Apollo 11 transcript starting at 04 06 35 51 on spacelog. This is where the 1201 and 1202 program alarms come in. John royer jack garman september 11, 1944 september 20, 2016 was a computer engineer, former senior nasa executive and noted key figure of the apollo 11 lunar landing. An unsung hero of the decision not to abort the landing is richard koos, a nasa simulation supervisor who, on the afternoon of july 5, 11 days before the launch of apollo. The agc reboots with a program code 1201 and 1202 executive overflow during landing phase if the rendezvous radar switch it set to auto as suggested in procedure book and the. The windows 2000 endofsupport solution center is a starting point for planning your migration strategy from windows. He and flight director gene kranz were dressed down for it by koos, who put the team through four more hours of training the next day specifically on program alarms. This video shows that the 1202 alarm which happened in the descent of apollo 11 had nothing accidental, but had been intentionally provoked, for the conditions for it to happen had been. The software that saved apollo 11 softwares giant leap.
On apollo 11, who made the decision to preload the lems ascent program and the lunar rendezvous program, which presumably led to the 1202 and 1201 stack overflow alarms. For a replay of the 1202 event, view the linked video at 7. The 1202 and 1201 alarms were unsettling, and the team doubted the computers health. Apollo 11 had both the radar altimeter landing radar and the rendezvous radar used to guide them into the vicinity of the csm running during landing. Recognition of apollo 11 program alarms collectspace. Build your own apollo 11 landing computer universe today. Jack garman, of apollo 11 1201 alarm fame, has died. The problem was a procedure checklist for lunar descent which neglected to set docking radar to off.
If youve enjoyed the 1201 alarm project, free audio and images, please help us to keep going. No one could celebrate until the astronauts were safely. Margaret hamilton coding to the moon a computer of one. As the vehicle approached the target, one of the astronauts, buzz aldrin i believe, announced that the onboard computer just displayed a 1202 alarm. Garman recognized the unexpected 1201 and 1202 alarms. Apollo 1201 and 1202 alarms i just purchased alan beans. This cheat sheet created by nasa flight controllers jack garman and steve bales show alarm codes for the apollo lunar. Do the famous 1201 and 1202 error codes make an appearance. No one could celebrate until the astronauts were safely back. The 1202 program alarm is featured is just about every retelling and dramatization of apollo 11s lunar landing. Example of the apollo 11 lunar module display and keyboard dsky like what lit up with 1201 1202 alarms on apollo 11. Even the cause of the 1201 and 1202 program alarms during apollo 11s landing is accurately documented mismatched phase angles in spacecraft and radar power supplies, not computer errors. Despite the exhaustive training, simulations and procedures governing apollo 11, the 1202 alarm program was not familiar to the flight director or the other engineers in the room. Margaret hamilton takes software engineering to the moon.
But it did it quickly, and no guidance or navigation data was lost. Jack garman, nasa engineer who saved apollo 11 from. Kranzs decision whether or not to abort the mission was based on a simulation right before. The nasa guys in the mocr knew because mit had extensively tested the restart capability that the mission could go forward. This alarm is a bit more severe as it indicates that the imu is not responding. The two alarms that apollo 11 encountered during descent were 1201 and 1202. W hen apollo 11 was rocketing to the lunar surface, the onboard computer began to issue 1201 and 1202 program alarms. Apollo 11 go for landing and program alarm 1201 youtube. This film was shot in the mission operations control room during the apollo 11 powered descent to the lunar surface. Troubleshooting 101 1201 actually, and 1202 too daily. Less than minute later, there was another 1202 alarm, followed by three more a 1201 and two 1202 alarms in under 40 seconds.
On apollo 11, each time a 1201 or 1202 alarm appeared, the computer rebooted, restarted the important stuff, like steering the descent engine and running the dsky to let the crew know what was going on, but did not restart all the erroneouslyscheduled rendezvous radar jobs. Apollo 11s momentous landing came down to one tough call. How did the apollo flight computers get men to the moon and back. Here then are some insightful apollo 11 lessons for ai developers, automakers. There are even more materials to digitise and share for the later apollo missions and just a small amount helps. There were three 1201 and 1202 alarms within 40 seconds. The computer was overloaded with data and ran out of memory so the program gave the famous 1201 alarm.
When the apollo guidance computer became overwhelmed during apollo 11s historic moon landing, it sounded the 1202 alarm and required the. In this article, the author states that thanks to a previous simulation, apollo 11 capcom charlie duke recognized the 1202 and 1201 program alarms. The 1201 alarm was a signal triggered by the apollo. As a young specialist on duty during the final descent stage on 20 july 1969 he dealt with a series of computer alarms. Unable to figure out what the 1201 was, bales aborted that simulated landing. As the author of the originally 1974 bis spaceflight article apollo on board computers which was later taken up by the nasa history for the apollo15 flight journal web site i get asked quite regularly by readers what were the 1201 1202 alarms. Margaret hamilton takes software engineering to the moon and beyond. Jack garman, whose grasp of the apollo 11 guidance computer saved the moon landing from a lastminute abort, died sept. Garman remembered the 1201 and 1202 alarms occurring during one of the hundreds of simulations the team performed in preparation of the apollo 11 mission, and knew it would be ok to.
My first user had a program alarm 1202 during a descent phase. Armstrongs tense voice came over the radio, program alarm, its a 1202 give us a reading on the 1202 program alarm. With all of this additional work, the agc didnt have enough time to finish its low priority tasks. What is a 1201 error as referenced in the movie apollo. The codes meant that the computer had so much to do, it couldnt get it all done in real time, and so it had to postpone some of its tasks. The dsky displays the value 210, which is a different alarm code than the 1202 and 1201 that aldrin saw.
During the landing sequence of apollo 11, 1201 and 1202 program alarms lit up the cockpit several times. Asked in mobile phones, nokia phones security code nokia model 1202 2. The apollo guidance computer agc is a digital computer produced for the apollo program that was installed on board each apollo command module cm and apollo lunar module lm. We waited with anticipation, pride and apprehensiveness as the lem began its descent toward the lunar surface. It was the extra processing time from the docking radar routine which wasted the computers time and caused the 1201 and 1202 alarms. Project apollos digital brain softwares giant leap. That day the normal mission sequences were interrupted by priority displays of 1201 and 1202 alarms warning there was an emergency of executive overflow, giving the astronauts a gono. On apollo 11, who made the decision to preload the lems. Neil armstrong, the 1201 alarm, and greatness personified. This triggered 1201 and 1202 alarms executive overflow, which caused the computer to reboot. And since those tasks hadnt exited by the time they were expected to, when the executive attempted to kick off new tasks, it found that no core sets or vac areas were available, and sounded those program alarms. During the apollo 11 landing, a misconfiguration caused the guidance computer to activate the 1201 and 1202 program alarms, signifying that the computer was overloaded and dropping lowpriority tasks.
Thats a somewhat similar case of the 1202, namely that the reboot temporarily solves the problem of letting the computer proceed, but it didnt solve the root cause of the faulty radar unit aspects. The historic 1969 mission where neil armstrong and buzz aldrin became the first men to walk on the moon. What caused the 1202 alarm of apollo 11, and how were the. Apollo 11s 1202 alarms not long after the lunar module got into its 69 mile by 50,000 foot orbit in preparation for landing, the crew. As the module began to move closer to the lunar surface, 1201 and 1202 alarms started flashing. Each time, the software restart flushed the executive queue but could not shed load.
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