Apollo 11 Technical Crew Debriefing — Volume 2 (Sections 11–27)
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Source document: 1969-07-31-apollo-11-technical-crew-debriefing-vol2.pdf. Searchable text sibling:
....txt— pp. 1–73 from the PDF’s native text layer, pp. 74–216 by Tesseract OCR (2026-06-13), so the previously image-only second half is now greppable (OCR quality high on the typed debriefing text; verify against the PDF for any critical reading). -
Original: NASA, Apollo 11 Technical Crew Debriefing, Manned Spacecraft Center, July 31, 1969 (Volume 2 of 2). Scanned copy from the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal (original file
A11TechCrewDebrfV2_ALSJ.pdf). Originally classified CONFIDENTIAL; the classification stamps are blacked out in the scan. -
Available online: ibiblio.org/apollo — Apollo 11 Technical Crew Debriefing, Vol. 2.
Summary
Section titled “Summary”The second half of the same July 31, 1969 crew debriefing (Volume 1 covers Sections 1–10). Volume 2 covers Sections 11–27 — the return half of the mission and the engineering/support topics: Collins’ solo command-module operations, lunar lift-off and rendezvous, the trip home, entry and recovery, the command- and lunar-module systems reviews, and the crew’s reflections on training, mission control, and human factors. Most of this sits at the edge of the library’s surface-focused scope; tellingly, the short §17 Geology and Experiments defers its substance back to the surface EVA discussion in Volume 1.
Key takeaways
Section titled “Key takeaways”- Sections. §11 CSM Circumlunar Operations, §12 Lift-off/Rendezvous/Docking, §13 LM Jettison through TEI, §14 Transearth Coast, §15 Entry, §16 Landing and Recovery, §17 Geology and Experiments, §18 Command Module Systems, §19 Lunar Module Systems, §20 Misc Systems/Flight Equipment/GFE, §21 Visual Sightings, §22 Premission Planning, §23 Mission Control, §24 Training, §25 Human Factors, §26 Miscellaneous, §27 Concluding Comments.
- Collins solo (§11). CSM circumlunar operations “went smoothly, and there were no surprises… no failures.” Collins spent much of his time running P22 landmark tracking, trying (with the ground) to pin down exactly where Eagle had landed; he watched for a specular flash off the LM and “never saw any.”
- Lunar lift-off (§12). At ascent, Armstrong threw abort-stage / engine-arm and Aldrin proceeded on the computer; there was “an appreciable bang of the PYRO’s and a fair amount of debris… tossed out” at first motion, then a smooth onset with no jolt. The ascent was a gentle, “wallowing,” low-frequency Dutch-roll trajectory — “very pleasant,” far milder than simulations had led them to expect.
- §17 Geology and Experiments is only two pages. The crew discuss the onboard navigation maps (the LAM-2 map and its grid-square notation), then an [EDITOR’S NOTE] states that “the remainder of the items listed in Section 17 were covered in considerable detail in the air-to-ground transcription and/or Section 10 (Lunar Surface)” — so the geology/experiment testimony lives in Volume 1’s §10 and the transcript.
- OCR note. The PDF’s native text layer covers only pages 1–73 (§§11–14); the later pages (§§15–27, including §17) were image-only. A 2026-06-13 Tesseract pass filled the gap — the text sibling now carries all 216 pages (native 1–73 + OCR 74–216) and is searchable end to end.