Word: 4b
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...take over. With its five engines producing 1,125,000 Ibs. of thrust, the S-2 will accelerate the shortened vehicle to a speed of 14,000 m.p.h. and hurtle it to an altitude of 119 miles. After the S-2 is jettisoned in turn, the third-stage S-4B will ignite, using its 225,000-lb.-thrust engine to increase the spaceship's speed to 17,400 m.p.h. and insert it into a "parking" orbit around the earth...
They conducted scores of experiments, produced the first U.S. live TV shows from space and rendezvoused with their discarded Saturn 4B booster (see color pictures). More important, by checking out Apollo's control, navigation, communications and life-support systems, they confirmed that the craft was completely spaceworthy. If no unexpected difficulties are uncovered as technicians decipher the mountain of data that ac cumulated during the flight, an Apollo 8 crew composed of Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders may be sent into orbit around the moon with in as little as six weeks...
...highlights of the flight were the docking maneuver and precise rendezvous with the discarded S-4B booster, and the eight successful burns of the service module's powerful propulsion engine. These operations will be essential on a lunar landing mission. While en route to the moon, the joined Apollo command and service modules must dock with the lunar module (LM), which will be carried inside the opened flaps of the S-4B. Later, should the LM become stranded in a lunar orbit on its way to or from the surface of the moon, Apollo would have to rendezvous...
Simulated Rescue. After firing thrusters on the attached Saturn 4B to maneuver in orbit, the astronauts cut loose the joined Apollo command and service modules while they were passing over Hawaii. "If this were the lunar mission," explained Haney, "that is aproximately the point where we might ignite the Saturn 4B to put us on a lunar trajectory." Instead, Spacecraft Commander Schirra used Apollo's control thrusters to move his craft away from the Saturn 4B and pitched the spacecraft up and around so that it was facing the rocket. He then nudged the craft to within...
...week, after they had allowed Apollo to drift about 100 miles ahead of the Saturn 4B, the astronauts fired the service module's powerful propulsion engine twice in orbital maneuvers that once more brought them to a rendezvous with the spent second-stage rocket. This operation, too, had implications for the lunar mission; if the LM should become stranded in lunar orbit on the way to or from the Apollo command moduel, the larger craft would have to seek it out and dock with it to rescue the two astonauts aboard...