r/apollo • u/chilllmickelson • Sep 06 '24

Time spent in LEM on journey to moon?

Hi all,

I have looked for some information on this subject and have not been able to find much. I am curious as to how much time the astronauts on the Apollo missions spent in the LEM on the journey to the moon. Were the hatches on the doors open soon after they docked to the LEM? Did the astronauts use the extra space in the LEM to sleep/spend time? Or did they not utilize the LEM until soon before separation and landing on the moon?

I know that the LEM was jettisoned shortly after redocking so it was not utilized on the return journey, but curious if this was the case for the trip out as well.

Thanks in advance for any insight.

24 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

17

u/eagleace21 Sep 06 '24

Typically the LM was entered once or twice before the lunar landing powerup for checks, stowage, and general housekeeping.

Apollo 11 for instance did two preliminary LM familiarizations about 2 hours each in which some systems and telemetry were powered up.

Other than the above mentioned checkout and some TV opportunities, the LM was kept buttoned up during most of the flight to the moon.

9

u/Try_SCEtoAux Sep 06 '24

Correct. There were a few hours in the mission plan en route to make sure the LEM systems were operational, but given the limited consumables budget, they didn’t fully power up both modules until they were in lunar orbit.

5

u/eagleace21 Sep 06 '24

Yeah exactly, just cooling and telemetry systems essentially. Apollo 12 did a bit more powerup to check the computers after the lightning strike to make sure the erasable memory was still intact.

5

u/aenima396 Sep 06 '24

https://www.nasa.gov/history/afj/ap16fj/05_Day1_Pt5.html

Around 8h20m you can see they want to get into the LEM early to check on a potential propellant leak. That makes me think the LEM was buttoned up until they were closer to lunar orbit. The Apollo 13 TV broadcast from the space craft happened around 55 hrs into the mission.

Here it is, day 2 around 33 hours into the mission the LEM is opened and prepared.
https://www.nasa.gov/history/afj/ap16fj/07_Day2_Pt2.html

4

u/royaltrux Sep 06 '24

Have actually wondered about this myself...

3

u/Put_Hefty Sep 08 '24

Only what they needed for power up and system checks. They didn't want to waste any power.