How the Apollo Spacecraft works: Part 3

The LM ascent stage liftoff from the lunar surface to rendezvous and dock with the CSM. It was a three day journey to get back home. After reentry and splashdown, the astronauts were picked up by an aircraft carrier.

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This video has been dubbed in over 20 languages, you can change the audio track language in the Settings menu (click the gear icon in the lower right hand corner of the video).

⌚Timestamps:
00:00 - Intro
00:18 - Two Stages
00:37 - Rendezvous and Docking
01:47 - Trans-Earth Injection
02:20 - Back in Earth orbit
02:34 - Reentry
03:15 - Splashdown

For the curious minded:
-On LM liftoff - there were potentially several more "midcourse" correction burns to allow docking to happen (look at the first source that I posted down below).
-Before docking - the astronauts would take pictures of each others spacecraft.
-During the coast back to earth, there was sometimes a spacewalk that happened.
-Reentry had to happen at just the right angle. Too steep and they burn up, too shallow and they skip off the atmosphere (the move Apollo 13 explains this quite nicely).
-Splashdown usually occurred in the Pacific Ocean.

Music:
Stale Mate - Jingle Punks (Lunar lift-off)
Galactic Damages - Jingle Punks (Reentry)
Morning Walk - Jingle Punks (Splashdown)

Sources:

Made with Blender 2.77a

#space #nasa #b3d

[JaredOwen]

Help me subtitle this video in your language:

[CountArtha]

It probably bears mentioning that the Lunar Module's ascent engine was the only propulsion system on Apollo with no backup. The service module engine was originally designed for lifting the CSM off the Moon and was WAY more powerful than it needed to be, so if it failed the Lunar Module's descent engine could do the job instead (as was done on Apollo 13). If the descent engine failed during any phase of the Moon landing, the ascent engine could be used to abort the landing, get back into orbit, and rendezvous with the CSM.

But if the _ascent_ engine failed to ignite on the Moon, the astronauts were stuck there forever. Worse, the Ascent Propulsion System had extremely simple plumbing that made it impossible to test-fire, because the corrosive oxidizer would basically destroy the engine in the process. So on every Apollo mission, the ignition of the ascent stage on the Moon was the first time that particular engine had ever been fired. The Bell engineers who built the LM's ascent engine probably had the most stressful job in the whole program.

[wychwood]

Hey Jared. I'm 60 years old so obviously old enough to recall moon landings. Always been fascinated to know how they did everything. Your videos do great job walking us through intricacies of moon missions. Thanks for posting these.

[apolloguy]

I was a (young) engineer on the Apollo launch team at Kennedy for Apollos 4 - 13. This is an excellent series of videos about the missions. Easy to understand graphics. Good job.

[cherokee]

I am an aviation and space journalist and I've written a book on this topic some time many years before I discovered your videos. They are the best videos on the topic - by far! Just the the right amount of depth to be very educating, with perfect graphics and text. Congratulations.

[cyclingcycles]

Nobody said it...
The animations are amazing!

[arslaniqbal]

how space shuttle works please make a video
you are amazing

[miketravis]

I am 62 and grew up in the Apollo era. The glory of Apollo 11 and the drama of Apollo 13. This video was most informative and I thank you for posting it.

[CosmoTuberIsMe]

Half a million
One lunar
And... 3 Youtube videos
Here I am, an admirer of your videos, content, presentation, narration and what more....!
Kudos Jared... It is time I take the next ride on the Appollo Spacecraft with my 9 year old son... He is ready to understand much of it - thanks to you!

[opinionday]

Wonderful video. As a person who is fascinated by the Apollo 13 story, your video has explained things to me so clearly, I have been looking for such a video for years, thanks a lot.

[StonyStonebraker]

I worked on the Saturn V and this is the best video explanation I've seen. I worked on the Instrument Unit which was the brains of the Saturn V. It was built by IBM under a contract with NASA in Huntsville, AL. The IU had all the navigation, guidance, telemetry, communications, etc. functions through Trans Lunar Injection. At the IBM facility where I worked, there were posters urging everyone to work with Zero Defects. Another poster with a quote by Wehner von Braun explained why: "If the Saturn V is 99.9% reliable, there will be 5, 600 defects."

I did some calculations recently and a typical cell phone these days has about 3.5 million times the storage capacity of the Saturn V IU and computer processors have about 1 trillion times the processing capability of processors in the 1960s.

It is amazing to reflect on how primitive computers were back then and how we got to the Moon with such limited capabilities.

[garyhaber]

My father in law worked on the Apollo capsule!
He has wonderful stories, and even still has the tools he used during that time.

[GopherBaroque]

This has got to be the most concise, informative and enjoyable series of videos about Apollo Lunar missions that I have ever seen. The animations were also impressive. Very well done. Thank you.

[EAGLEYES]

Astronauts were great engineers themselves.
The spirit of the mariners.

[jaymoore]

I was aboard the USS Hornet What a once in a lifetime experience. Jay Moore

[foxmccloud]

On Apollo 15, 16, & 17 crews not only utilized the lunar rover to go longer distances, but better suits and improved lunar modules ensured that crews conducted moonwalks for up to eight hours and stayed on the surface of the moon for up to 75hrs.
1:47 On Apollo 15, 16, & 17 the service module contained the Scientific Instrument Module that contained alot of scientific instruments, including the lunar receiving radar, mapping cameras and other equipment. This necessitated a spacewalk to retrieve the film canisters and the lunar receiving radar from the scientific instrument module.

[rajpawar]

"A small step for a man and a giant leap for mankind." - Neil Armstrong

[MrSidney]

What a marvel of engineering these missions were!

[Bigbuddyandblue]

Nice, clear, to the point. I learned more here in a few minutes with these 3 vids than most other vids about Apollo and Saturn 5

[citizenofcorona]

Amazing how all this was done with technology and computers that were far less powerful than the average smartphone nowadays.