November 14, 1969....Apollo 12 lifts off in less that favorable weather with the second crew to land on the Moon. Pete Conrad is Commander, Alan Bean is Lunar Module Pilot & Dick Gordon is Command Module Pilot. At 36 and 52 seconds into launch the Saturn V is struck by lightning. Their inertial guidance system goes offline and the fuel cells in the Service Module detect an overload and take themselves offline which leaves the Command Modules batteries as the sole source of power. The CM batteries unable to handle the immense amp load required for launch cause instrumentation to fail & an inverter drops offline. The Saturn V continues its flight into orbit as the Instrument Unit is unaffected. The only flight controller, EECOM John Aaron, recognizes the garbled readings on his screen and instructs for the signal conditioner to be placed in auxiliary. SCE to Aux is not immediately recognized by anyone, but they pass the instructions the crew and they also dont know what the switch is. Al Bean remembers the switch location and carries out the order. The signal conditioner is placed in auxiliary which return instrumentation displays & telemetry encoders and the crew bring the fuel cells back online avoiding a potential abort. The Saturn V successfully reaches orbit. After the crew evaluate & reset systems they perform the second burn with the S-IVB to put them on a course to intercept the Moon. Mission Control is concerned that the parachute system is possibly disabled from the lightning strike and the CM could potentially crash into the ocean killing the crew. Not being able to do anything from the ground, Mission Control decides not to tell the crew and let them continue with the mission. Only launch restrictions are implemented for future missions as complete lightning protection for the spacecraft is deemed impractical due to the late stages of construction on upcoming spacecraft.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 19:49:13 +0000
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