Young: Okay, we have already discussed the deployment, and the problems we had associated with it, and the setup, mounting and dismounting. A couple of times when you got on, Charlie, your backpack hung up on that rubber rim on the seat so you had to get out and back in again.
Duke: I could feel it. Sometimes I overcame that by just bending forward and putting my feet on the floorboard. I had not wanted that floorboard when we had first started, but it turned out that that floorboard was a good deal. IÂ’m glad I had it, because it gave me a good leverage to push that backpack back in against the seat. These LRV operations are all covered in EVA-l and LRV setup, earlier in the debriefing.
Young: Yes, I thought it was a great deal more controllable than I thought it would be. We’ll have to go back and analyze the data and see what kind of slopes it was climbing, cause you really didn’t have a feeling for them but it was getting up there. Crew Restrictions, Limitations, and Capabilities, Hand Controller Operations. We didn’t experience this lateral PIO that we ran into with the trainer at maximum speeds. It just didn’t seem to be there. The reason, I guess, was that the suit was rigid and having a seat belt that cinched me down real good probably prevented any feedback into the hand controller and the normal operation of the speed also didn’t seem to be a problem. The general tendency was to leave it at Vmax or very close to that and to take what you got. The best reference that I had for speed control was to look at the speedometer. I really didn’t have a feel for the difference between 7 kilometers and 10 kilometers without looking at the speedometer. There probably wasn’t that much difference. The crew moving within suits — I don’t think we moved in the suits at all, to amount to anything.
Duke: Very comfortable riding in the Rover.
Young: Beautiful suspension system. If it hadnÂ’t been, we probably would have walked a long ways.
Duke: Really outstanding! You could have 3 wheels off the ground at once and the thing would just recover smartly and it was just beautiful.
Young: On at least three different occasions, we bounced up in the air and came down on a rock, which we were passing over, and it didn’t seem to affect the operation in the slightest. The LRV Systems Operations — Nav System - we covered that, and it worked perfectly except for that failure between Station 8 and 9. Power batteries were excellent although the ground kept having us turn off Bat—2, because they said it wasn’t getting enough cooling.
Duke: We did get an over temp on that.
Young: We got an over temp caution and warning at Station 11. Steering and traction drive was excellent, except for initial start-up and, at the time where we accidently went to PMW 1. I donÂ’t know what the problem was on the rear steering not working, when we initially powered everything up. Voice Communications and Antenna Management, TV and TCU - Did we talk about the antenna measurement, Charlie?
Duke: Yes, how we had to GCA each other in on the thing occasionally. The Earth was almost overhead, about 80 degrees at elevation. They said it was going to be difficult to point and it was. You had to have the other guy GCA you in because you couldnÂ’t see the Automatic Gain Control while you were moving the antenna. You had to really arch your back and then you could barely see the Earth out of the top of your visor. Sometimes you were lucky and it came right into view, but the crescent that we had would just fill up about 10 percent of that center circle. We always had good signal strength. It was always greater than 3½ on the signal strength. Everything went on just as advertised on the TV/TCU. Easier than I expected.
Young: Electrical Mechanical Connections, you didnÂ’t have any trouble with those?
Duke: We already mentioned earlier the power cable from the LCRU on the Rover.
Young: Dust Generated by the Wheels: WeÂ’ve got plenty of photography of what happens when you lose a rear fender. And the Grand Prix says whatÂ’s going on the rest of the time. ThereÂ’s plenty of dust on the radiators just from opening the battery covers. ItÂ’s very difficult for me to reach across there to close the battery covers. I would think that the next time anybody designs a vehicle, theyÂ’d put the opening and closing mechanism on the outboard side, instead of on the inboard side of the radiator. I was always afraid that I was going to end up falling right in the middle of the batteries. Payload Stowage was excellent.