Page 101 - The Appollo Story

~----------1 The Apollo Story1-------------

Apollo 16 (AS-511) - The Highlands Of Descartes
By the fifth day of the mission, on 21 April, Young and Duke were in the LM Orion easing away from
Mattingly in the CM Casper. 'We're sailing free,' Orion informed Houston. But seconds before the de-
scent was about to begin Mattingly encountered a problem with oscillations in the motors, which angled
the CSM' s main engine nozzle.
It was serious enough to automatically put a hold on proceedings; they only had ten hours in which to fix
it before supplies were depleted sufficiently for the landing to be aborted. For nearly three hours the two
spacecraft continued their close dance until they were given the go-ahead.

APOLLO 16

Service
Propulsion
Engine

. (NY2'3:.'l\pr'i'.l' ' 70-Y:SNGINE' Bt · "'tHRE~ S , o
·1 LANDING-Cutaway view of the .Anoll.~c:o and
ship shows service propulsionen~Iiii'""Whichj as
I . unable to fir ., threatening' the moon landing.
1
Mission Contro at Houston Space Center ordered
1 the astronauts to delay their moon landing, and
, directed them to be re dy to start back to
, earth after the trouble developed. (AP Wirephoto
l ,piagram)(hmb51.7l+Oar )(See A,P:. ~,/~'l!e Story)l972 .
. -! , -'.'
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This Press photo shows the engine problem in the Service Module