Spacecraft Operations Checkout Procedure — Countdown/Countdown Demonstration Test, LTA-10R

Test Checkout Procedure TCP-KL-62043-A-LTA10R, dated 6 September 1967 and revised 27 October 1967, prepared by Grumman for NASA’s Kennedy Space Center under Project Apollo. LTA-10R was a non-functional dynamic test model of the Lunar Module—structure and mass simulating the real vehicle, its systems replaced with instrumentation—flown atop the Saturn V’s S-IVB third stage on Apollo 4, the first all-up test flight of the Saturn V, launched 9 November 1967 from Launch Complex 39A.

This procedure sets out the full countdown and launch sequence for LTA-10R and doubled as the script for its Countdown Demonstration Test: DFI telemetry and RF checks a day before launch, flight-battery connection and DFI checks at T–20 to 45 hours, final DFI checks in the last half hour, and mechanical steps such as SLA platform removal and SLA antenna hat coupler removal worked into the master count.

The bulk of the booklet is a numbered operational procedure (call to stations and master count, EPS activation, modulation verification, commutator and PCM link checks, DFI functional testing, post-test and post-flight secure) followed by checkout data sheets of 90-by-10 communication-level readings and calibration tables, a post-test verification section, and an emergency shutdown procedure.

Diagrams cover the LTA-10R vehicle/GSE interface, command-video-power flow for LC-39, and the LCC-39/LTA-10R interface, with an approval page dated 26 and 27 October 1967, within two weeks of the launch that proved the Saturn V flightworthy.