Astronauts switch on L.E.M.

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32522, 4 February 1971, Page 1

Astronauts switch on L.E.M.

(N.Z.P. A.-Reuter—Copyright) HOUSTON, Feb. 3. The Apollo 14 astronauts, on their last full day before reaching the moon, were due to bring the lunar landing craft, Antares, to life today. They will also reach 153,000 miles and 60 hours out from earth, where crisis struck the Apollo 13 mission on April 13. It was just after the astronauts, James Lovell, John

.Swigert and Frederick Haise had switched on their {lunar lander, Aquarius, that .an oxygen tank exploded. It wrecked the power system and sent them into a hairraising race against time to get home before their water and oxygen ran out. Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell, who will ride Antares down . to Fra Mauro highlands of the moon on Friday, will activate their lunar lander today (10.23 p.m. New Zealand time), in a procedure called “L.E.M. housekeeping”, (lunar excursion module). The first 45 minutes will be seen live on television. Another chance Before Antares is entered it is pressurised to equalise the cabin pressure so the hatch can be opened; then the 32inwide tunnel connects the landing craft with the command ship Kitty Hawk. The astronauts will have another chance to inspect the probe and drogue docking equipment which baulked during the first five attempts to join the two spacecraft together on Sunday night. Mission planners say they are fully satisfied that the mechanism is working properly. It will next be used when Shepard and Mitchell rejoin Stuart Roosa in the Kitty Hawk on Saturday after a 33hour stay on the moon. Shepard and Mitchell will spend more than an hour in-

side Antares today, checking out the spidery, thinskinned craft for the first time since blast-off from Cape Kennedy. So far the astronauts are proving even more laconic in earthward communication than their predecessors in the Apollo programme. Shepard js the least talkative, Roosa the most—by reason of his position as command ship pilot. Shepard is making his first space flight for 10 years. Last night he saluted the Los Angeles doctor whose operation cured an inner ear defect and enabled him to fly again.