Commander Thomas Patten Stafford (born Sept. 17, 1930), Command Module Pilot (CMP) John Watts Young (born Sept. 24, 1930) and Lunar Module Pilot (LMP) Eugene Andrew Cernan (born March 14, 1934) also were veterans of NASA’s Gemini second human spaceflight program, Project Gemini (1961-1966).

North American Rockwell Corporation in Downey, California, was the contractor for the Apollo 10 Command and Service Module (CSM) 106. The cone-shaped command module (CM) measures a height of 11 feet 5 inches and a base diameter of 12 feet 10 inches, according to the Press Kit. The cylindrical-shaped service module (SM) had dimensions of 24 feet 7 inches in height and 12 feet 10 inches in diameter.

The Apollo 10 astronauts decided to give the call sign of Peanuts comic strip character Charlie Brown to the mission’s command module. Flight-dreaming beagle Snoopy, another Peanuts creation by American cartoonist Charles “Sparky” Monroe Schulz (Nov. 26, 1922-Feb. 12, 2000), was the namesake of the mission’s lunar module (LM).

Command and Service Module (CSM) 106 made 31 orbits of Earth’s moon between Wednesday, May 21, and Saturday, May 24. NASA’s Apollo 10 Mission Report, released August 1969, described Apollo 10 as “. . . an 8-day mission to qualify the combined spacecraft in the lunar environment” (3.0, page 3-1). The spacecraft’s lunar module executed four lunar orbits but, as a “dress rehearsal” for lunar landing mission Apollo 11, was excepted for “actual descent to the surface.”

Command Module Charlie Brown re-entered Earth’s atmosphere Monday, May 26, at 16:37:54 GMT/UTC (11:37 p.m. EST, 12:37 p.m. EDT; 191:48:54.5 GET). Splashdown occurred at 16:52:23 GMT/UTC (11:52 p.m. EST, 12:52 p.m. EDT; 192:03:23 GET).

The Apollo 10 astronauts boarded the recovery helicopter at 17:26 GMT/UTC (12:26 p.m. EST, 1:26 p.m. EDT; 192:37 GET) and recovery ship USS Princeton at 17:31 GMT/UTC (12:31 p.m. EST, 1:31 p.m. EDT; 192:42 GET). The USS Princeton retrieved Command Module Charlie Brown at 18:28 GMT/UTC (1:28 p.m. EST, 2:28 p.m. EDT; 193:39 GET).

The Princeton offloaded the command module on Saturday, May 31, at Pearl Harbor’s Ford Island in South O’ahu. Evaluation and deactivation procedures were conducted in Hawaii from May 31 to Tuesday, June 3. The command module arrived at North American Rockwell Wednesday, June 4, for postflight analysis.

The Smithsonian Institution’s Air and Space Museum website credits NASA with transferring accountability for “Command Module, Apollo 10” to the Smithsonian Institution in April 1970. The transfer occurred prior to the artifact’s shipment to Europe for exhibition in a United States Information Agency-sponsored tour that included France, the Netherlands and the U.S.S.R. (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). The Apollo 10 command module was displayed in a 1972 exhibit, Research and Development USA, that traveled to Tbilisi, Moscow, Volgograd, Kazan, Donetsk and Leningrad, according to the U.S. Department of State’s 2009 to 2017 archived content website.

The Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum website lists London’s Science Museum as Command Module Charlie Brown’s “public display” location, since placement on loan in 1978. The Science Museum received the command module in January 1976, after the artifact’s tour of Western Europe. The museum’s website identifies “Apollo 10 command module, call sign ‘Charlie Brown’” as object number 1976-106. The Science Museum is located on Exhibition Road in West London’s South Kensington district.

The takeaway for the London Science Museum’s public display of Apollo 10 Command Module Charlie Brown is that the artifact has been on loan to the South Kensingston museum from the Smithsonian Institution since January 1976.

London's Science Museum, located on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, exhibits Apollo 10 Command Module Charlie Brown as collection object number 1976-106, on "public display" loan from the Smithsonian Institution's Air and Space Museum: Science Museum @sciencemuseumlondon, via Facebook May 18, 2014

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Apollo 10 Command Module Charlie Brown Pilot John Young displays drawing of the command module’s namesake, Peanuts character Charlie Brown; color reproduction from fourth telecast, made by Apollo 10 spacecraft’s color television camera, at a distance of approximately 112,000 nautical miles from Earth; NASA image S69-34075: Generally not subject to copyright in the United States; may use this material for educational or informational purposes, including photo collections, textbooks, public exhibits, computer graphical simulations and Internet Web pages; general permission extends to personal Web pages, via NASA Image and Digital Library @ https://images.nasa.gov/details-S69-34075

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Marriner, Derdriu. “Apollo 10 Imaged Near Side’s Schmidt Crater During May 1969 Lunar Orbit.” Earth and Space News. Wednesday, May 21, 2014.
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Marriner, Derdriu. “Apollo 10 Imaged Near Side’s Triesnecker Crater During Lunar Orbit.” Earth and Space News. Wednesday, May 14, 2014.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2014/05/apollo-10-imaged-near-sides-triesnecker.html

Marriner, Derdriu. “Apollo 10 Lunar Module Snoopy Passed 47,400 Feet Above Apollo 11 Site.” Earth and Space News. Wednesday, May 28, 2014.
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Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2011/05/jettisoned-lm-snoopy-descent-stage.html

Marriner, Derdriu. “Nick Howes and Faulkes Telescope Project Seek Lost Apollo 10 LM Snoopy.” Earth and Space News. Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2011.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2011/09/nick-howes-and-faulkes-telescope.html

Marriner, Derdriu. "Nick Howes Considers Possible Orbits for Apollo 10 Lunar Module Snoopy." Earth and Space News. Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2011.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2011/12/nick-howes-considers-possible-orbits_14.html

Marriner, Derdriu. “Snoopy and Charlie Brown Are Hugging Each Other in Apollo 10 Docking.” Earth and Space News. Wednesday, May 18, 2011.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2011/05/snoopy-and-charlie-brown-are-hugging.html

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Available @ https://history.nasa.gov/afj/ap10fj/pdf/a10-postlaunch-rep.pdf

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Available @ https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a410/A10_MissionReport.pdf

National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Apollo 10 Press Kit. Release no. 69-68. May 7, 1969. Washington DC: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1969.
Available @ https://www.history.nasa.gov/alsj/a410/A10_PressKit.pdf

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Science Museum @sciencemuseumlondon. “Apollo 10 launched into space on this day in 1969. We talked to astronaut Gene Cernan about his missions to the moon and seeing the Apollo 10 Command Module 'Charlie Brown' again http://ow.ly/wVuw5.” Facebook. May 18, 2014.
Available @ https://www.facebook.com/sciencemuseumlondon/photos/a.112170034675/10152864390649676/

Science Museum, London. “Apollo 10 Command Module, Call Sign ‘Charlie Brown.’” Science Museum Group > Objects and Stories > Collection Online.
Available @ https://collection.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects/co40509/apollo-10-command-module-call-sign-charlie-brown-manned-spacecraft

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Available @ https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraft/display.action?id=1969-043A

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Snoopy and Charlie Brown Are Hugging Each Other in Apollo 10 Docking

Summary: Snoopy and Charlie Brown are hugging each other in the Apollo 10 docking success confirmation given by Mission Commander Thomas Stafford.

Snoopy and Charlie Brown are hugging each other in the Apollo 10 docking success assurance reported to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Mission Control Center (MCC) by Mission Commander Thomas Stafford.

Commander Thomas Patten Stafford (born Sept. 17, 1930), Command Module Pilot (CMP) John Watts Young (born Sept. 24, 1930) and Lunar Module Pilot (LMP) Eugene Andrew Cernan (born March 14, 1934) named their spacecraft after characters in the Peanuts comic strip created by Charles Monroe “Sparky” Schulz (Nov. 26, 1922-Feb. 12, 2000). Command and Service Module (CSM)-106 received the call sign of Charlie Brown. Lunar Module (LM)-4 was named Snoopy.

Apollo 10 launched Sunday, May 18, 1969, at 16:49:00 Greenwich Mean Time/Coordinated Universal Time (11:49 p.m. Eastern Standard Time; 12:49 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time) from the John F. Kennedy Space Center’s (KSC) Launch Pad 39-B in central Florida. The Apollo space program’s fourth crewed mission was designed as a “dress rehearsal,” without the lunar landing, for the first lunar landing mission, Apollo 11.

The Apollo 10 Press Kit, released Wednesday, May 7, 1969, described the lunar orbit mission as marking the first lunar flight of the complete Apollo spacecraft. The Press Kit explained: “Following closely the time line and trajectory to be flown on Apollo 11, Apollo 10 will include an eight-hour sequence of lunar module (LM) undocked activities during which the commander and LM pilot will descend to within eight nautical miles of the lunar surface and later rejoin the command/service module (CSM) in a 60-nautical-mile circular orbit” (page 1).

Command Module Charlie Brown and Lunar Module Snoopy undocked Thursday, May 22, at 19:00:57 GMT/UTC (2 p.m. EST, 3 p.m. EDT). The undocking occurred 98 hours 11 minutes 57 seconds (098:11:57 Ground Elapsed Time GET) after liftoff. Commander Stafford occupied Lunar Module Snoopy with the lander spacecraft’s pilot, Eugene Cernan, while John Young, as Charlie Brown’s pilot, remained in the command module.

Four and one-half hours later, at 23:34:16 GMT/UTC (6:34 p.m. EST, 7:34 p.m. EDT; 102:45:16.9 GET), Lunar Module Snoopy’s ascent and descent stages were separated. The jettison placed the descent stage into a lunar orbit aimed at eventual impact on the lunar surface.

Rendezvous maneuvers brought the Snoopy’s ascent stage and Charlie Brown’s command module into alignment for docking. Docking occurred Friday, May 23, at 03:11:02 GMT/UTC (Thursday, May 22, at 10:11 p.m. EST, 11:11 p.m. EDT; 106:22:02 GET).

Commander Stafford descriptively affirmed the successful docking for Mission Control Center. “Hello, Houston. Snoopy and Charlie Brown are hugging each other,” he announced.

Twenty-four seconds later, the commander complimented John Young’s control of CM Charlie Brown during the docking. “Okay, John,” he said, “That was beautiful. Just beautiful, babe.” (Apollo 10 PAO Mission Commentary Transcript: page 383).

The three astronauts revisited Snoopy and Charlie Brown’s successful hug during their crew debriefing, conducted Monday, June 2. Lunar Module Snoopy Pilot Cernan recalled: “We were just partying.”

Commander Stafford noted: “Then John damped the maneuver. A loud ripple bang was heard as the latches latched.”

Command Module Charlie Brown Pilot Young mused: “A sigh of relief was given by all” (Apollo 10 Technical Crew Debriefing, 9-47).

The Apollo modules were constructed with a probe and drogue system. Docking required alignment of the command module’s docking probe with the lunar module’s drogue. The devices were mounted in the modules’ docking tunnels. Initial soft contact between the two modules was achieved by extending three capture latches in the CM probe’s tip to engage in a hole at the drogue’s bottom. The command module pilot brought the modules together by retracting the probe. Engaging the lunar module’s docking tunnel with the command modules 12 docking latches effected a hard dock.

The takeaway for Snoopy and Charlie Brown hugging each other in the Apollo 10 docking of the lunar module with the command module after the lunar module’s lunar surface orbits is that the Apollo 10 astronauts smoothly and successfully performed the crucial maneuver in the mission’s “dress rehearsal” for the subsequent lunar-landing mission, Apollo 11.

artist concept of Lunar Module ascent stage docked to Command/Service Module; LM ascent stage had left lunar surface for rendezvous with Command/Service Module (CSM); Dec. 1, 1966; NASA ID S66-11007; S66-05105; File Name 10074639: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Public Domain, via NASA Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Science, Technology and Engineering website

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

The Mission Operations Control Room (MOCR) in Mission Control Center (MCC), Building 30, celebrates successful docking of Command Module Charlie Brown and Lunar Module Snoopy with cartoon of Snoopy giving Charlie Brown a congratulatory kiss and praise, ‘On target, Charlie Brown!’ Note replicas of Snoopy, in a spacesuit, and Charlie Brown on console, second row (right center); Friday, May 23, 1969; NASA ID S69-34877: John Uri, "50 Years Ago: Charlie Brown and Snoopy in Lunar Orbit," NASA image article, May 21, 2019, Generally not subject to copyright in the United States; may use this material for educational or informational purposes, including photo collections, textbooks, public exhibits, computer graphical simulations and Internet Web pages; general permission extends to personal Web pages, via NASA @ https://www.nasa.gov/feature/50-years-ago-charlie-brown-and-snoopy-in-lunar-orbit

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