More Details for 1969-11-18
Original archive entry. The text, images and links below are kept as they were written.
Apollo 12 enters lunar orbit
At 03:47 GMT November 18 Apollo 12 arrived at the moon 83 1/2 hours after liftoff. Conrad fired the main propulsion engine for almost 6 minutes to go into an elliptical lunar orbit. Five hours later a second burn put the spacecraft into a circular orbit at 60 nautical miles (111 kilometers) altitude, where Yankee Clipper would stay until it was time to return to earth.
The spacecraft passed over and photographed Apollo 13's landing area in the Fra Mauro formation, and on the tenth revolution Conrad notified Capcom Gerald Carr that "you can tell good Captain Shaky [Jim Lovell, commander of Apollo 13] that he can relax. We've got his pictures." , the spacecraft entered a lunar orbit of 312.6 x 115.9 kilometers. A second service propulsion system burn circularized the orbit with a 122.5-kilometer apolune and a 100.6-kilometer perilune. Conrad and Bean again transferred to the LM, where they perfomed housekeeping chores, a voice and telemetry test, and an oxygen purge system check. They then returned to the CM.