Vanguard News Network
VNN Media
VNN Digital Library
VNN Reader Mail
VNN Broadcasts

Old April 3rd, 2018 #1
Ray Allan
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 2014
Posts: 15,170
Default April 4, 1968: Apollo 6, a great White achievement

The date of April 4, 1968 is much lesser-known as the day of a great White achievement--the launch of Apollo 6, or AS-502, the second test flight of the Saturn V Moon rocket and the last unmanned Apollo mission. Unlike the nearly-perfect Apollo 4 flight in November 1967, Apollo 6 had a few problems. Although lift-off was trouble-free, at about two minutes into the flight, the vehicle began experiencing a severe oscillation, called "pogo", which caused two of the five second stage engines to shut down early. NASA flight controllers in Houston commanded the stage to burn the remaining three engines longer than planned to make up the difference (Apollo 13 in April 1970 experienced a similar problem with its second stage). Had astronauts been aboard the Apollo spacecraft, they would have had to abort using the launch escape tower above their capsule. Apollo 6's third stage placed the unmanned Apollo Command/Service Module (CSM) into the planned Earth parking orbit, but it failed to make the second burn to place it on a simulated trans-lunar injection trajectory. The Service Module's engine was used for this maneuver instead. Everything else went well and the command module re-entered Earth's atmosphere and was recovered in the Pacific Ocean 10 hours after launch. Despite the problems, NASA cleared Saturn V for its first manned launch of Apollo 8 around the Moon in December 1968.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_6


__________________
"Military men are dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns for foreign policy."

--Henry A. Kissinger, jewish politician and advisor

Last edited by Ray Allan; April 3rd, 2018 at 02:13 AM.
 
Reply

Share


Thread
Display Modes


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 07:00 AM.
Page generated in 2.30364 seconds.