Bumpy beginnings
The January launch took place right on schedule, despite heavy cloud cover that hung over Kennedy Space Center. With U.S. Vice President Spiro Agnew on hand, along with Spanish Prince Juan Carlos and his wife, Princess Sophia, the Saturn V jumped skyward and quickly out of sight into the clouds. The spacecraft achieved Earth orbit, and Shepard separated the Command/Service Module from the Lunar Module and turned the former around for docking.
Then the mission had its first hint of trouble. The astronauts undertook the docking procedure multiple times, having trouble each time completing the maneuver. Finally, after more than an hour and a half, Roosa tried holding Kitty Hawk against Antares with its thrusters while simultaneously retracting the docking probe. The docking latches took hold, accomplishing the procedure. There was a sigh of relief following the close call — an inability to connect the Command and Lunar Modules was potentially a major problem.
On Feb. 4, Apollo 14 concluded its glide phase over the 240,000-mile (386,000 kilometers) trip to the Moon. Entering lunar orbit, the spacecraft seemed fine. The following day, Shepard and Mitchell climbed into the LM and prepared for their descent to Fra Mauro. Roosa would stay within Kitty Hawk, piloting it as it circled the Moon.
Soon after beginning the descent within Antares, the astronauts encountered a problem. The lander’s computer signaled an “abort” alert, which they determined was a false alarm due to a faulty switch. But if the alarm were to recur after the descent engine began firing, the computer would treat the false alarm as if it were real and abort the descent. This would cause the craft’s ascent stage to ignite and separate from the descent stage, and the LM would return to a lunar orbit.
Back at Mission Control, the flight team enlisted engineers at NASA and at MIT to work on the problem. After a short time, engineers suggested reprogramming the computer onboard Antares to ignore the abort signal. Mitchell frantically entered the changes into the computer. It worked, allowing the descent to begin. “It’s a beautiful day to land at Fra Mauro,” said Shepard in response to the fix.
But another problem cropped up. The landing radar employed by Antares failed to recognize the lunar surface, so that altitude and vertical speed data would not show in the LM. The fix this time seemed to be cycling through the craft’s radar breakers. At an altitude of about 18,000 feet (5,490 meters), the data readouts came back on, allowing the astronauts to safely pursue the landing. The spacecraft pitched over and Shepard and Mitchell began to see landmarks on the Moon. “There it is,” said Shepard upon spotting Fra Mauro as he manually landed the LM. “It’s really a wild-looking place here,” said Mitchell. The craft ultimately came to a halt just where they had planned. In fact, Shepard’s landing came closer to the chosen point than any of the other five lunar landings.
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