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84-469: After a fire killed the entire crew of the first crewed Apollo mission Apollo 1 on January 27, 1967, a United States Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences hearing overseeing NASA's investigation of the accident led to the public disclosure of the Phillips Report by then junior Senator Walter Mondale , who was told of its existence by ABC News reporter Jules Bergman , who had seen

168-570: A domino effect known as Kessler syndrome . NASA's Orbital Debris Program tracks over 25,000 objects larger than 10 cm diameter in LEO, while the estimated number between 1 and 10 cm is 500,000, and the number of particles bigger than 1 mm exceeds 100 million. The particles travel at speeds up to 7.8 km/s (28,000 km/h; 17,500 mph), so even a small impact can severely damage a spacecraft. [REDACTED]  This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of

252-519: A NASA internal document citing problems with prime Apollo contractor North American Aviation , which became known as the Phillips Report . This disclosure embarrassed NASA Administrator James E. Webb , who was unaware of the document's existence, and attracted controversy to the Apollo program. Despite congressional displeasure at NASA's lack of openness, both congressional committees ruled that

336-687: A copy at NASA's Washington, DC Office of Manned Space Flight headquarters . From November 22 to December 6, 1965, Phillips headed a tiger team investigating the causes of inadequate quality, schedule delays, and cost overruns in both the Apollo CSM and the Saturn V second stage, for which North American was prime contractor. He gave an oral presentation (with transparencies) of his team's findings to his boss, NASA Office of Manned Space Flight Administrator George E. Mueller , and Mueller's boss, NASA Deputy Director Robert Seamans , and also presented them in

420-442: A fire in the cockpit." After 6.8 seconds of silence, a second, badly garbled transmission was heard by various listeners (who believed this transmission was made by Chaffee ) as: The transmission lasted 5.0 seconds and ended with a cry of pain. Some blockhouse witnesses said that they saw White on the television monitors, reaching for the inner hatch release handle as flames in the cabin spread from left to right. The heat of

504-476: A great deal of risk, especially in initial operations, regardless of planning. You just can't forecast all the things that could happen, or when they could happen. "I suppose that someday we are going to have a failure. In every other business there are failures, and they are bound to happen sooner or later", he added. Grissom was asked about the fear of potential catastrophe in a December 1966 interview: You sort of have to put that out of your mind. There's always

588-563: A letter to North American president Lee Atwood , to which Mueller appended his own strongly worded letter to Atwood. Immediately after the fire in 1967, NASA followed its established procedure of investigating and identifying corrections for the cause, with presidential and congressional oversight. No one in NASA's upper management expected that the Phillips findings would be printed as a document, but this had been done and on February 13, Bergman

672-631: A mechanically operated one for the Gemini and Apollo programs. Before the fire, the Apollo astronauts had recommended changing the design to an outward-opening hatch, and this was already slated for inclusion in the Block II command module design. According to Donald K. Slayton 's testimony before the House investigation of the accident, this was based on ease of exit for spacewalks and at the end of flight, rather than for emergency exit. The board noted that

756-509: A possibility that you can have a catastrophic failure, of course; this can happen on any flight; it can happen on the last one as well as the first one. So, you just plan as best you can to take care of all these eventualities, and you get a well-trained crew and you go fly. The launch simulation on January 27, 1967, on pad 34, was a "plugs-out" test to determine whether the spacecraft would operate nominally on (simulated) internal power while detached from all cables and umbilicals. Passing this test

840-543: A satellite into a LEO, and a satellite there needs less powerful amplifiers for successful transmission, LEO is used for many communication applications, such as the Iridium phone system . Some communication satellites use much higher geostationary orbits and move at the same angular velocity as the Earth as to appear stationary above one location on the planet. Unlike geosynchronous satellites , satellites in low orbit have

924-441: A small field of view and can only observe and communicate with a fraction of the Earth at a given time. This means that a large network (or constellation ) of satellites is required to provide continuous coverage. Satellites at lower altitudes of orbit are in the atmosphere and suffer from rapid orbital decay , requiring either periodic re-boosting to maintain stable orbits, or the launching of replacements for those that re-enter

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1008-433: A subset of LEO. These orbits, with low orbital inclination , allow rapid revisit times over low-latitude locations on Earth. Prograde equatorial LEOs also have lower delta-v launch requirements because they take advantage of the Earth's rotation. Other useful LEO orbits including polar orbits and Sun-synchronous orbits have a higher inclinations to the equator and provide coverage for higher latitudes on Earth. Some of

1092-503: A total of six hours and fifteen minutes, two and a half hours longer than it had been during the plugs-out test. The review board cited "many types and classes of combustible material" close to ignition sources. The NASA crew systems department had installed 34 square feet (3.2 m ) of Velcro throughout the spacecraft, almost like carpeting. This Velcro was found to be flammable in a high-pressure 100% oxygen environment. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin states in his book Men From Earth that

1176-421: Is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, peaking in number at an altitude around 800 km (500 mi), while the farthest in LEO, before medium Earth orbit (MEO), have an altitude of 2,000 kilometers, about one-third of the radius of Earth and near

1260-496: Is only slightly less than on the Earth's surface. This is because the distance to LEO from the Earth's surface is much less than the Earth's radius. However, an object in orbit is in a permanent free fall around Earth, because in orbit the gravitational force and the centrifugal force balance each other out. As a result, spacecraft in orbit continue to stay in orbit, and people inside or outside such craft continuously experience weightlessness . Objects in LEO orbit Earth between

1344-568: Is that both bodies were at the lower edge of the hatch. They were not in the seats. They were almost completely clear of the seat areas." As a result of the in-flight failure of the Gemini 8 mission on March 17, 1966, NASA Deputy Administrator Robert Seamans wrote and implemented Management Instruction 8621.1 on April 14, 1966, defining Mission Failure Investigation Policy And Procedures . This modified NASA's existing accident procedures, based on military aircraft accident investigation, by giving

1428-429: The oblateness of Earth's spheroid figure and local topography . While definitions based on altitude are inherently ambiguous, most of them fall within the range specified by an orbit period of 128 minutes because, according to Kepler's third law , this corresponds to a semi-major axis of 8,413 km (5,228 mi). For circular orbits, this in turn corresponds to an altitude of 2,042 km (1,269 mi) above

1512-513: The spacecraft performed. The CSM for this flight, number 012 built by North American Aviation (NAA), was a Block I version designed before the lunar orbit rendezvous landing strategy was chosen; therefore it lacked the capability of docking with the lunar module. This was incorporated into the Block II CSM design, along with lessons learned in Block I. Block II would be test-flown with

1596-604: The CSM and LM together on a Saturn   V (AS-503) to an elliptical medium Earth orbit (MEO), to be crewed by Frank Borman , Michael Collins and William Anders . McDivitt, Scott and Schweickart had started their training for AS-258 in CM-101 at the NAA plant in Downey, California, when the Apollo   1 accident occurred. Once all outstanding CSM-012 hardware problems had been fixed,

1680-481: The Deputy Administrator the option of performing independent investigations of major failures, beyond those for which the various Program Office officials were normally responsible. It declared, "It is NASA policy to investigate and document the causes of all major mission failures which occur in the conduct of its space and aeronautical activities and to take appropriate corrective actions as a result of

1764-463: The Gemini, made that impractical. This became moot when slippage in readiness of the AS-204 spacecraft caused the last-quarter 1966 target date to be missed, and the mission was rescheduled for February 21, 1967. In October 1966, NASA announced the flight would carry a small television camera to broadcast live from the command module. The camera would also be used to allow flight controllers to monitor

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1848-498: The LEO region but are not in a LEO orbit because they re-enter the atmosphere . The distinction between LEO orbits and the LEO region is especially important for analysis of possible collisions between objects which may not themselves be in LEO but could collide with satellites or debris in LEO orbits. The mean orbital velocity needed to maintain a stable low Earth orbit is about 7.8 km/s (4.8 mi/s), which translates to 28,000 km/h (17,000 mph). However, this depends on

1932-575: The LM when the latter was ready. Director of Flight Crew Operations Deke Slayton selected the first Apollo crew in January 1966, with Grissom as Command Pilot, White as Senior Pilot, and rookie Donn F. Eisele as Pilot. But Eisele dislocated his shoulder twice aboard the KC-135 weightlessness training aircraft , and had to undergo surgery on January 27. Slayton replaced him with Chaffee, and NASA announced

2016-452: The Moon if we can't talk between two or three buildings?" The simulated countdown was put on hold again at 5:40 pm while attempts were made to troubleshoot the communications problem. All countdown functions up to the simulated internal power transfer had been successfully completed by 6:20 pm, and at 6:30 the count remained on hold at T minus 10 minutes. The crew members were using

2100-516: The astronauts to breathe while reducing the fire risk. The Apollo   1 crew had successfully tested this procedure with their spacecraft in the Operations and Checkout Building altitude (vacuum) chamber on October 18 and 19, 1966, and the backup crew of Schirra, Eisele and Cunningham had repeated it on December 30. The investigation board noted that, during these tests, the command module had been fully pressurized with pure oxygen four times, for

2184-587: The astronauts was detected by the spacecraft's inertial measurement unit and the astronauts' biomedical sensors, and also indicated by increases in oxygen spacesuit flow, and sounds from Grissom's stuck-open microphone. The stuck microphone was part of a problem with the communications loop connecting the crew, the Operations and Checkout Building , and the Complex 34 blockhouse control room. The poor communications led Grissom to remark: "How are we going to get to

2268-433: The atmosphere. The effects of adding such quantities of vaporized metals to Earth's stratosphere are potentially of concern but currently unknown. The LEO environment is becoming congested with space debris because of the frequency of object launches. This has caused growing concern in recent years, since collisions at orbital velocities can be dangerous or deadly. Collisions can produce additional space debris, creating

2352-433: The beginning of the inner Van Allen radiation belt . The term LEO region is used for the area of space below an altitude of 2,000 km (1,200 mi) (about one-third of Earth's radius). Objects in orbits that pass through this zone, even if they have an apogee further out or are sub-orbital , are carefully tracked since they present a collision risk to the many LEO satellites. No human spaceflights other than

2436-495: The board, and was replaced by Robert W. Van Dolah of the U.S. Bureau of Mines . The next day North American's chief engineer for Apollo, George Jeffs, resigned as well. Seamans ordered all Apollo   1 hardware and software impounded, to be released only under control of the board. After thorough stereo photographic documentation of the CM-012 interior, the board ordered its disassembly using procedures tested by disassembling

2520-522: The cab ride leaving the hearing for volunteering information which led to the disclosure of Phillips' memo. The committee concluded in its final report that "the findings of the [Phillips] task force had no effect on the accident, did not lead to the accident, and were not related to the accident", but in its recommendations, stated "the committee believes it should have been informed of the situation." Freshman Senators Edward Brooke and Charles H. Percy jointly wrote an "Additional Views" section appended to

2604-426: The cabin, beginning the second phase. The third phase began when most of the oxygen was consumed and was replaced with atmospheric air, essentially quenching the fire, but causing high concentrations of carbon monoxide and heavy smoke to fill the cabin, and large amounts of soot to be deposited on surfaces as they cooled. It took five minutes for the pad workers to open all three hatch layers, and they could not drop

Phillips Report - Misplaced Pages Continue

2688-443: The cabin, which both astronauts and technicians found convenient for holding tools and equipment in place. Although Shea gave the spacecraft a passing grade, after the meeting they gave him a crew portrait they had posed with heads bowed and hands clasped in prayer, with the inscription: It isn't that we don't trust you, Joe, but this time we've decided to go over your head. Shea gave his staff orders to tell North American to remove

2772-495: The command module (CM). The name Apollo 1, chosen by the crew, was made official by NASA in their honor after the fire. Immediately after the fire, NASA convened an Accident Review Board to determine the cause of the fire, and both chambers of the United States Congress conducted their own committee inquiries to oversee NASA's investigation. The ignition source of the fire was determined to be electrical, and

2856-442: The committee report, expressing more strongly that the Phillips review should have been disclosed to Congress. Mondale wrote his own Additional View, voicing his complaints in the most strongly worded terms. In its final report, the committee agreed with NASA that the Phillips review had absolutely no bearing on the fire, though the chairman expressed his disappointment that Webb had not kept them informed of Apollo program problems at

2940-452: The cover until the excess pressure was vented. Emergency procedure called for Grissom to open the cabin vent valve first, allowing White to remove the cover, but Grissom was prevented from doing this because the valve was located to the left, behind the initial wall of flames. Also, while the system could easily vent the normal pressure, its flow capacity was utterly incapable of handling the rapid increase to 29 psi (200 kPa) caused by

3024-461: The crew selection on March 21, 1966. James McDivitt , David Scott and Russell Schweickart were named as the backup crew. On September 29, Walter Schirra , Eisele, and Walter Cunningham were named as the prime crew for a second Block I CSM flight, AS-205. NASA planned to follow this with an uncrewed test flight of the LM (AS-206), then the third crewed mission would be a dual flight designated AS-278 (or AS-207/208), in which AS-207 would launch

3108-401: The crew were not believed to be major factors, and it was concluded that most of them had occurred postmortem. Asphyxiation occurred after the fire melted the astronauts' suits and oxygen tubes, exposing them to the lethal atmosphere of the cabin. The review board identified several major factors which combined to cause the fire and the astronauts' deaths: The review board determined that

3192-455: The denser part of the atmosphere and below the inner Van Allen radiation belt . They encounter atmospheric drag from gases in the thermosphere (approximately 80–600 km above the surface) or exosphere (approximately 600 km or 400 mi and higher), depending on orbit height. Satellites in orbits that reach altitudes below 300 km (190 mi) decay quickly due to atmospheric drag. Equatorial low Earth orbits ( ELEO ) are

3276-486: The electrical power momentarily failed at 23:30:55 GMT, and found evidence of several electric arcs in the interior equipment. They were unable to conclusively identify a single ignition source. They determined that the fire most likely started near the floor in the lower left section of the cabin, close to the Environmental Control Unit. It spread from the left wall of the cabin to the right, with

3360-500: The environmental control unit in the command module was found to have a design flaw, and was sent back to the manufacturer for design changes and rework. The returned ECU then leaked water/glycol coolant, and had to be returned a second time. Also during this time, a propellant tank in another service module had ruptured during testing at NAA, prompting the removal from the KSC test chamber of the service module so it could be tested for signs of

3444-498: The event of a launch abort. The boost hatch cover was partially, but not fully, latched in place because the flexible boost protective cover was slightly distorted by some cabling run under it to provide the simulated internal power (the spacecraft's fuel cell reactants were not loaded for this test). After the hatches were sealed, the air in the cabin was replaced with pure oxygen at 16.7  psi (115  kPa ), 2 psi (14 kPa) higher than atmospheric pressure. Movement by

Phillips Report - Misplaced Pages Continue

3528-403: The exact altitude of the orbit. Calculated for a circular orbit of 200 km (120 mi) the orbital velocity is 7.79 km/s (4.84 mi/s), but for a higher 1,500 km (930 mi) orbit the velocity is reduced to 7.12 km/s (4.42 mi/s). The launch vehicle's delta-v needed to achieve low Earth orbit starts around 9.4 km/s (5.8 mi/s). The pull of gravity in LEO

3612-693: The findings and recommendations." Immediately after the   fire NASA Administrator James E. Webb asked President Lyndon B. Johnson to allow NASA to handle the investigation according to its established procedure, promising to be truthful in assessing blame, and to keep the appropriate leaders of Congress informed. Deputy Director Seamans then ordered the establishment of the Apollo 204 Review Board chaired by Langley Research Center director Floyd L. Thompson , which included astronaut Frank Borman , spacecraft designer Maxime Faget , and six others. On February 1, Cornell University professor Frank A. Long left

3696-424: The fire fed by pure oxygen caused the pressure to rise to 29 psi (200 kPa), which ruptured the command module's inner wall at 6:31:19 (23:31:19 GMT, initial phase of the fire). Flames and gases then rushed outside the command module through open access panels to two levels of the pad service structure. The intense heat, dense smoke, and ineffective gas masks designed for toxic fumes rather than smoke, hampered

3780-495: The fire spread rapidly due to combustible nylon material and the high-pressure pure oxygen cabin atmosphere. Rescue was prevented by the plug door hatch, which could not be opened against the internal pressure of the cabin. Because the rocket was unfueled, the test had not been considered hazardous, and emergency preparedness for it was poor. During the Congressional investigation, Senator Walter Mondale publicly revealed

3864-451: The fire. Three minutes after the count was resumed the hatch installation was started. The hatch consisted of three parts: a removable inner hatch which stayed inside the cabin; a hinged outer hatch which was part of the spacecraft's heat shield; and an outer hatch cover which was part of the boost protective cover enveloping the entire command module to protect it from aerodynamic heating during launch and from launch escape rocket exhaust in

3948-477: The first crewed Block II CSM, which would then rendezvous and dock with the LM launched uncrewed on AS-208. In March, NASA was studying the possibility of flying the first Apollo mission as a joint space rendezvous with the final Project Gemini mission, Gemini 12 in November 1966. But by May, delays in making Apollo ready for flight just by itself, and the extra time needed to incorporate compatibility with

4032-558: The first crewed mission of the Apollo program , the American undertaking to land the first man on the Moon. It was planned to launch on February 21, 1967, as the first low Earth orbital test of the Apollo command and service module . The mission never flew; a cabin fire during a launch rehearsal test at Cape Kennedy Air Force Station Launch Complex 34 on January 27 killed all three crew members—Command Pilot Gus Grissom , Senior Pilot Ed White , and Pilot Roger B. Chaffee —and destroyed

4116-647: The first generation of Starlink satellites used polar orbits which provide coverage everywhere on Earth. Later Starlink constellations orbit at a lower inclination and provide more coverage for populated areas. Higher orbits include medium Earth orbit (MEO), sometimes called intermediate circular orbit (ICO), and further above, geostationary orbit (GEO). Orbits higher than low orbit can lead to early failure of electronic components due to intense radiation and charge accumulation. In 2017, " very low Earth orbits " ( VLEO ) began to be seen in regulatory filings. These orbits, below about 450 km (280 mi), require

4200-454: The flammable material had been removed per the crew's August 19 complaints and Joseph Shea's order, but was replaced before the August 26 delivery to Cape Kennedy. The inner hatch cover used a plug door design, sealed by higher pressure inside the cabin than outside. The normal pressure level used for launch (2 psi (14 kPa) above ambient) created sufficient force to prevent removing

4284-438: The flammables from the cabin, but did not supervise the issue personally. North American shipped spacecraft CM-012 to Kennedy Space Center on August 26, 1966, under a conditional Certificate of Flight Worthiness: 113 significant incomplete planned engineering changes had to be completed at KSC. That was not all; an additional 623 engineering change orders were made and completed after delivery. Grissom became so frustrated with

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4368-455: The floor being affected only briefly. The board noted that a silver-plated copper wire, running through an environmental control unit near the center couch, had become stripped of its Teflon insulation and abraded by repeated opening and closing of a small access door. This weak point in the wiring also ran near a junction in an ethylene glycol /water cooling line that had been prone to leaks. Electrolysis of ethylene glycol solution with

4452-430: The ground crew's attempts to rescue the men. There were fears the command module had exploded, or soon would, and that the fire might ignite the solid fuel rocket in the launch escape tower above the command module, which would have likely killed nearby ground personnel, and possibly have destroyed the pad. As the pressure was released by the cabin rupture, the rush of gases within the module caused flames to spread across

4536-399: The hatch. Because of the large strands of melted nylon fusing the astronauts to the cabin interior, removing the bodies took nearly 90 minutes. The bodies were only able to be removed after 7.5 hours from the time the incident took place, due to the gasses and toxins present which prevented medical personnel from entering initially. Deke Slayton was possibly the first NASA official to examine

4620-463: The identical CM-014 and conducted a thorough investigation of every part. The board also reviewed the astronauts' autopsy results and interviewed witnesses. Seamans sent Webb weekly status reports of the investigation's progress, and the board issued its final report on April 5, 1967. According to the Board, Grissom suffered severe third-degree burns on more than one-third of his body and his spacesuit

4704-501: The inability of the training simulator engineers to keep up with the spacecraft changes that he took a lemon from a tree by his house and hung it on the simulator. The command and service modules were mated in the KSC altitude chamber in September, and combined system testing was performed. Altitude testing was performed first uncrewed, then with both the prime and backup crews, from October 10 through December 30. During this testing,

4788-438: The inner hatch to the cabin floor as intended, so they pushed it out of the way to one side. Although the cabin lights remained on, they were unable to see the astronauts through the dense smoke. As the smoke cleared they found the bodies, but were not able to remove them. The fire had partly melted Grissom's and White's nylon space suits and the hoses connecting them to the life support system. Grissom had removed his restraints and

4872-540: The intense heat of the fire. North American had originally suggested the hatch open outward and use explosive bolts to blow the hatch in case of emergency, as had been done in Project Mercury . NASA did not agree, arguing the hatch could accidentally open, as it had on Grissom's Liberty Bell 7 flight, so the Manned Spacecraft Center designers rejected the explosive design in favor of

4956-431: The issues raised in the report had no bearing on the accident. Crewed Apollo flights were suspended for twenty months while the command module's hazards were addressed. However, the development and uncrewed testing of the lunar module (LM) and Saturn V rocket continued. The Saturn IB launch vehicle for Apollo   1, AS-204, was used for the first LM test flight, Apollo 5 . The first successful crewed Apollo mission

5040-474: The lunar missions of the Apollo program (1968-1972) and the 2024 Polaris Dawn have taken place beyond LEO. All space stations to date have operated geocentric within LEO. A wide variety of sources define LEO in terms of altitude . The altitude of an object in an elliptic orbit can vary significantly along the orbit. Even for circular orbits , the altitude above ground can vary by as much as 30 km (19 mi) (especially for polar orbits ) due to

5124-455: The mean radius of Earth, which is consistent with some of the upper altitude limits in some LEO definitions. The LEO region is defined by some sources as a region in space that LEO orbits occupy. Some highly elliptical orbits may pass through the LEO region near their lowest altitude (or perigee ) but are not in a LEO orbit because their highest altitude (or apogee ) exceeds 2,000 km (1,243 mi). Sub-orbital objects can also reach

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5208-504: The reassembled spacecraft completed a successful altitude chamber test with Schirra's backup crew on December 30. According to the final report of the accident investigation board, "At the post-test debriefing the backup flight crew expressed their satisfaction with the condition and performance of the spacecraft." This would appear to contradict the account given in the 1994 book Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo   13 by Jeffrey Kluger and astronaut James Lovell , that "When

5292-501: The report's existence. Other senators, such as Margaret Chase , then questioned Webb about NASA's choice of North American as the Apollo contractor. Mondale said he had been told of the existence what he called "the Phillips report", and Seamans was afraid that Mondale might be in possession of a hard copy of the presentation, so he said tentatively that contractors have occasionally been given negative reviews, but that he knew of no such extraordinary report. Mondale raised controversy over

5376-399: The report, despite Phillips' refusal to characterize it as such before Congress, and was angered by what he perceived as Webb's deception and concealment of important program problems from Congress, and questioned NASA's selection of North American as prime contractor. Webb eventually provided a controlled copy of Phillips' memo to Congress. Seamans later wrote that Webb roundly chastised him in

5460-660: The silver anode of the wire was discovered at the Manned Spacecraft Center on May 29, 1967, to be a hazard capable of causing a violent exothermic reaction , igniting the ethylene glycol mixture in the Command Module's pure oxygen atmosphere. Experiments at the Illinois Institute of Technology confirmed the hazard existed for silver-plated wires, but not for copper-only or nickel-plated copper. In July, ASPO directed both North American and Grumman to ensure no silver or silver-coated electrical contacts existed in

5544-423: The southeastern United States with Florida (the launch point) prominent. The Moon is seen in the distance, symbolic of the eventual program goal. A yellow border carries the mission and astronaut names with another border set with stars and stripes, trimmed in gold. The insignia was designed by the crew, with the artwork done by North American Aviation employee Allen Stevens. The Apollo command and service module

5628-430: The spacecraft was removed from the altitude chamber on January 3, 1967, and mated to its Saturn IB launch vehicle on pad 34 on January 6. Grissom said in a February 1963 interview that NASA could not eliminate risk despite precautions: An awful lot of people have devoted more effort than I can describe to [make] Project Mercury and its successors, as safe as humanly possible ... But we also recognize that there remains

5712-486: The spacecraft's instrument panel in flight. Television cameras were carried aboard all crewed Apollo missions. Grissom's crew received approval in June 1966 to design a mission patch with the name Apollo   1 (though the approval was subsequently withdrawn pending a final decision on the mission designation, which was not resolved until after the fire). The design's center depicts a command and service module flying over

5796-410: The spacecraft's interior. His testimony contradicted the official report concerning the position of Grissom's body. Slayton said of Grissom and White's bodies, "it is very difficult for me to determine the exact relationships of these two bodies. They were sort of jumbled together, and I couldn't really tell which head even belonged to which body at that point. I guess the only thing that was real obvious

5880-414: The spacecraft's oxygen and communication systems. Grissom immediately noticed a strange odor in the air circulating through his suit which he compared to "sour buttermilk", and the simulated countdown was put on hold at 1:20 pm, while air samples were taken. No cause of the odour could be found, and the countdown was resumed at 2:42 pm. The accident investigation found this odour not to be related to

5964-529: The tank problem. These tests were negative. In December the second Block I flight AS-205 was canceled as unnecessary; Schirra, Eisele and Cunningham were reassigned as the backup crew for Apollo   1. McDivitt's crew was now promoted to prime crew of the Block II/LM mission, re-designated AS-258 because the AS-205 launch vehicle would be used in place of AS-207. A third crewed mission was planned to launch

6048-407: The test planners had failed to identify the test as hazardous; emergency equipment (such as gas masks) were inadequate to handle this type of fire; that fire, rescue, and medical teams were not in attendance; and that the spacecraft work and access areas contained many hindrances to emergency response such as steps, sliding doors, and sharp turns. Low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit ( LEO )

6132-591: The time to run through their checklist again, when a momentary increase in AC Bus   2 voltage occurred. Nine seconds later (at 6:31:04.7), one of the astronauts (some listeners and laboratory analysis indicate Grissom) exclaimed "Hey!", "Fire!", or "Flame!"; this was followed by two seconds of scuffling sounds through Grissom's open microphone. This was immediately followed at 6:31:06.2 (23:31:06.2 GMT) by someone (believed by most listeners, and supported by laboratory analysis, to be Chaffee) saying, "[I've, or We've] got

6216-407: The time. But Mondale issued a minority opinion accusing NASA of "evasiveness, ... lack of candor, ... patronizing attitude exhibited toward Congress, ... refusal to respond fully and forthrightly to legitimate congressional inquiries, and ... solicitous concern for corporate sensitivities at a time of national tragedy". Apollo 1 Apollo 1 , initially designated AS-204 , was planned to be

6300-403: The trio climbed out of the ship,   ... Schirra made it clear that he was not pleased with what he had seen," and that he later warned Grissom and Shea that "there's nothing wrong with this ship that I can point to, but it just makes me uncomfortable. Something about it just doesn't ring right," and that Grissom should get out at the first sign of trouble. After the successful altitude tests,

6384-412: The use of novel technologies for orbit raising because they operate in orbits that would ordinarily decay too soon to be economically useful. A low Earth orbit requires the lowest amount of energy for satellite placement. It provides high bandwidth and low communication latency . Satellites and space stations in LEO are more accessible for crew and servicing. Since it requires less energy to place

6468-582: The vicinity of possible glycol spills in the Apollo spacecraft. The plugs-out test had been run to simulate the launch procedure, with the cabin pressurized with pure oxygen at the nominal launch level of 16.7 psi (115 kPa), 2 psi (14 kPa) above standard sea level atmospheric pressure. This is more than five times the 3 psi (21 kPa) partial pressure of oxygen in the atmosphere, and provides an environment in which materials not normally considered flammable will be highly flammable and burst into flame. The high-pressure oxygen atmosphere

6552-437: Was almost completely destroyed. White suffered third-degree burns on almost half of his body and a quarter of his spacesuit had melted away. Chaffee suffered third-degree burns on almost a quarter of his body and a small portion of his spacesuit was damaged. The autopsy report determined that the primary cause of death for all three astronauts was cardiac arrest caused by high concentrations of carbon monoxide . Burns suffered by

6636-495: Was essential to making the February 21 launch date. The test was considered non-hazardous because neither the launch vehicle nor the spacecraft was loaded with fuel or cryogenics and all pyrotechnic systems (explosive bolts) were disabled. At 1:00 pm EST (18:00 GMT ) on January 27, first Grissom, then Chaffee, and White entered the command module fully pressure-suited, and were strapped into their seats and hooked up to

6720-526: Was flown by Apollo   1's backup crew on Apollo 7 in October 1968. AS-204 was to be the first crewed test flight of the Apollo command and service module (CSM) to Earth orbit, launched on a Saturn IB rocket. AS-204 was to test launch operations, ground tracking and control facilities and the performance of the Apollo-Saturn launch assembly and would have lasted up to two weeks, depending on how

6804-401: Was lying on the floor of the spacecraft. White's restraints were burned through, and he was found lying sideways just below the hatch. It was determined that he had tried to open the hatch per the emergency procedure, but was not able to do so against the internal pressure. Chaffee was found strapped into his right-hand seat, as procedure called for him to maintain communication until White opened

6888-443: Was much bigger and far more complex than any previous crewed spacecraft. In October 1963, Joseph F. Shea was named Apollo Spacecraft Program Office (ASPO) manager, responsible for managing the design and construction of both the CSM and the LM. In a spacecraft review meeting held with Shea on August 19, 1966 (a week before delivery), the crew expressed concern about the amount of flammable material (mainly nylon netting and Velcro ) in

6972-512: Was shown a copy at the Office of Manned Space Flight headquarters . He then told a junior senator on the Aeronautical and Space Sciences Committee, Walter Mondale , about the document, and later reported its existence on ABC. Mondale proceeded to grill the top managers, including Administrator James E. Webb , who was completely blind-sided (the formal review had not gone above Seamans), about

7056-488: Was similar to that which had been used successfully in the Mercury and Gemini programs. The pressure before launch was deliberately greater than ambient in order to drive out the nitrogen-containing air and replace it with pure oxygen, and also to seal the plug door hatch cover. During the launch, the pressure would have been gradually reduced to the in-flight level of 5 psi (34 kPa), providing sufficient oxygen for

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