Apollo 11

Now safely in orbit, Apollo 11 circles Earth just over one-and-half times while still attached the S-IVB third stage of the Saturn launch vehicle. The crew remove their helmets and gloves, and for a while are free to move around the cabin. They unstow equipment, take some photographs, check the spacecraft systems and make star sightings to refine the alignment of their guidance platform. When over Hawaii for the second time, the S-IVB stage re-ignites to perform the Translunar Injection burn that will send them on their way to the Moon.

'P52' refers to a program within the onboard computer with which Mike will realign the spacecraft's inertial platform.

Before launch, the platform at the centre of the Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) was aligned to match the orientation of the launch pad at the moment of launch. For mechanical reasons, the orientation of this platform is prone to drifting away from the intended orientation so at regular points throughout the flight, it is realigned. This tendency to drift is normally very small but the intense vibration and shock that is present during launch and ascent tend to exacerbate it. Controllers can see this misalignment by comparison with the Saturn's own platform so prior to the first P52 realignment of the flight, they pass up a rough estimate of how much misalignment the CMP can expect to compensate for. This is the 'delta azimuth correction' figure.

Long comm break.

At the moment that Apollo 11 was inserted into its parking orbit around Earth, an effort began to determine the shape of that orbit. In the first place, controllers wanted to be sure the stack had enough momentum to continue around Earth and was not about to re-enter the atmosphere. Then from an operational standpoint, a good understanding of the orbit was a necessary starting point when calculating the burn that will take the spacecraft to the Moon. Initial indications came from the spacecraft's computer and ground estimations. But as the spacecraft passes over tracking stations, each will add further data points, especially those in Australia which are essentially on the opposite side of the world and which will provide an antinode determination of the orbit.

Very long comm break.

The Public Affairs Officer then replays a tape of the air/ground communication that covers the ascent phase but which excludes his original commentary. Meanwhile, on Columbia, the DSE recorder is placed into record mode. This records digital data from sensors around the spacecraft so that engineers will be able to study its health for those periods that it is out of direct communication. The DSE includes a voice track to record the conversations in the cabin which is later replayed, along with the digital data, at high speed to a ground station. It is normal practice for this equipment to record throughout the ascent but this was evidently missed on this occasion.

Buzz is quoting from page 2-9 of the Launch Checklist. Now Mike and Neil will pick up on step 7 from halfway down that page, and this is to configure the Environmental Control System (ECS) for the mission now that the launch phase has been completed.

A few minutes before launch, the spacecraft's glycol/water coolant was prevented from flowing through the Service Module's two large radiators. The heating effects of passing through the atmosphere at high speed rendered them unable to reject heat and so a bypass valve was opened. Now that the radiators are in space, this valve is closed to restore the flow.

The crew have a number of Hasselblad 70-mm (film width) stills cameras on board. These have detachable film magazines that can be changed part way through a roll. To prevent the film from being fogged upon removal from the camera, each has a 'dark slide', a thin metal plate that must be inserted to cover the film gate before the magazine can be detached.

To determine that the radiator is doing its job, they will check that the temperature of the coolant at its outlet is colder than at the inlet.

Mike is unstowing the DAC movie camera from a locker below the couches. Built by Maurer, it uses 16-mm wide film stock.

Buzz is referring to the 18-mm lens that Mike has installed on the 16-mm DAC movie camera.

Meanwhile, the Public Affairs Officer has been replaying a tape of the air/ground conversation through the launch phase to the press.

An external cover on the opposite side of the Command Module from the crew hatch has protected the external surfaces of the navigation system's optics during launch. The cover is now ejected when Mike pushes a lever in the Lower Equipment Bay.

Radar shows Apollo 11 to be in an extremely accurate circular orbit with an altitude of 103 nautical miles, better than earlier estimates.

Comm break.

The side of the spacecraft opposite the hatch has two orifices through which the spacecraft's two optical instruments can peer. One is the telescope, a one-power, wide-field device intended to permit a star to be located within a constellation. It's field of view is ganged to one of the two lines of sight of the other instrument, the sextant. The sextant is a 28-power device with which angular measurements can be made. During ascent, the optics were protected by covers which Mike removes by pushing the optics control lever hard to the right.

R-1 is the stowage locker at bottom right, below the LMP's couch.

Very long comm break.

Mike is about to take sightings of the stars but must allow his eyes to become dark adapted.

Mike is realigning the spacecraft's guidance platform in order to correct for any drift in its orientation since launch. This task is carried out with the aid or Program 52 in the computer and thus it is often called doing a 'P52'.

The idea is simple. By taking sightings on only two stars, the orientation of the universe around the spacecraft can be determined. Coded into the computer's fixed rope memory are the positions of 37 stars, the Apollo star code list. Each has a numerical designation in octal (base eight).

The computer therefore knows where these stars really are in the celestial sphere. With Mike's sightings, it now knows where they appear to be based on the current orientation of the guidance platform. Comparison of the two sets of data allows the error in the platform's orientation to be calculated and therefore be corrected. This is achieved by 'torquing' or rotating the platform by the required amount using the motors in the supporting gimbals.

As a check of his sighting accuracy, the computer can offer Noun 05 which has a value called the star angle difference. The computer knows the real angle between the two stars, thanks to its wired-in table, and it knows the angle between Mike's two sightings. If the two are identical, the star angle difference will be zero or 'all balls' thanks to it being displayed as '00000'. As it is, the value is '00001', four-balls one or 0.01°, still a very good value and one which is better than predicted by one of his instructors at MIT, Glenn Parker. In his superlative autobiography, Carrying the Fire, Mike relates a story of having a bet of a coffee with Parker where Mike claimed he could achieve all balls whereas Parker thought he would only achieve four-balls two.

Mike has sighted on star 30 (Menkent, Theta Centauri) and star 37 (Nunki, Sigma Sagittarii). The angles by which the platform needed to be torques were plus 0.018° around the X axis, plus 0.033° around the Y axis and plus 0.152° around the Z axis. These results will be radioed to Mission Control at 000:53:35.

End of archive DSE recording.

Comm break.

Mike is passing on the news of his sighting accuracy.

Long comm break.

AOS Honeysuckle

Flight Plan, page 3-2.

Comm break.

Very long comm break.

Neil seems to be passing around sweets.

About now, Buzz turns to his left and takes a somewhat blurred color photo of Neil with the Hasselblad camera.

Buzz then turns towards Mike and photographs him also, along with the TV camera which they have just been discussing.

The television arrangements for Apollo 11 are complicated because it involves two cameras, one on the CSM and one on the LM. Each is fundamentally different from the other; the former is colour and uses commercial TV scan rates, the latter is monochrome and is essentially a slow-scan TV camera. As a result, there are two types of converters that are installed at some ground stations on Earth to convert their signals to a form that is compatible with conventional TV systems. Neil refers to a scanner/converter but strictly speaking, this unit is only for the LM's black and white camera whose slow-scan system is converted through an optical system. The CSM's colour camera is not slow-scan and is converted electronically using a magnetic disc system.

Scanner/converters have been installed at the three major ground stations in Australia, Spain and at Goldstone in California. However, for the colour camera about to be exercised, the only equipment to decode the colour within its output is at Houston and Goldstone is going to link the raw signal from the spacecraft to the Manned Spacecraft Center.

This is a jocular reference to the brevity of Armstrong's abortive flight on Gemini 8. Despite being the commander of Apollo 11, he has the shortest duration of orbital experience of the crew, albeit with the greatest experience of handling in-flight emergencies when he piloted the malfunctioning Gemini 8 back to Earth.

During his Gemini 10 mission, Mike lost a camera overboard during a spacewalk.

When the S-IVB engine ignites for TLI, it will impart an acceleration initially equivalent to 0.6g, rising to about 1.4g as the burn progresses. If the Hasselblad camera is not secured near the aft of the Command Module, there is a danger it could cause damage as it 'falls' to the floor.

About now, Collins takes photo number AS11-36-5293 of the cloud-speckled Earth, looking east towards the Sun.

Having lost the camera 5 minutes earlier, he has missed a sunrise photo, but he captures the glaring sun in the sky above the ocean, rising rapidly as a result of their orbital motion. He takes a further 8 photos at this point, through to AS11-36-5301. AS11-36-5298 is the best one showing the low pressure cell.

AOS Goldstone.

Guaymas is in Mexico.

A humorous reference to the legendary film director Cecil B. DeMille, 1881-1959.

Comm break.

End of onboard recording.

At regular points throughout the mission, the CapCom will read up lists of numbers for the crew to write down. These may be to help track a landmark as it passes below. Most often they are the data the crew will need to carry out a burn of their engines. They have the jargon 'Pre-Advisory Data' or just 'PAD'.

Manoeuvre PADs are often intended to give the crews the information they would need to abort the mission, like the one coming up. Only a few are intended to be carried out as part of a normal mission. If the burn is to be carried out by the large SPS engine, it would be controlled by P40. If it is to use the RCS thrusters, then P41 would be used. But in both cases, the data would be entered using P30 (External Delta-V). Thus a crewmember, in this case Buzz, will copy the PAD onto a P30 form.

This is similar to the form that Buzz is copying the data into.

The PAD is interpreted as follows:

• Purpose: This PAD is a contingency in case of abort for a return to Earth with an ignition time approximately 90 minutes after TLI.
• Systems: The burn would be made using the large SPS (Service Propulsion System) engine at the rear of the Service Module, under the control of the Guidance and Navigation system.
• CSM Weight (Noun 47): 63,481 pounds (28,794 kg). Strictly speaking, a more appropriate term to use would be "mass" rather than "weight". Weight is defined as the force an object exerts when acted upon by gravity whereas mass is a measure of the quantity of matter an object contains. A 1-kg mass exerts 9.81 Newtons on Earth but we would tend to measure that force with a spring balance and call it 1 kilogram. On the Moon, it exerts 1.62 Newtons but its mass is still 1 kilogram so spring balances would have to be recalibrated to read properly. In space, without engines running (i.e. during coast), it exerts essentially no force at all yet still has 1 kilogram of mass.
• Pitch and yaw trim (Noun 48): -1.53° and +1.32°. The SPS engine is mounted on gimbals and can be aimed so that its thrust vector (the direction in which it pushes) acts through the spacecraft's centre of mass. These angles represent a calculated direction for these gimbals. They will only be used if the crew need to control the burn manually using the Stabilization Control System (SCS). In a normal automatic burn, the TVC (Thrust Vector Control) system automatically adjusts these angles for shifts in the stack's centre of mass.
• Time of ignition (Noun 33): 4 hours, 10 minutes, 25.38 seconds. This is about 90 minutes after TLI.
• Change in velocity (Noun 81), fps (m/s): x, -476.1 (-145.1); y, +0.1 (+0.03); z, +5,336.1 (+1,626.4). The change in velocity is resolved into three components which are quoted relative to the LVLH (Local Vertical/Local Horizontal).

LVLH is a frame of reference that is relative to a line drawn from the spacecraft to the centre of the body it is orbiting, or whose sphere of influence it is in. Imagine the point where this line intersects the planet's surface. We can further imagine a flat plane at this point parallel to the horizontal. Obviously, as the spacecraft moves across the planet, the absolute orientation of this plane keeps changing but it provides a useful reference for orbital velocity computation. In this arrangement, the plus-Z axis is along the vertical line towards the planetary centre, the plus-X axis is in the direction of orbital motion parallel to the local horizontal and the plus-Y axis is perpendicular to the orbital plane.

• Spacecraft attitude: Roll, 180°; Pitch, 193°; Yaw, 000°. The desired spacecraft attitude is measured relative to the alignment of the guidance platform. At this point, it would be aligned per the launch REFSMMAT. In other words, the platform's axes match the orientation in space of the launch pad at the tie of launch.
• H_A, expected apogee of resulting orbit (Noun 44): Not applicable. If this abort burn were to be made, the apogee of the resulting orbit would be over 9999.9 nautical miles, beyond the limit of the computer's display.
• H_P, expected perigee of resulting orbit (Noun 44): 20.3 nautical miles (37.6 km). The perigee distance is so low, it intersects Earth's atmosphere. What this really means is that the spacecraft will re-enter.
• Delta-V_T: 5,357.3 fps (1,632.9 m/s). This is the total change in velocity the spacecraft would experience and is a vector sum of the three components given above.
• Burn duration or burn time: 6 minutes, 33 seconds.
• Delta-V_C: 5,334.9 fps. Delta-V_C is really about giving the crew another method of controlling their engine. If all goes well, the Guidance and Navigation system will monitor the burn and, taking into account the extra thrust imparted by the engine after it is shut down, it will stop the burn at the right time to give the required total Delta-V. Should the G&N system fail to shut down the engine, the Entry Monitor System (EMS) can do it as it contains an accelerometer that measures Delta-V along the X-axis. This accelerometer drives a counter (hence 'C') that decrements towards zero, at which point it would send a signal to stop the engine. However, the EMS does not take into account the tail-off thrust. For this reason, the figure for Delta-V_C is slightly lower than Delta-V_T. The crew would enter it into the EMS Delta-V display prior to the burn.
• Sextant star: Star 33 (Antares, Alpha Scorpius) visible in sextant when shaft and trunnion angles are 157.8° and 12.2° respectively. This is part of an attitude check.
• Boresight star: Not available. This is a second attitude check which is made by sighting on another celestial object with the COAS (Crew Optical Alignment Sight). In this case, no suitable object would be available on that side of the spacecraft.

The next five parameters all relate to re-entry, during which an important milestone is "Entry Interface," defined as being 400,000 feet (121.92 km) altitude. In this context, a more important milestone is when atmospheric drag on the spacecraft imparts a deceleration of 0.05g.

• Expected splashdown point (Noun 61): 2.52° south, 25.8° west; in the mid-Atlantic.
• Range to go at the 0.05g event: 1,188.7 nautical miles. To set up their EMS (Entry Monitor System) before re-entry, the crew need to know the expected distance the CM would travel from the 0.05g event to landing. This figure will be decremented by the EMS based on signals from its own accelerometer.
• Expected velocity at the 0.05g event: 34,345 fps. This is another entry for the EMS. It is entered into the unit's Delta-V counter and will be decremented based on signals from its own accelerometer.
• Predicted GET of 0.05g event: 16 hours, 3 minutes and 50 seconds GET.
• GDC Align stars: The stars to be used for GDC Align purposes are the north set, Vega and Deneb.
• GDC Align angles: Roll, 71°; pitch, 291°; yaw, 341°.

The PAD includes some additional notes. The SPS propellant tanks are full, so there would be no need to perform an ullage burn to settle their contents. If it were to be made, the crew should not be docked to the LM.

The concept of GDC Align is rather opaque and deserves an explanation. As well as the gyro-stabilised guidance platform, the spacecraft has a backup set of gyros. However, instead of being mounted on an independently stabilised platform, these are affixed to the spacecraft's structure. If the spacecraft rotates, these 'Body Mounted Attitude Gyros' (BMAGs) resist that turning and apply a force to their mountings. A measurement of this force provides the basis for a determination of attitude. If an initial attitude is known, then by processing the signals from the BMAGs, the current attitude can be determined. It is the job of the Gyro Display Couplers (GDCs) to carry out this task.

There is problem with this arrangement. Using the BMAGs as a source of attitude measurement makes this backup method much more prone to drifting away from the truth when compared to the measurements from the stabilised platform. Because of this drift, the GDCs regularly need an accurate starting point to work from. Usually, the primary guidance system is used via the 'GDC Align' button. Upon pressing, the IMU's knowledge of their attitude can be passed to the GDCs. If, however, the primary system is not working, the GDCs must be aligned with reference to the stars. This is the reason that McCandless read up some GDC Align information.

In the example given above, were the crew were to lose the platform and instead had to align the GDCs with the stars, they would rotate the spacecraft until the first star was aligned with the 50° mark on the vertical line. The second star would be placed on the line but its position on the line would not be important. Then with the spacecraft in that orientation, its attitude with respect to the required REFSMMAT (the definition of their reference for attitude) would be given by the angles for roll, 71°; pitch, 291°; and yaw, 341°. There are thumbwheels at the bottom left of the Main Display Console that allow these angles to be dialled in.

In addition, Mission Control sent up a second, short PAD which is intended for use in P37, a 'Return-to-Earth' program.
The data is intended for an abort that would be burned five hours after TLI. The parameters required are:

• Time of ignition: 7 hours, 44 minutes.
  
• Delta-V: 6,485 feet per second (1,977 metres/second). This is a maximum specified value.
  
• Longitude of splashdown: 165° west; in the mid-Pacific Ocean.
  
• Time of Entry Interface: 25 hours, 6 minutes GET.
  

With these requested values, which act as a set of constraints, P37 would then work out the parameters for an abort burn to make an immediate return to Earth. An important condition for P37 is that the spacecraft must still be in Earth's sphere of influence, thus simplifying the calculations.

Comm break.

The docking probe at the tip of the Command Module is a crucial component of the docking system that will bring the CSM and the LM together. It will be used soon after they leave Earth orbit and head for the Moon to retrieve the LM from the top of the third stage. First it must be in its extended position. This is checked in Earth orbit because if it does not work, there is no point incurring the risk involved in heading for the Moon.

Thus far, the sixteen thrusters of the spacecraft's RCS (Reaction Control System) have not been actually fired in space. All control of their attitude has been carried out by the engines or thrusters on the Saturn, so this is an opportunity to test this vital system while still in Earth orbit. The thrusters will have little effect as they will be acting against the mass of two fully loaded spacecraft and a nearly full S-IVB. Any deflection they make in the stack's attitude will be eventually cancelled by the booster's thrusters. Mission Control will be able to monitor both the firing of the thrusters and their effect on the stack's attitude via telemetry.

Once they begin their burn for the Moon, the crew must be ready to detach the CSM from their booster if the latter begins to fail. To activate the explosive devices that physically cut the spacecraft free, certain pyrotechnic circuits and the sequencers that control their detonation must be armed.

P00 is Program 00 though it is always pronounced as POO (like 'Pooh' in the A. A. Milne children's classic). Though the computer, a multitasking device, is always carrying out background tasks, it has a 'major mode', a program that is to the forefront of its activities and which is selected by the crew. For example, if the CMP wants to realign the guidance platform, he does so with the help of Program 52. On this occasion, Program 00 is selected which is a 'do nothing' program. They also threw a switch from Block to Accept. This Telemetry switch gives Mission Control access to the computer so they can directly access the 2K words of erasable memory that the computer uses for its sums and temporary storage. In this case, they want to upload a revised state vector into this memory.

The state vector is a collection of six numbers plus time that define the spacecraft's position (in three dimensions) and velocity (also expressed in three dimensions). Now that the spacecraft has made a complete orbit of Earth, its state vector has been determined with some accuracy.

TLI is Translunar Injection, the burn of the S-IVB that takes Apollo 11 out of Earth orbit and onto the Moon. The burn will raise Apollo's inertial velocity from 7,800 to 11,000 metres per second which will send it on a very long elliptical orbit with an apogee well beyond the Moon. The Moon's gravitational field will interfere with this trajectory, changing it to one that will bring the spacecraft around its far side and on a path back to Earth, a so-called free-return trajectory.

This PAD is structurally different to most other propulsion PADs because the TLI manoeuvre is controlled by the IU (Instrument Unit) on the launch vehicle, and not the computer in the CM. The operational differences require that it is writen onto a different form.

The timings for events relating to the launch vehicle are defined relative to a number of time bases, each of which start with a particular event. This allows controllers to move complete sequences of events relative to the overall mission time. The restart sequence for the S-IVB's single J-2 engine is called time base 6. When it begins, all subsequent events to restart the engine such as tank repressurisation, engine chilldown, ullage, etc., follow on, leading to the engine start command 9 minutes, 30 seconds later, and actual ignition 8 seconds after that.

The crew also have tasks to perform in the minutes leading up to the TLI burn and they use their event timer to help them. They will preset it to read 51:00, to give them a nine minute count-up to ignition. At around 002:35:14, a light will come on for ten seconds to announce the start of TB-6. Thirty eight seconds later, the event timer is started and counts up towards (1:)00:00 and beyond. Items in the checklist are therefore shown with times from 51:00 onwards.

The PAD is interpreted as follows.

• TB-6 predicted start: This is calculated from current tracking data to be at 002:35:14, which implies that engine start will be commanded at 002:44:44 and that T_IG (time of ignition) will be at 002:45:52. The actual start time is based on the solution to trajectory equations which depend on the vehicle's state vector.
  
• Attitude for TLI: 179°, 71°, 1° in roll, pitch and yaw respectively. This attitude is stated with respect to the orientation that the guidance platform has held since launch.
  
• Burn duration: 5 minutes, 47 seconds.
  
• Delta-V_C prime: 10,435.6 fps. This is the figure they will enter into the EMS's Delta-V counter to allow them to monitor the burn's progress. As the EMS accelerometer reacts to the engines's thrust, it will cause this number to decrement towards zero.
  
• Inertial velocity at engine cut-off, (V_I): 35,575 fps (10,843.3 m/s).
  
• Attitude for separation of the CSM from the launch vehicle: 357°, 107°, 41° in roll, pitch and yaw respectively. Among the criteria for adopting this attitude is solar illumination of the S-IVB to give the crew good visibility.
  
• Attitude for the extraction of the LM: 301°, 287°, 319° in roll, pitch and yaw respectively.
  

An additional note is that if the crew decide they need to abort the mission soon after TLI, they should adopt a pitch angle of 223°.

Comm break.

Onboard recording resumes.

MILA is the Merritt Island Launch Area in Florida, from where they launched.

Very long comm break.

This is the Emergency Detection System, which was switched off during ascent, becoming live. In a moment, Mike will check that the Entry Monitoring System is switched off.

Buzz is checking the Entry Monitoring System which will be used to monitor the velocity gained during TLI, and again during the Transposition, Docking and Extraction manoeuvre when the LM is removed from the top of the S-IVB stage after Translunar Injection.

Since the GDCs are prone to drift, a push of the GDC Align button will pass the more accurate attitude values from the IMU to the GDC, giving the GDCs an accurate starting point for their measurement of attitude.

A counter within the EMS will allow the effect of the upcoming TLI burn to be monitored. The crew are loading a value of 10,435.6 feet per second into the counter which is the change of velocity they will expect from the S-IVB. As the burn progresses, this counter will decrement towards zero.

ORDEAL is Orbital Rate Display - Earth And Lunar, a device that makes the crew's 8-ball displays turn at a rate that matches their movement around Earth or the Moon. Set up properly, it allows the crew to monitor the spacecraft's attitude with respect to the ground below rather than with respect to inertial space.

Flight Plan, page 3-3.

The crew will keep track of events leading up to TLI and beyond with their event timer, which they preset to read 51:00. This way, once they start it counting up towards 00:00, it will mark out the nine minutes that lead up to the moment the S-IVB engine ignites. Times are given in the checklist based on this methodology.

The S-IVB's hydrogen tank is still quite full of supercold liquid fuel which, despite its internal insulation, is absorbing heat from the Sun and slowly boiling off. The resultant hydrogen gas is fed to propulsive vents at the rear of the stage. The very slight acceleration imparted by these vents acts to settle the propellants in their tanks. It also has the effect of slowly raising the altitude of the stack. As more energy is added to the orbit, its shape is enlarged and the stack gains height. Counter-intuitively, it also slows down but this is because height is being traded for speed.

Comm break.

Comm break.

The reference to boiling water is to do with part of the spacecraft's cooling system. Their electronic systems generate large amounts of heat, some of which warms the cabin interior but much of which must be removed. The majority of heat removal uses two large radiators mounted near the base of the Service Module, one on each side. During periods of high activity, additional cooling is provided by an evaporator that uses the vaporisation of water to dump heat.

Evaporators, often referred to by the crew as "boilers", rely on the fact that energy is required to convert a liquid to a gas. When water is exposed to a vacuum, it quickly evaporates, and in so doing, takes heat energy from its surroundings. In the evaporator, spare water that has been generated by the fuel cells is fed through metal plates via tiny holes in the plate. Once through, it encounters a mass of porous stainless steel known as a wick, the other side of which is exposed to space. The water evaporates and takes heat with it, then passes out through the steam duct which exhausts at a port just under the commander's window. Pipes from the coolant system are passed through the wick assembly where they give up their heat to the vaporisation process. There are two evaporators, one each for the primary and secondary cooling systems.

The fact that the boiler is no longer evaporating water is likely due to a lower workload by the spacecraft's electronics or the radiators working better over Earth's night-time side.

Comm break.

Very long comm break.

Long comm break.

Comm break.

Long comm break.

Comm break.

Comm break.

That is, when the Event Counter on the main CM control panel reaches 42. In other words, when there are 18 seconds remaining.

Flight Plan, page 3-2a.

Comm break.

Comm break.

Comm break.

John Mayer was Chief of the Mission Planning and Analysis Division.

Comm break.

Comm break.

Apollo 11 is now safely out of Earth orbit and on its trans-lunar trajectory. Next, it must separate from the final stage of the Saturn launch vehicle and extract the Lunar Module.