AS-202

Description

The Apollo-Saturn 202 (AS-202) mission was an unmanned suborbital flight to test the Saturn 1B launch vehicle and the Apollo Command and Service Modules. The objectives of the flight were to verify the structural integrity, launch loads, stage separation, and operation of subsystems of the Saturn 1B, and evaluate the Apollo spacecraft separations, emergency detection system, subsystems, heatshield at high re-entry velocity, and mission support facilities. All objectives were achieved.

The Saturn 1B and its payload consisting of the Apollo CSM-011 were launched from complex 34 of the eastern test range at Cape Canaveral. After both stages of the Saturn 1B completed their burns and separated, the service module propulsion engine burned for 3 minutes, 35 seconds to boost the spacecraft to a peak altitude of 1,128.6 km. The rapid restart capability of the service module's engines was tested by firing three more times, the last separating the service module from the command module. The firings also accelerated the command module re-entry to greater than 8900 meters/sec (32,000 km/hr). Maximum temperature of the spacecraft exterior was calculated at about 1500 deg. C, temperature inside the cabin was 21 deg. C (70 F). The main parachutes deployed at 7250 meters altitude and the spacecraft splashed down at 18:49 UT, 93 minutes after liftoff. Splashdown occurred in the Pacific Ocean at 16.11 N, 168.97 E, roughly 800 km SE of Wake Island and 370 km from target. The capsule was recovered by the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Hornet at 03:17 UT on 26 August.