Apollo 15 Part 1: Hadley Rille Landing, First of Extended J-Missions

[@PanditNdadit]

Underrated channel

[@opieswenson]

Thanks for your comment. The thought is much appreciated. If you have any ideas on getting from underrated to something bigger, I am all ears.

[@rsmrsm2000]

Congratulations

[@opieswenson]

Thanks!

[@renejean2523]

That was great stuff. Very informative. Thanks for posting. Carrying extra water and other provisions for a longer stay, plus the lunar rover of course, I wonder whether the whole lander was significantly heavier for these J-missions. And if so, how that affected the descent and landing maneuvers compared to the earlier missions. Anyway, good work. 🚀

[@opieswenson]

Thanks for watching! The short answer is that the J-Mission landers were about 3,000 lbs heavier. Apollo 15 had a steeper approach path by about 10 degrees to give it better visibility going over the mountains. While the net weight was heavier, they also got rid of stuff to make the structure lighter. One of the big fuel savings was to have the CSM place the lunar module at a much lower altitude. I don't show it in my animation, but Apollo 15 hit the hardest (landed by an Air Force Pilot---all others were Navy) and the back leg went into a crater which tilted the spacecraft at a crazy angle. They also cracked the descent engine bell.

[@renejean2523]

@@opieswenson - Interesting info. Thank you. Presumably that's 3000 lbs on Earth, which is a fair bit of extra mass in space, and 500 lbs of weight on the Moon. Very significant, as indicated by those approach stats. I see in your notes that the engine was more fuel-efficient though.
Just subscribed and will look through your content. My favorite missions were 11 (for the balls of the whole thing), 12 (for the personalities), and 17 (for Gene and the extensiveness of the exploration and duration on the surface).
Thanks for the work you put into this. I'm sure space geeks will love your stuff.

[@opieswenson]

@@renejean2523 yes…3000 lbs earth weight. Thanks for subscribing! If you like Apollo 11, I have an Apollo 11 playlist which was my first Blender work.

[@opieswenson]

@@renejean2523 3000 LBS earth weight. Fuel efficiency came with the extended engine bell. But with the hard landing and longer bell, the bell hit the ground and cracked. If you like A11, I do have a play list of my A11 animations. I don't have an Apollo 12, but I do have a Skylab series (Conrad mission CDR on Skylab2 and Bean mission CDR on Skylab3)

[@renejean2523]

@@opieswenson- Oh, I will definitely be working my way through all your videos. Thank you.