One Small Step
The preparations at Parkes for Apollo 11
began several months before the scheduled launch date of July
16, 1969. Only backup equipment was required because NASA had
arranged for the crucial part of the mission, the first
moonwalk, to occur at a time when the moon would only be in view
from its main 64 m dish in California.
Round 1: Goldstone would take the first
moonwalk.
Two months before the mission NASA
altered the schedule by adding an eight-hour rest period to
allow the astronauts time to sleep, in between landing on the
moon and then attempting the first moon walk. Goldstone would
now be out of view and the status of Parkes had suddenly changed
from back up to prime receiving station.
Round 2: Parkes would moonwalk.
A month before the launch a team of NASA
engineers led by Bob Taylor arrived at Parkes and began
installing equipment, most of which was set out on makeshift
racks and tables in the telescope's control room. Among the
several tons of equipment was a prototype of the first home
video recorder to capture the televised moonwalk. The
astronomers at Parkes took responsibility for ensuring that the
telescope's drive and control systems were in perfect working
order. An analysis was made of the failure rates of every part
of the telescope dating back to 1961, with identical backup
equipment made ready should the need arise. Nothing was left to
chance. If all else failed, teams of men had been organised to
turn handles in the gear boxes and drive the telescope by their
own muscle power!
The launch went according to schedule on
July 16. Over the next four days the equipment at Parkes was
thoroughly tested using signals sent from the command module
Columbia during its outward journey. After ten orbits of the
moon Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin transferred to the lunar
module Eagle, leaving Michael Collins in the command module.
Then began the descent to their chosen point of touchdown, the
Sea of Tranquility. Once the Eagle had landed, an excited
Armstrong overruled the idea of a rest period and advanced the
scheduled moonwalk by four hours. All the elaborate preparations
now seemed in vain---Parkes would be on the wrong side of the
earth.
Round 3: Goldstone would take the first
moonwalk.
Then there was an unexpected problem. The
two astronauts ran into difficulties fitting their spacesuits
and the moonwalk was delayed by several hours. By the time
Armstrong had descended the steel ladder on Eagle to utter his
famous remark---'That's one small step for a man, one giant leap
for mankind'---the moon had just come into view at Parkes.
With the moon almost directly overhead,
the Goldstone dish was perfectly placed to receive the TV
transmission of the moonwalk, as arranged. But events again took
a strange twist. Twenty kilometres away from the dish there was
a faulty connection in the cable carrying the TV signals from
Goldstone to the command centre in Houston. Goldstone's picture
disappeared into the ground.
Final round: Parkes took the first
moonwalk.
Throughout the afternoon of Monday, 21
July the team at Parkes carefully tracked the moon to achieve
the strongest possible signal. At 5.57 pm, after almost five
hours of reception, the telescope was reluctantly shut down as
transmission ceased from the telecast 400,000 km away.
To add to the drama, the operating
conditions could not have been worse. For several days during
Apollo's outward flight to the moon the weather had been perfect
at Parkes. Incredibly, moments before the moonwalk began a
violent squall could be seen approaching. With the dish down at
full tilt it was in its most vulnerable position. In any other
circumstances the dish would have been hurriedly driven to the
zenith and stowed in its safety position.
The wind gust hit at 100 km per hour,
tipping the dish back and badly damaging the first gear-tooth on
the rack. Those in the control room felt the tower sway several
inches. It was an extraordinary piece of bad timing. The gust
was the strongest ever recorded during the telescope's eight
years of operation.
The battering wind kept up throughout the
afternoon, but despite the dangerous conditions the flow of
signals from the moon to Houston via Parkes continued without
interruption. A few days later the New York Times reported: 'The
tracking crew at the Parkes antenna in Australia won praise
today for its work in picking up signals of the Apollo 11
moonwalk. The flight controller, Cliff Charlesworth, said he
wanted to give the crew a special bouquet for getting into
operation quickly when the signals were suddenly shifted from
the Goldstone tracking dish in California. 'It's obvious that
the support they provided us was pretty outstanding', Mr
Charlesworth said, 'because I think it will be years before
anyone can beat that TV spectacular'.'
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![[watch the skies]](dish2.jpg "[watch the skies]")
![[in the dish]](dish.jpg "[in the dish]")