Talk:Apollo abort modes

Which of these were ever used, and on what missions? -wr 11-nov-2005

None of these abort modes were ever used during a mission. Evil Monkey - Hello 00:34, 7 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

TODO: Add the post-launch abort modes.[edit]

See NASA TN D-6847: Apollo Experience Report—Abort Planning, which describes all the Apollo abort procedures:

Launch Phase
Translunar injection
Translunar coast
Lunar orbit
Lunar descent and ascent
Transearth injection and coast

Either that, or rename the article to only discuss launch aborts. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.41.210.146 (talk) 07:48, 18 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Agree 100 percent. I Don't know how 9 years have passed without comment, but I may try to tackle this. It's potentially a huge edit, so I'm going to sandbox edit it first. Thanks for that link, as it answers exactly the questions I had mostly. I'm planning to use it as my source. However, I've read most of the paper, and one thing is clear: Aside from Launch to earth orbit, and lunar decent/ascent, there are not specific abort modes that i can see, as the crew and mission control have lots of time to evaluate the situation. I will have to reword a lot of the current article, because it says for example that no aborts were ever used. that is only true for launch. Autumn Wind (talk) 21:54, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Changes to the Apollo abort system.[edit]

I thought I had remembered that the launch abort system was added later in the Apollo timeline, but instead I now believe that it was just changed, maybe after Apollo 13. I don't see anything here about that, though. Did they make a change somewhere along the way? Gah4 (talk) 15:28, 10 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

??? I don't know what you think you're remembering. The need for a Launch escape system to pull the spacecraft away from the rocket was identified in Project Mercury (before Apollo started). So the Apollo spacecraft was designed from the beginning with this system, without substantial changes. The launch escape system had absolutely nothing to do with the Apollo 13 emergency, which happened long after launch when the spacecraft was en route to the Moon. JustinTime55 (talk) 16:10, 10 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I would imagine pad abort procedures were rewritten after the Apollo 1 fire. Could that be what you are thinking of? VQuakr (talk) 17:14, 10 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That doesn't make much sense either. The definition of pad abort means the rocket is in danger of exploding right before launch, and the escape tower is used to blow the Command Module away to a safe splashdown. This doesn't have anything to do with what happened in Apollo 1, where ironically they were worried that the capsule fire might detonate the escape rocket, which would have been a catastrophe for the pad and personnel. JustinTime55 (talk) 17:48, 10 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Remembering from so long ago, it might be that they changed to leaving the escape tower on longer. I wasn't following the space program at all until Apollo 7. It might be that after Apollo 13, even though it wouldn't have helped, that someone decided that there were some cases where it might help to leave on. I wouldn't be remembering it if someone didn't discuss it, and there should have been a reason to discuss it. Thanks all. Gah4 (talk) 18:00, 10 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

We include information in Wikipedia only from informed, WP:reliable sources, not our memory of what somebody discussed. The facts are, the time of jettisoning the escape tower has never changed, occurring at the point in flight where Abort Mode changes from I to II, the point at which either the SM could be used in lieu of the tower to take the CM to safety, or Mode III, where the S-IVB could be used to take the craft to orbit. Again, the Apollo 13 S-IVB engine shutdown (a minor failure) didn't give anyone a reason to think of keeping the tower on longer. JustinTime55 (talk) 19:09, 10 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I had no intention of putting it in until I found a verified source. I thought someone here might know. The time sequence logs are all on nasa.gov, with times from 3:08 to 3:20, so not a big difference. I now wonder if it is some difference from before launch. If you are watching on TV, there isn't much to talk about before launch, so they might have mentioned something about it. I wouldn't have had any reason to know about the LES, if there wasn't some reason to mention it. I now found https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19730010175.pdf which gives many details about it. Gah4 (talk) 20:14, 10 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]