Apollo 14 had more close calls during the final descent to the Moon's surface. Antares' guidance software was receiving a spurious, intermittent signal from the abort button. The suspicion was that a piece of solder was stuck in the switch, closing the connection occasionally. The programmers down on Earth had ninety minutes to design a new program for the LM, test it, and transmit it up to Ed Mitchell in time for him to key in the changes before the powered descent stage began. They managed it, but only to face a new challenge when the LM descended to a mere 32,000 feet above the surface of the Moon. At this point, the landing radar was supposed to come on and lock onto the Moon's surface.
Because many of the clues to perspective and altitude that we're used to on Earth (trees, roads, buildings, vehicles, etc.) do not exist on the Moon, the Apollo mission rules called for an abort if the landing radar was unable to find a lock by the time the lander had descended to 10,000 feet. At 22,000 feet, Ground Control asked Shepard to cycle the landing radar's breaker, effectively turning it off and back on again. Once again, the fix worked, and Shepard and Mitchell were able to continue their descent. They finally landed, with the LM slightly off-balance with one foot in a small crater, on February 5, 1971, four and a half days since their launch.
 home
|  photography
|  books
|  cooking
|
Last updated 9 March 2004.
All text and photographs © George Mitchell and Margaret Johnston, unless
otherwise noted
Comments, questions, suggestions to margaret@lonelymountain.net.