LAUNCH CONTROL CENTER

Located Southeast of the VAB is the launch control center (LCC). This four-story building is the elec-

K-107-66PC-75 Saturn V Facilities Vehicle Rollout at Kennedy Space Center

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tronic brain of Launch Complex 39. Here final count­down and launch of Saturn V’s will be conducted. The LCC is also the facility from which a multitude of checkout and test operations will be conducted while space vehicle assembly is taking place inside the VAB.

Two separate, automated computer systems are used to check out and conduct the countdown for the Saturn V. The acceptance checkout equipment, or ACE, is used for the Apollo spacecraft. The Saturn ground computer system is used for the various stages of the vehicle.

Located in the launch control center is the heart of the Saturn ground computer system. Here check­out and preflight countdown are conducted.

This system has as its “brain" two RCA 110A com­puters. One is located in the launch control center and the other is in the mobile launcher upon which the Saturn V is erected.

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Moving Tower-Personnel watch a mobile launch tower moving along the crawlerway at Kennedy Space Center.

Through the process control system, all stages are checked, and data from the engines and from the guidance, flight control, propellants, measurement, and telemetry systems is provided.

The Saturn ground computer system also includes a DDP 224 display computer located in the LCC. It can drive up to 20 visual cathode ray display tubes.

possible for the computer in the mobile launcher to return 1,512 discrete signals.

A digital data acceptance system collects and makes available onboard analog data to the computers.

A triply redundant system for discrete output in­formation allows more reliability. There are 1,512 signals going to the mobile launcher showing "on” and “off” commands. If one signal fails or reports a wrong command and the other two signals trans­mit another command, the majority command is indicated in the display and transmitted to the vehicle.

There are 15 display systems in each LCC firing room, with each system capable of giving digital information instantaneously.

Sixty television cameras are positioned around the Saturn V transmitting pictures on 10 channels.

Additionally, the LCC contains several hundred operational intercommunication channels which en­able the launch team and the launch director to be in voice contact with the astronauts aboard the spacecraft.

Automatic checkout of the Apollo spacecraft is ac­complished through acceptance checkout equipment (ACE). Through the use of computers, display con­soles, and recording equipment, ACE provides an instantaneous, accurate method of spacecraft pre­flight testing. ACE also is used at the spacecraft contractor plants and in testing at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston.

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Computerized checkout of the Saturn stages at the launch pad and the Apollo ACE system at the Man­ned Spacecraft Operations Building at the Kennedy Space Center are tied together by instrumentation.

The Saturn V employs completely automated com­puter controlled checkout systems for each of its stages. The system uses a carefully detailed com­puter program and associated electronic equipment to perform a complete countdown checkout of each stage and all its various systems, subsystems, and components.

With electronic speed, it moves through a thorough and reliable countdown, yet permits test engineers to monitor every step of the operation and to over­ride the computer functions, if necessary.

To monitor fuel and oxidizer mass for the three stages of the Saturn V vehicle, a propellant tanking computer system (PTCS) is used. This system con­trols propellant tank fill and replenishment. Liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen must be replenished constantly to compensate for boil-off.