Apollo 14
Apollo 14 was the eighth crewed mission in the United States Apollo program, the third to land on the Moon, and the first to land in the lunar highlands. It was the last of the "H missions," targeted landings with two-day stays on the Moon with two lunar EVAs, or moonwalks.
Commander Alan Shepard, Command Module Pilot Stuart Roosa, and Lunar Module Pilot Edgar Mitchell launched on their nine-day mission on Sunday, January 31, 1971, at 4:03:02 p.m. EST. Liftoff was delayed forty minutes and two seconds, due to launch site weather restrictions, the first such delay in the Apollo program.
Shepard and Mitchell made their lunar landing on February5 in the Fra Mauro highlands – originally the target of the aborted Apollo 13 mission. During the two lunar EVAs, of Moon rocks were collected, and several scientific experiments were performed. Shepard hit two golf balls on the lunar surface with a makeshift club he had brought with him. Shepard and Mitchell spent 33 hours on the Moon, with almost 9 hours of EVA.
After the Apollo 13 accident, several improvements were made to the service module's electrical power system. These included redesigned oxygen tanks and the addition of a third tank. The launch had been scheduled for October1, but was delayed about
While Shepard and Mitchell were on the surface, Roosa remained in lunar orbit aboard the command and service module Kitty Hawk, performing scientific experiments and photographing the Moon, including the landing site of the future Apollo 16 mission. He took several hundred seeds on the mission, many of which were germinated on return, resulting in the so-called Moon trees.
Shepard and Mitchell successfully lifted Antares off the Moon to dock with the command module and, after a total of 34 lunar orbits, the ship was flown back to Earth where the three astronauts landed in the Pacific Ocean on February 9.
Astronauts and key Mission Control personnel
The mission commander of Apollo 14, Alan Shepard, one of the original Mercury Seven astronauts, became the first American to enter space with a suborbital fight on May 5, 1961. Thereafter, he was grounded by Ménière's disease, a disorder of the ear, and served as Chief Astronaut, the administrative head of the Astronaut Office. He had experimental surgery in 1968 which was successful and allowed his return to flight status. Shepard, at age 47, was the oldest U.S. astronaut to fly when he made his trip aboard Apollo 14, and he is the oldest person to walk on the Moon.Apollo 14's Command Module Pilot, Stuart Roosa, aged 37 when the mission flew, had been a smoke jumper before joining the Air Force in 1953. He became a fighter pilot and then in 1965 successfully completed Aerospace Research Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base in California prior to his selection as a Group 5 astronaut the following year. He served as a CAPCOM for Apollo 9. The Lunar Module Pilot, Edgar Mitchell, aged 40 at the time of Apollo 14, joined the Navy in 1952 and served as a fighter pilot in the waning days of the Korean War. He was assigned to squadrons aboard aircraft carriers before returning to the United States to further his education while in the Navy, also completing the ARPS prior to his selection as a Group 5 astronaut. He served on the support crew for Apollo 9 and was the LMP of the backup crew for Apollo 10.
Shepard and his crew had been designated by Deke Slayton, Director of Flight Crew Operations, as the crew for Apollo 13. NASA management felt that Shepard needed more time for training given he had not flown in space since 1961, and chose him and his crew for Apollo 14 instead. Instead, the crew originally designated for Apollo 14, Jim Lovell as the commander, Ken Mattingly as CMP and Fred Haise as LMP, all of whom had backed up Apollo 11, were made the prime crew for Apollo 13 instead.
Another of the original seven, Gordon Cooper, had tentatively been scheduled to command Apollo 13, and presumably would have been switched to 14, but according to author Andrew Chaikin, his casual attitude toward training resulted in his nonselecton. Also on the Apollo 10 backup crew, but excluded from further flights, was Donn Eisele, likely because of problems aboard Apollo 7, which he had flown, and because he had been involved in a messy divorce.
Apollo 14's backup crew was Eugene A. Cernan as commander, Ronald E. Evans Jr. as CMP and Joe H. Engle as LMP. The backup crew, with Harrison Schmitt replacing Engle, would become the prime crew of Apollo 17. Schmitt flew instead of Engle because there was intense pressure on NASA to fly a scientist to the Moon and Apollo 17 was the last lunar flight. Engle, who had flown the X-15 to the edge of outer space, flew into space for NASA in 1981 on STS-2, the second Space Shuttle flight.
During projects Mercury and Gemini, each mission had a prime and a backup crew. Apollo 9 commander James McDivitt believed meetings that required a member of the flight crew were being missed, so for Apollo a third crew of astronauts was added, known as the support crew. Usually low in seniority, support crew members assembled the mission's rules, flight plan, and checklists, and kept them updated; for Apollo 14, they were Philip K. Chapman, Bruce McCandless, II, William R. Pogue, and C. Gordon Fullerton.
For Apollo 14, flight directors were: Pete Frank, Orange team; Glynn Lunney, Black team; Milt Windler, Maroon team and Gerry Griffin, Gold team.
Preparation and training
Prime and backup crews for both Apollo 13 and 14 were announced on August 6, 1969. Apollo 14 was scheduled for July 1970, but in January of that year, due to budget cuts that saw the cancellation of Apollo 20, NASA decided there would be two Apollo missions per year with 1970 to see Apollo 13 in April and Apollo 14 likely in October or November.The investigation into the accident which caused an abort of Apollo 13 delayed Apollo 14. On May 7, 1970, NASA Administrator Thomas O. Paine announced that Apollo 14 would launch no earlier than December 3, and the landing would be at Fra Mauro, the site targeted by Apollo 13. The Apollo 14 astronauts continued their training. On June 30, 1970, following the release of the accident report and a NASA review of what changes to the spacecraft would be necessary, NASA announced that the launch would slip to no earlier than January 31, 1971.
The crew of Apollo 14 trained together for 19 months, longer than any other Apollo crew to that point. In addition to the normal training workload, they had to supervise the changes to the CSM made as a result of the Apollo 13 investigation, much of which was delegated by Shepard to Roosa. Mitchell later stated, "We realized that if our mission failed—if we had to turn back—that was probably the end of the Apollo program. There was no way NASA could stand two failures in a row. We figured there was a heavy mantle on our shoulders to make sure we got it right."
Before the abort of the Apollo 13 mission, the plan was to have Apollo 14 land near Littrow crater, in Mare Serenitatis, where there are features that were thought to be volcanic. After Apollo 13 returned, it was decided that its landing site, near Cone crater in the Fra Mauro formation, was scientifically more important than Littrow. The Fra Mauro formation is composed of ejecta from the impact event that formed Mare Imbrium, and scientists hoped for samples that originated deep under the Moon's surface. Cone crater, a young, deep impact, was large enough to have torn through whatever debris was deposited since the Imbrium Event, which geologists hoped to be able to date. Landing at Fra Mauro would also allow orbital photography of another candidate landing site, the Descartes Highlands, which became the landing site for Apollo 16. Although Littrow went unvisited, a nearby area, Taurus-Littrow, was the landing site for Apollo 17. Apollo 14's landing site was located slightly closer to Cone crater than the point designated for Apollo 13.
The change in landing site affected the geological training for Apollo 14. Before the change, the astronauts had been taken to volcanic sites on Earth; afterwards, they visited crater sites, such as the Ries Crater in West Germany and an artificial crater field created for astronaut training in Arizona's Verde Valley. The effectiveness of the training was limited by a lack of enthusiasm shown by Shepard, which set the tone for Mitchell. Harrison Schmitt suggested that the commander had other things on his mind, such as overcoming a ten-year absence from spaceflight and ensuring a successful mission after the near-disaster of Apollo 13.
Roosa undertook training for his period alone in lunar orbit, when he would make observations of the Moon and take photographs. He had been impressed by the training given to Apollo 13 prime crew CMP Mattingly by geologist Farouk El-Baz and got El-Baz to agree to undertake his training. The two men pored over lunar maps depicting the areas the CSM would pass over. When Shepard and Mitchell were on their geology field trips, Roosa would be overhead in an airplane taking photographs of the site and making observations. El-Baz had Roosa make observations while flying his T-38 jet at a speed and altitude to simulate the speed at which the lunar surface would pass below the CSM.
Another issue that had marked Apollo 13 was the last-minute change of crew due to exposure to communicable disease. To prevent another such occurrence, for Apollo 14, NASA instituted what was called the Flight Crew Health Stabilization Program. Beginning 21 days before launch, the crew lived in quarters at KSC, with their contacts limited to their spouses, the backup crew, mission technicians and others directly involved in training. Those individuals were given physical examinations and immunizations, and crew movements were limited as much as possible at KSC and nearby areas.
The Command and Service Modules were delivered to KSC on November 19, 1969; the ascent stage of the LM arrived on November 21 with the descent stage three days later. Thereafter, checkout, testing and equipment installation proceeded. The launch vehicle stack, with the spacecraft on top, was rolled out from the Vehicle Assembly Building to Pad 39A on November 9, 1970.
Hardware
Spacecraft
The Apollo 14 spacecraft consisted of Command Module 110 and Service Module 110, called Kitty Hawk, and Lunar Module 8, called Antares. Also considered part of the spacecraft were the Launch Escape System and the Spacecraft/Launch Vehicle Adapter.The changes to the Apollo spacecraft between Apollo 13 and 14 were more numerous than with earlier missions, not only because of the problems with Apollo 13, but because of the more extensive lunar activities planned for Apollo 14. The changes in response to the Apollo 13 accident included a redesign of the oxygen tank, the thermostats being upgraded to handle the proper voltage. The heaters were retained since they were necessary to maintain oxygen pressure. The stirring fans, with their unsealed motors, were removed, which meant the oxygen quantity gauge was no longer accurate. This required adding a third tank so that no tank would go below half full. The third tank was placed in Bay1 of the SM, on the side opposite the other two, and was given an isolation valve that could isolate it from the fuel cells and from the other two oxygen tanks in an emergency, and allow it to feed the CM's environmental system only. The quantity probe was upgraded from aluminum to stainless steel.
Also in response to the Apollo 13 accident, the electrical wiring in Bay4 was sheathed in stainless steel. The fuel cell oxygen supply valves were redesigned to isolate the Teflon-coated wiring from the oxygen. The spacecraft and Mission Control monitoring systems were modified to give more immediate and visible warnings of anomalies. An emergency supply of of water was stored in the CM, and an emergency battery, identical to those that powered the LM's descent stage, was placed in the SM. The LM was modified to make transfer of power from LM to CM easier.
Other changes included the installation of anti-slosh baffles in the LM descent stage's propellent tanks. This would prevent the low fuel light coming on prematurely, as had happened on Apollo 11 and 12. Structural changes were made to accommodate the equipment to be used on the lunar surface, including the Modular Equipment Transporter.
Launch vehicle
The Saturn V used for Apollo 14 was designated SA-509, and was similar to those used on Apollo 8 through 13. At, it was the heaviest vehicle yet flown by NASA, heavier than the launch vehicle for Apollo 13.A number of changes were made to avoid pogo oscillations, that had caused an early shutdown of the center J-2 engine on Apollo 13's S-II second stage. These included a helium gas accumulator installed in the liquid oxygen line of the center engine, a backup cutoff device for that engine, and a simplified 2-position propellant utilization valve on each of the five J-2 engines.
ALSEP and other lunar surface equipment
The ALSEP array of scientific instruments carried by Apollo 14 consisted of the Passive Seismic Experiment, Active Seismic Experiment, Suprathermal Ion Detector, Cold Cathode Ion Gauge,and Charged Particle Lunar Environmental Experiment. Two additional lunar surface experiments not part of the ALSEP were also flown, the Laser Ranging Retro-Reflector, to be deployed in the ALSEP's vicinity, and the Lunar Portable Magnetometer, to be used by the astronauts during their second EVA. The PSE had been flown on Apollo 12 and 13, the ASE on Apollo 13, the SIDE on Apollo 12, the CCIG on Apollo 12 and 13 and the LRRR on Apollo 11. The LPM was new, but resembled equipment flown on Apollo 12. The ALSEP components flown on Apollo 13 were destroyed when its LM burned up in Earth's atmosphere.Deployment of the ALSEP, and deployment of the other instruments, each formed one of Apollo 14's mission objectives.
The PSE, similar to one left on the Moon by Apollo 12, was to measure seismic activity in the Moon. The Apollo 14 instrument would be calibrated by the impact, after being jettisoned, of the LM's ascent stage, since an object of known mass and velocity would be impacting at a known location on the Moon. The Apollo 12 instrument would also be activated by the Apollo 14 S-IVB, which would impact the Moon after the mission entered lunar orbit. The two seismometers would, in combination with those left by later Apollo missions, constitute a network of such instruments at different locations on the Moon.
The ASE would also measure seismic waves. It consisted of two parts. In the first, one of the crew members would deploy three geophones at distances up to from the ALSEP's Central Station, and on his way back from the furthest, fire thumpers every. The second consisted of four mortars, of different properties and set to impact at different distances from the experiment. It was hoped that the waves generated from the impacts would provide data about seismic wave transmission in the Moon's regolith. The mortar shells were not to be fired until the astronauts had returned to Earth, and in the event were never fired for fear they would damage other experiments. A similar experiment was successfully deployed, and the mortars launched, on Apollo 16.
The SIDE measured ions on the lunar surface, including from the solar wind. It was combined with the CCIG, which was to measure the lunar atmosphere and detect if it varied over time. The CPLEE measured the particle energies of protons and electrons generated by the Sun that reached the lunar surface. The LRRR acts as a passive target for laser beams, allowing the measurement of the Earth/Moon distance and how it changes over time. The LPM was to be carried during the second EVA and used to measure the Moon's magnetic field at various points.
Flown for the first time on Apollo 14 was the Buddy Secondary Life Support System, a set of flexible hoses which would enable Shepard and Mitchell to share cooling water should one of their Primary Life Support System backpacks fail. In such an emergency, the astronaut with the failed equipment would get oxygen from his Oxygen Purge System backup cylinder, but the BSLSS would ensure he did not have to use oxygen for cooling, extending the life of the OPS. The OPSs used on Apollo 14 were modified from those used on previous missions in that the internal heaters were removed as unnecessary.
Also taken to the lunar surface were water bags, dubbed "Gunga Dins", for insertion in the astronauts' helmets, allowing them sips of water during the EVAs. These had been flown on Apollo 13, but Shepard and Mitchell were the first to use them on the Moon. Similarly, Shepard was the first on the lunar surface to wear a space suit with commander's stripes: red stripes on arms, legs, and on the helmet, though one had been worn by Lovell on Apollo 13. These were instituted because of the difficulty in telling one astronaut from the other in photographs.
Modular Equipment Transporter
The Modular Equipment Transporter was a two-wheeled handcart, used only on Apollo 14, intended to allow the astronauts to take tools and equipment with them, and store lunar samples, without needing to carry them. On later Apollo program missions, the self-propelled Lunar Roving Vehicle was flown instead.The MET, when deployed for use on the lunar surface, was about 86 inches long, 39 inches wide and 32 inches high. It had pressurized rubber tires 4 inches wide and 16 inches in diameter, containing nitrogen and inflated to about 1.5 pounds/square inch. The first use of tires on the Moon, these were developed by Goodyear and were dubbed their XLT model. Fully loaded, it weighed about 75 kilograms. Two legs combined with the wheels to provide four-point stability when at rest.
Mission highlights
Launch and flight to lunar orbit
Apollo 14 launched during heavy cloud cover and the Saturn V booster quickly disappeared from view. NASA's long-range cameras, based 60 miles south in Vero Beach, had a clear shot of the remainder of the launch. Following the launch, the Launch Control Center at Kennedy Space Center was visited by U.S. Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, Prince Juan Carlos of Spain, and his wife, Princess Sofía.At the beginning of the mission, the Apollo CSM had difficulty achieving capture and docking with the LM Antares. Repeated attempts to dock went on for 1hour and 42 minutes, until it was suggested that Roosa hold Kitty Hawk against Antares using its thrusters, then the docking probe would be retracted out of the way, hopefully triggering the docking latches. The sixth attempt was successful, and no further docking problems were encountered during the mission.
Lunar descent
After separating from the command module in lunar orbit, the LM Antares had two serious problems. First, the LM computer began getting an ABORT signal from a faulty switch. NASA believed the computer might be getting erroneous readings like this if a tiny ball of solder had shaken loose and was floating between the switch and the contact, closing the circuit. The immediate solution – tapping on the panel next to the switch – did work briefly, but the circuit soon closed again. If the problem recurred after the descent engine fired, the computer would think the signal was real and would initiate an auto-abort, causing the ascent stage to separate from the descent stage and climb back into orbit. NASA and the software teams at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology scrambled to find a solution. The software was hard-wired, preventing it from being updated directly. The fix involved indicating that abort mode was already active, so that if the signal were to arise again, it would be ignored rather than initiating what would have appeared to the software to be a second abort. The software modifications were transmitted to the crew via voice communication, and Mitchell manually entered the changes just in time.A second problem occurred during the powered descent, when the LM landing radar failed to lock automatically onto the Moon's surface, depriving the navigation computer of vital information on the vehicle's altitude and vertical descent speed. After the astronauts cycled the landing radar breaker, the unit successfully acquired a signal near, again just in time. Shepard then manually landed the LM closer to its intended target than any of the other five Moon landing missions. Mitchell believed Shepard would have continued with the landing attempt without the radar, using the LM inertial guidance system and visual cues. A post-flight review of the descent data showed the inertial system alone would have been inadequate, and the astronauts probably would have been forced to abort the landing as they approached the surface.
Lunar surface operations
Shepard and Mitchell named their landing site Fra Mauro Base, and this designation is recognized by the International Astronomical Union.Shepard's first words, after stepping onto the lunar surface were, "And it's been a long way, but we're here." Unlike Neil Armstrong on Apollo 11 and Pete Conrad on Apollo 12, Shepard had already stepped off the LM footpad and was a few yards away before he spoke.
Shepard's moonwalking suit was the first to utilize red stripes on the arms and legs and on the top of the lunar EVA sunshade "hood," so as to allow easy identification between the commander and LM pilot on the surface; on the Apollo 12 pictures, it had been almost impossible to distinguish between the two crewmen, causing a great deal of confusion. This feature was included on Jim Lovell's Apollo 13 suit; because no landing was made on that mission, Apollo 14 was the first to make use of it. This feature was used for the remaining Apollo missions, and for the EVAs of Space Shuttle flights afterwards, and it is still in use today on both the U.S. and the Russian space suits on the International Space Station.
After landing in the Fra Mauro formation—the destination for Apollo 13—Shepard and Mitchell took two moonwalks, adding new seismic studies to the by now familiar Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package, and using the Modular Equipment Transporter, a pull-cart for carrying equipment and samples, nicknamed "lunar rickshaw". Roosa, meanwhile, took pictures from on board command module Kitty Hawk in lunar orbit.
The second moonwalk, or EVA, was intended to reach the rim of the wide Cone crater. The two astronauts were not able to find the rim amid the rolling terrain of the crater's slopes. They became physically exhausted from the attempt and, with their suits' oxygen supplies starting to run low, the effort was called off. Later analysis using the pictures they took determined that they had come within an estimated of the crater's rim. Images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter show the tracks of the astronauts and the MET come to within 30 m of the rim.
Shepard and Mitchell deployed and activated various scientific instruments and experiments and collected almost of lunar samples for return to Earth, including the 20 pound Big Bertha rock. Other Apollo 14 achievements included the only use of MET; longest distance traversed by foot on the lunar surface; first use of shortened lunar orbit rendezvous techniques; and the first extensive orbital science period conducted during CSM solo operations.
The astronauts also engaged in less serious activities on the Moon. Shepard brought along a six iron golf club head which he could attach to the handle of a lunar excavation tool, and two golf balls, and took several one-handed swings. He exuberantly exclaimed that the second ball went "miles and miles and miles" in the low lunar gravity, but later estimated the distance as. Mitchell then threw a lunar scoop handle as if it were a javelin.
Apollo 14 lunar samples
The Moon rocks, or lunar samples, from Apollo 14 are unique in that most of the 94 pounds of rocks are breccia, which are rocks composed of fragments of other, older rocks. Breccias form when the heat and pressure of meteorite impacts fuse small rock fragments together. There were a few basalts that were collected in this mission in the form of clasts in breccia. The Apollo 14 basalts are generally richer in aluminum and sometimes richer in potassium than other lunar basalts. Most lunar mare basalts collected during the Apollo program were formed from 3.0 to 3.8 billion years ago. The Apollo 14 basalts were formed 4.0 to 4.3 billion years ago, older than the volcanism observed at any of the mare locations studied during the Apollo program.In January 2019 research showed that Big Bertha, a 19.837 pound rock, has numerous characteristics that make it likely to be a terrestrial meteorite. Granite and quartz, which are commonly found on Earth but very rare to find on the Moon, were confirmed to exist on Big Bertha. To find the sample's age, the research team from Curtin University looked at bits of the mineral zircon embedded in its structure. "By determining the age of zircon found in the sample, we were able to pinpoint the age of the host rock at about four billion years old, making it similar to the oldest rocks on Earth," researcher Alexander Nemchin said, adding that "the chemistry of the zircon in this sample is very different from that of every other zircon grain ever analyzed in lunar samples, and remarkably similar to that of zircons found on Earth." This means Big Bertha is both the first discovered terrestrial meteorite and the oldest known Earth rock.
Return, splashdown and quarantine
On the way back to Earth, the crew conducted the first U.S. materials processing experiments in space.The command module Kitty Hawk splashed down in the South Pacific Ocean on February 9, 1971, at 21:05 , approximately south of American Samoa. After recovery by the ship USS New Orleans, the crew was flown to Pago Pago International Airport in Tafuna for a reception before being flown on a C-141 cargo plane to Honolulu. The Apollo 14 astronauts were the last lunar explorers to be quarantined on their return from the Moon. They were the only Apollo crew to be quarantined both before and after the flight.
Roosa, who worked in forestry in his youth, took several hundred tree seeds on the flight. These were germinated after the return to Earth, and widely distributed around the world as commemorative Moon trees.
Mission insignia
The oval insignia depicts the Earth and the Moon, and an astronaut pin drawn with a comet trail represents the crew. The astronaut pin is leaving Earth and approaching the Moon. A gold band around the edge includes the mission and astronaut names. The designer was Jean Beaulieu.The backup crew spoofed the patch with its own version, with revised artwork showing a Wile E. Coyote cartoon character depicted as gray-bearded, pot-bellied and red furred, still on the way to the Moon, while Road Runner is already on the Moon, holding a U.S. flag and a flag labeled "1st Team". The flight name is replaced by "BEEP BEEP" and the backup crew's names are given. Several of these patches were hidden by the backup crew and found during the flight by the crew in notebooks and storage lockers in both the CSM Kitty Hawk and the LM Antares, and one patch was even stored on the MET lunar hand cart.
Spacecraft locations
The Apollo 14 command module Kitty Hawk is on display at the Apollo/Saturn V Center building at the Kennedy Space Center after being on display at the United States Astronaut Hall of Fame near Titusville, Florida, for several years.The S-IVB booster impacted the Moon on February4 at. The ascent stage of lunar module Antares impacted the Moon on February7, 1971, at 00:45:25.7 UT . Antares' descent stage and the mission's other equipment remain at Fra Mauro at.
Photographs taken in 2009 by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter were released on July 17, and the Fra Mauro equipment was the most visible Apollo hardware at that time, owing to particularly good lighting conditions. In 2011, the LRO returned to the landing site at a lower altitude to take higher resolution photographs.