Left – B&W image of the 2 main ALSEP subpackages
Center – Two nice color photos of the subpackages
Right – Diagram of ALSEP packages, depicting how they were stored inside LM SEQ bay (quad II)
The ALSEP that never was. Apollo 13 CDR Jim Lovell practicing ALSEP deployment. Note the twin UHTs attached to the pallets, sticking up at 45 degree angles from them.
Central Station
The central station relayed data to and from the experiments and routed power from the RTG to the experiments of the ALSEP. It was really the heart of the ALSEP station.
Left – Diagram depicting central station main structures. The top and bottom structures were actually the subpackage pallets
Center – Component layout of central station
Right – Antenna aiming mechanism
Left 2 images – Apollo 14 central station at Fra Mauro
Right – Did someone ask for details?
Radioisotopic Thermoelectric Generator (RTG)
The RTG produced 70 watts of electrical power for the ALSEP by converting the heat of decaying plutonium directly into electricity. The core was a SNAP 27 system. For its’ time, it was a very sophisticated system.
Left – RTG nuclear fuel cask on LM mockup. The cask was designed to prevent nuclear contamination of the earth should the nuclear core ever reenter the atmosphere – which is exactly what happened when the Apollo 13 LM Aquarius brought the stricken CSM & crew home
(Photo courtesy Sven “Ninfingers” Knudson)
Center 2nd & 3rd images – Diagrams of RTG
Right – RTG fueling procedure. The hand tools used to fuel the RTG are
covered in the next section. The fueling procedure itself is covered in depth here
Left – Apollo 14 RTG with central station in background. Note that, unlike the experiments which used ribbon cables, the RTG used a heavy gauge round cable to connect it to the central station
Right – Apollo 16 RTG. Can you say “Caked with dirt”?
ALSEP Hand Tools
RTG Dome Removal Tool and Fueling Tool
Also go here for in depth information on the RTG fueling procedure
There were 3 primary hand tools used with the ALSEP. Two of these were single function tools, the RTG Cask Dome Removal Tool and the RTG Fuel Transfer Tool. These were used to handle the radioisotopic fuel of the RTG.
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| All 3 of the Apollo Hand Tools | RTG Fueling Tool | Al Bean removing RTG fuel rod from cask. All 3 tools are visible and labeled: 1. Fueling tool 2. Dome Removal Tool 3. UHT |
Universal Hand Tool
The other tool, the Universal Hand Tool (UHT), was designed to fit
into sockets on the ALSEP experiments and do everything from removing Boyd
bolts, to opening arrays, to pointing the experiments. The UHT was
also adapted to be used as the LRV Sampling Tool on Apollo 17 as well as
the Surface Sampling Tool.
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| UHT attached to Surface Sampling Tool | Jim Irwin practices deploying LSM using UHT | Pete Conrad works at the ALSEP station with a UHT | UHT as used as the LRV Sampling Tool |
Apollo Lunar Surface Drill
The ALSD was used to drill hollow tubes into the lunar surface. These tubes were used for emplacement of probes for the heat flow and neutron probe experiments, as well as to obtain deep core tubes of the regolith for geology
Left – Apollo 15 CDR David Scott threads a heat flow probe down the tube of a bore stem. Note the drill head in background and bore stem rack in foreground.
Right – Diagram of drill and associated hardware
Apollo Lunar Surface Close-up Camera
(ALSCC)
Left – Nice photo from the NASM
Right – Buzz Aldrin unpacks the ALSEP from Eagle, with ALSCC in foreground
Close-up stereo pair of lunar soil from Apollo 12 ALSCC
Also known as “the Gold camera”, after its inventor Tommy Gold, the
ALSCC took stereo pairs of close-up photos of the lunar surface.
These images were used to help determine the properties of the lunar soils.
Although this camera wasn’t technically part of the ALSEPs, I’ve included
it here for clarity.
The ALSCC was an “aim and shoot” unit which needed very little of the
crewmen’s time to operate. It was totally self-contained, requiring
only that a crewman remove the film magazine when done using it.