Astronauts safely on moon

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32524, 6 February 1971, Page 1

Astronauts safely on moon

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) HOUSTON, February 5. The Apollo 14 astronauts, Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell, landed safely on the moon today at 9.18 pan. New Zealand time. “We’re on the surface!” Mitchell yelled. “We’re right on the landing site,” shouted Shepard.

They landed just north of the crater Fra Mauro where they will search for rocks formed perhaps 4600 million years ago.

The landing took two minutes longer than scheduled but otherwise was perfect. The lander settled on a slope of Bdeg.

Seen from the earth, the landing site on the moon is just‘below the equator and slightly left of centre. Failure of a computer programme forced the astronauts to work furiously toward the start of the descent. Shepard had to take over manual control of Antares because of the computer problem and he flew the lunar lander from a point 26sec after the rocket engine started firing.

A dirt-clogged switch gave the Apollo Astronauts anxious moment Mas they prepared to bring tift Antares down to land oh the moon.

The switch activates the “abort” system which would automatically blast the lander back into orbit before touchdown.

Although it was not in the “on” position, the computer indicated that it was. Mission control read up a series of instructions to the crew on how to get round the problem. Voices were tense as the exchanges proceeded with less than 90 minutes to go before touchdown, and 40 of those minutes out of contact behind the moon. Dirty switch Mission control said it believed the switch trouble was caused by “contamination” — foreign matter. Confirming this, Mitchell three times righted the situation just by tapping the

switch. But each time the system returned to the “abort” position. Mission control told the astronauts to feed a new programme to the computer as quickly as possible after ignition for the descent to the moon. The new programme would disable the “abort” system to the computer. Then, if they ran into trouble requiring the descent to be aborted, the astronauts would hit a manual “abort” button. “There it is” As Antares passed over the planned landing site in its last orbit before landing, Mitchell looked down :nd radioed earth: “There it is, as big as life.

“The sun angle looks good for the next time round,” he said.

“I have Cone Crater, Triplet and Doublet,” said Shepard, calling off the names of landmarks he was trained to find.

“They all look like they’re supposed to.”'

He reeled off other landmark names, as he passed over them and then gave vent to a whoop of joy. “Star and sunrise,” he said, naming craters. “Right down there—Got ’em—Got ’em. Yep. Sure do. Hooo-ha! I think we'll know them next time.” Antares was in a low orbit of 68 miles by 10.2 miles. It sped along at 3400 miles an hour just 40,000 feet above the moon mountains, some of which are three miles high.