Flown Electronic Module, Flight AS-202

Acquired From Jimmie Loocke

Date acquired 16th December 2019

Collection # -TSM034

The Apollo Guidance & Navigation system was the state of the art in its day, it was, and still is a marvellous construction that performed with peerless reliability. As its name implies, and describing it in the crudest terms, it was a system to control where and when a rocket or spacecraft would be at any one given time, you told it where and when you wanted to be and it would take you there. When describing the Apollo guidance computer there is what appears to be an irresistible urge in the most for people to make the overused parallel that a modern smartphone has more memory/processing power than the computer that flew man to the moon. Whilst this may be true it should not be forgotten that this system was made for a singular purpose, and it carried it out admirably. The system was designed & built by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology a private research University, and was a departure from NASA’s usual method of awarding manufacturing contracts to industrial companies.

Before any space agency will allow a human to ride in a rocket a rigorous set of tests and trials are carried out to man-rate the equipment. It should always be remembered that when president Kennedy challenged the American nation with the goal of sending men to the Moon, he included the words “and returning them safely”. Apollo was no exception to the rule and an enormous amount of time and money was expended working on the safety and reliability of the hardware.

To achieve this there were a series of unmanned test flights in the Apollo program, one of which was AS-202. It was aboard this spacecraft that the first fully functioning Apollo Guidance & Navigation system was flown. Also installed and flown for the first time were the fuel cells which supplied the electrical power supplies to the spacecraft. 

In keeping with NASA procedures after a test flight most of the recovered hardware would be returned to the manufacturer for evaluation. NASA documents indicate that flown hardware components were to be marked in a particular manner to identify them. After this evaluation large amounts of this used hardware were consigned to be sold off as scrap.

This is where Jimmie Wayne Loocke steps into the story, he was fortunate enough to have bought a large job-lot of ex-NASA hardware from a scrap merchant in the mid 70’s, who in turn had won the items in a GSA auction at NASA JSC

 Amongst this treasure was an Apollo Block 2 Guidance & Navigation computer, which Jimmie and a team of experts that he assembled, have restored to be fully functioning. During the restoration it was determined that the AGC was used in LTA-8 during the first man rating of the LEM.

Jimmie has a great website that follows the restoration, and is well worth a visit

Alternatively you can access the site directly from the embedded page below

 Amongst other items were a nearly complete set of electronic modules from the guidance system of AS-202. These have been identified as such by the markings they bear and the serial numbers on the disposal paperwork match NASA documentation.

The module I have took electrical signals from the computer, amplified them and sent them to control the gyroscope. This gyroscope was part of the Inertial Movement Unit which sensed where the vehicle was in space relative to a known point. The module bears the triangular NASA quality control stamp, and more importantly is marked in yellow lettering Flight 202.

The following images show the module being removed from PSA tray Number 1

Jimmie and his colleagues have carried out searches and pieced together information that confirms that the modules are the actual ones that were flown on the mission.

This clip was from a document and shows that the PSA tray flown on flight AS-202 was Serial No1

 After the flight the Command Module was stripped, and the items were returned to the respective manufacturers for evaluation. After this was carried out the items were then returned to NASA. Below is the front page of Document  No 10717 showing that A/C Electronics were returning Apollo equipment to NASA.

This is the second page of Document No 10717, Line item No 15 shows PSA tray No1, which was serial No1. This confirms that the module has come from the flown tray. These items were stored away by NASA and around about the cecessation of the Apollo program in the mid seventies NASA disposed of the items by selling them to scrap merchants

A further proof is contained in this document relating to the marking of components. It specifies that flight items are to be marked with the flight number in yellow text. This is clearly seen on the module

Drawings of the Module