Operation
Each flight to the Moon (with the exception of Apollo 8, which did not take a Lunar Module on its lunar orbit mission) had two AGCs, one each in the Command Module and the Lunar Module. The AGC in the Command Module was at the center of that spacecraft's guidance and navigation system (G&C). The AGC in the Lunar Module ran its Apollo PGNCS (Primary Guidance, Navigation and Control System), pronounced as an acronym as pings.
Each lunar mission had two additional computers:
- The Launch Vehicle Digital Computer (LVDC) on the Saturn V booster instrumentation ring
- the Abort Guidance System (AGS) of the Lunar Module, to be used in the event of failure of the LM PGNCS. The AGS could be used to take off from the Moon, and to rendezvous with the Command Module, but not to land
Read more about this topic: Apollo Guidance Computer
Famous quotes containing the word operation:
“It is critical vision alone which can mitigate the unimpeded operation of the automatic.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)
“Waiting for the race to become official, he began to feel as if he had as much effect on the final outcome of the operation as a single piece of a jumbo jigsaw puzzle has to its predetermined final design. Only the addition of the missing fragments of the puzzle would reveal if the picture was as he guessed it would be.”
—Stanley Kubrick (b. 1928)
“Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed; and that which in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the rule.”
—Francis Bacon (1560–1626)