Apollo 10 Craft On Launching Pad

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31936, 13 March 1969, Page 13

Apollo 10 Craft On Launching Pad

(N.Z. P.A. -Reuter—Copyright) HOUSTON, March 12. As the Apollo 9 astronauts spent their last full day in orbit, the next United States spacecraft stood ready on its launching pad.

Apollo 10, due for a mid-May take-off into lunar orbit, was hauled from its assembly building and placed in position at Cape Kennedy last night. Three more astronauts will fly on the Apollo 10 mission.

'Which, according to present (plans, will be the last before a lunar-landing attempt. Meanwhile space agency officials at Houston say they are still concerned about stormy weather in the Western Atlantic, where Apollo 9 is to splash down tomorrow. But they have so far made no change in their plans for the spacecraft to drop into the sea 195 nautical miles south-west of Bermuda at 3.24 a.m. New Zealand time on Friday. The flight director (Mr Eugene Kranz) said last night ‘that there was a remote chance the spacemen could be ordered back at the end of their 137th revolution of the earth at about 4.30 a.m. New Zealand time on Thursday. Recovery ships are also stationed in the Eastern Atlantic and the Pacific. The forecast for the main recovery area in the Western Atlantic is for winds of between 15 and 20 knots and a 10-foot swell. . At the worst, this would give the astronauts a rough ride until the recovery helicopters reached them.

Colonels James McDivitt and David Scott and Mr Russell Schweickart plan to spend most of today taking

more photographs of the earth.