Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in ... - The Black Vault

362
First Steps into Space: Projects Mercury and Gemini
mately a half to a mile below us for a short period of time in daylight. It
did not have excessive pitch and yaw rates at this time, nor did it appear
to be tumbling end over end. However we were too far away to determine
whether there were any roll rates involved in the Agena.
Scott:
Yes, I agree. It went by pretty fast. We did get to see it wasn’t tumbling, but
it was hard to tell exactly what attitude or rates it had.
Armstrong:
Sometime later, when preparing for retrofire, we were asked by the
ground whether we had identified the proper operation of the Reentry
Rate Control System. So, in checking that system out, we found that we
had [63] regained some yaw control at this time, and guessed at the time
that those thrusters may have been cooling down to the point where we
were once again getting thrust out of them. So, we used the OAMS then
in all three axes to align the platform for retrofire.
Scott:
You might add that the camera was on there during the undocking at
some unknown setting.
Armstrong:
Roger, we did have the camera on during this time period – the 16 millimeter
camera—but we, of course, could not take time to check the settings,
and we could not identify at this time whether it was set for daylight
or darkness, or for what configuration. That film may or may not come
out. [64]
Scott:
One thing we might add on the stability of the combination – as far as
bending we didn’t notice any oscillations on the docking or post-docking
between the two vehicles after TDA Rigidized. Also during the rolling
and yawing maneuvers, when we had the problems with the Agena and
spacecraft, I don’t believe we noticed any oscillations or bending between
the two vehicles. It seemed to be a pretty firm attachment.
Armstrong:
I am certain that we put fairly sizeable bending loads on the combinations
as a result of the inertial loads and also the thruster loads which were long
time duration and in all sorts of combinations out of both the OAMS and
the Agena ACS. There certainly was no evidence of any relative motion
between the Agena and the spacecraft or any noticeable deflections of
any sort. After being informed by the ground that they were considering
a 6-3 landing area, we realized that we had a reasonably short time to get
reconfigured from the stowage point of view to an entry configuration.
We immediately started to prepare for that possibility. This involved the
restowage of the cameras first. (Both our right and left boxes were not yet
opened so they did not pose a problem).