Seymour "Sy" Abraham Liebergot (born February 15, 1936, in Camden, New Jersey) is a retired NASAflight controller, serving during the Apollo program. Liebergot was an EECOM controller and was responsible for the electrical and environmental systems on board the Command Module. In 1970, he was part of the team that guided Apollo 13 back to Earth following the explosion that crippled the spacecraft.
Seymour “Sy” Abraham Liebergot was born on February 15, 1936, in Camden, New Jersey, the second child of parents Ida née Soloff and Solomon “Sol” Liebergot.[3] His paternal grandparents immigrated from Kiev, Ukraine, and his maternal grandparents immigrated from Novosibkov, Russia to the U.S. Sy experienced an unstable and rough childhood.[3] Though money was scarce, his father gambled, drank, and had many gangster friends and enemies.[3] Ida spiraled into a nervous breakdown when Sol had an affair, attempting to kill Sy and his sister Phyllis in 1942.[3] Ida was permanently institutionalized.[3] Sol married the woman he had an affair with, and they later bore three more children.[3] Sol constantly uprooted his family, moving from place to place in order to escape danger from his debts, and he neglected his family and often beat Sy.[3]
After graduating high school in 1953, Sy worked as a copy boy at the Philadelphia Inquirer.[3] In 1954, after turning 18, he decided to join the Army to take some time to receive technical training and figure out his life plans.[3] He was stationed in Fort Huachuca and the Yuma Test Station, where he fulfilled weather activity duties.[3] Sy was honorably discharged in 1957.[3]
That same year, he moved to Los Angeles, CA and married his first wife, Deanna Cohen.[3] He decided to attend college for Electrical Engineering and enrolled at the Los Angeles City Junior College (LACC) for his first two years of study.[3][4] He simultaneously worked as a shoe salesman for five years to support himself and his family.[3] Liebergot’s first daughter, Shelli Lyn was born in 1958 and his twin sons, Mark Daniel and Scot Alan, were born in 1960.[3] He graduated from LACC after five semesters and enrolled in California State University at Los Angeles (CSLA) to finish the last two years of his degree.[3][4]
Liebergot later moved to Houston to work for NASA.[3][5] There, he participated in various social activities.[3] He joined the Space City Ski Club (SCSC) in 1972, eventually becoming the President of the club and ultimately president of the statewide ski club organization, the Texas Ski Council.[3] Liebergot also participated in chili cooking competitions with some friends, including the International Chili Championship in 1982.[3] In 1988, Liebergot started singing lessons again (the last time was in high school), and he completed Scuba Divemaster training in 1989.[3]
Liebergot and Cohen divorced in 1972.[3] Six years later in 1978, he married Tania Andrasko.[3] They divorced in 1984.[3] Liebergot later met Elizabeth Craig Tharpe in 1988 at a monthly ski club meeting.[3] They married in 1990.[3]
Engineering career
While still in college, Liebergot accepted a part-time evening job at North American Aviation (NAA) in the Space & Information Systems Division (S&ID) College Engineering Unit.[3][4][6] He became an assistant supervisor a year later.[3][4][6] Their division later won a contract with NASA to build a part of the Saturn V lunar launch rocket.[3][6] In 1962, he began working full time as an engineer and finished his degree at night in two semesters.[3][6]
In 1964, Liebergot joined the Flight Operations Support Group, which provided command and service module (CSM) information to NASA’s flight operations in Houston.[3][5][6] He stayed in Dowey, CA as a lead engineer while most of the group transferred to Houston.[3][5][6] After 18 months, he tired of his position and joined the Flight Control Division in Houston, where he was a CSM Sequential Systems specialist, an advisor in the back room.[3][5][6]
A year and a half later, wanting to participate in more of the action, Liebergot switched employment to NASA in the Manned Spacecraft Center’s Operations Control Room (MOCR), starting his career in flight control as the Apollo program was beginning.[3][5][6]
In the 1966 AS-201 (Apollo/Saturn) mission, the first CSM test flight, Liebergot was still contracted to NASA and he served in the back room as a Sequential Systems specialist.[3]
Becoming a NASA employee later that year, Liebergot served as the Operations & Procedures Officer (O&P) in the MOCR on AS-202, the second unmanned test flight.[3][4][5]
On Apollo 4, AS-501, Liebergot became the Assistant Flight Director (AFD), assisting the Flight Director (FD) in his duties and serving as a backup for him.[3][4][5]
After that mission, Liebergot switched to the Systems Branch. In Apollo 7 in 1968, he worked in the Staff Support Room (SSR) as the flight control division representative in the Spacecraft Analysis Room (SPAN).[3][7]
Liebergot started as an Electrical, Environmental and COMmunication systems (EECOM) flight controller trainee on Apollo 8. From Apollo 9 through Apollo 15, he served as the CSM EECOM.[3] Liebergot was assigned as the Lead EECOM in Apollo 14 because of his role in the Apollo 13 mission, for which he is well known for.[3] In Apollo 16, Liebergot worked as the CSSB SPAN Systems position, supporting the new EECOM.[3][5][7] He continued as CSSB SPAN support in Apollo 17.[3][5][7] The SPAN room connected the engineering and flight controlling divisions.[3][5]
After the end of the Apollo program, Liebergot continued in the Skylab Earth-orbit mission as Electrical, General Instrumentation & Life Support (EGIL) flight controller, which had more systems to monitor than the CSM EECOM, and with the ability to control some systems from the console.[3][4] He trained as an EGIL after Apollo 15.[3]
In the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) in concert with the Russians, Liebergot served as the Lead EECOM.[3][4] He was awarded the NASA Commendation Award for his leadership role.[3][4]
With the close of ASTP, Liebergot moved to work on the Shuttle spacecraft as Lead EECOM, gathering knowledge and developing new procedures and rules.[3] He designed the Free Water Collection System.[3]
Losing passion for the job, Liebergot retired from active flight control in 1976.[3]
In 1979, Liebergot began to work with other engineers on the Space Station to write a program plan. Along with former LM Control flight controller Hal Loden, they wrote the Operations section of the program plan.[3]
When the Space Station Program Office was created in 1981 at the Johnson Space Center (JSC), Liebergot joined the Customer Integration Office.[3]
In 1988, Liebergot retired early and ended his career at NASA.[3] He soon found a job at Rockwell International in the Shuttle Program Office at JSC working for the program director as a SPAN back room advisor.[3]
A couple of years later, Liebergot was hired to help with the Weightless Environment Training Facility (WETF) at the JSC.[3] As a Senior Project Engineer for the ISS, he directed the designing of element trainers for the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory for the ISS (water training pool).[3][4]
In 1993, Liebergot transferred to work in the ISS Configuration Management organization of the company as a Senior Configuration Management Analyst, in which he tracked the equipment entering and leaving the ISS.[3]
Apollo 13
The Apollo 13 mission launched on April 11, 1970.[3] Liebergot was 34 years old and the EECOM on shift when the malfunction occurred.[3] 55 hours into the mission, at the last hour of his shift, Liebergot requested a tank stir before the crew went to sleep because the quality sensor reading for Oxygen Tank 2 had failed earlier.[3][5][8] There were two liquid oxygen and two liquid hydrogen tanks on the spacecraft. In space, they became more fog-like and separated into different layers.[3][5] The stir involved turning on two fans in each storage tank to mix the contents.[3][5]
The wiring inside Oxygen Tank 2 was bare and cracked, so as astronaut Jack Swigert flipped the four switches, Tank 2 exploded, which also caused Tank 1 to start leaking.[3][5][8] The shock closed the valves to fuel cells 1 and 3 as well, leaving only a third of the electrical power generation system working.[3][5]
When data started appearing abnormally, the responsibility fell on Liebergot.[3] He initially thought it was an instrumentation problem, but other flight controllers also started having abnormalities, indicating a bigger problem was at hand.[3] Liebergot worked with his back room support to figure out the issue, giving the astronaut crew instructions, and they eventually realized that they had lost two fuel cells.[3][5][8] It was not an instrumentation error.[3] Time was limited with the remaining oxygen tank to the CSM leaking and only one fuel cell remaining.[3] The mission turned into one to save the crew and deliver them back to Earth safely.[3]
If the cryo tanks were stirred later in the mission and the tanks/fuel cells lost later, the crew may not have been able to be saved.[3][5] Liebergot was part of the Apollo 13 Mission Operations Team awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for their efforts to successfully save the astronauts.[3][4]
The Apollo program, also known as Project Apollo, was the United States human spaceflight program carried out by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which succeeded in preparing and landing the first men on the Moon from 1968 to 1972. It was first conceived in 1960 during President Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration as a three-person spacecraft to follow the one-person Project Mercury, which put the first Americans in space. Apollo was later dedicated to President John F. Kennedy's national goal for the 1960s of "landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" in an address to Congress on May 25, 1961. It was the third US human spaceflight program to fly, preceded by the two-person Project Gemini conceived in 1961 to extend spaceflight capability in support of Apollo.
Apollo 13 was the seventh crewed mission in the Apollo space program and the third meant to land on the Moon. The craft was launched from Kennedy Space Center on April 11, 1970, but the lunar landing was aborted after an oxygen tank in the service module (SM) ruptured two days into the mission, disabling its electrical and life-support system. The crew, supported by backup systems on the lunar module (LM), instead looped around the Moon in a circumlunar trajectory and returned safely to Earth on April 17. The mission was commanded by Jim Lovell, with Jack Swigert as command module (CM) pilot and Fred Haise as lunar module (LM) pilot. Swigert was a late replacement for Ken Mattingly, who was grounded after exposure to rubella.
Apollo 7 was the first crewed flight in NASA's Apollo program, and saw the resumption of human spaceflight by the agency after the fire that had killed the three Apollo 1 astronauts during a launch rehearsal test on January 27, 1967. The Apollo7 crew was commanded by Walter M. Schirra, with command module pilot Donn F. Eisele and Lunar Module pilot R. Walter Cunningham.
Apollo 9 was the third human spaceflight in NASA's Apollo program. Flown in low Earth orbit, it was the second crewed Apollo mission that the United States launched via a Saturn V rocket, and was the first flight of the full Apollo spacecraft: the command and service module (CSM) with the Lunar Module (LM). The mission was flown to qualify the LM for lunar orbit operations in preparation for the first Moon landing by demonstrating its descent and ascent propulsion systems, showing that its crew could fly it independently, then rendezvous and dock with the CSM again, as would be required for the first crewed lunar landing. Other objectives of the flight included firing the LM descent engine to propel the spacecraft stack as a backup mode, and use of the portable life support system backpack outside the LM cabin.
Apollo 10 was the fourth human spaceflight in the United States' Apollo program and the second to orbit the Moon. NASA, the mission's operator, described it as a "dress rehearsal" for the first Moon landing. It was designated an "F"mission, intended to test all spacecraft components and procedures short of actual descent and landing.
Apollo 12 was the sixth crewed flight in the United States Apollo program and the second to land on the Moon. It was launched on November 14, 1969, by NASA from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Commander Charles "Pete" Conrad and Lunar Module Pilot Alan L. Bean performed just over one day and seven hours of lunar surface activity while Command Module Pilot Richard F. Gordon remained in lunar orbit.
Apollo 13 is a 1995 American docudrama film directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise, Ed Harris and Kathleen Quinlan. The screenplay by William Broyles Jr. and Al Reinert dramatizes the aborted 1970 Apollo 13 lunar mission and is an adaptation of the 1994 book Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13, by astronaut Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger.
The Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC) is NASA's center for human spaceflight in Houston, Texas, where human spaceflight training, research, and flight control are conducted. It was renamed in honor of the late US president and Texas native, Lyndon B. Johnson, by an act of the United States Senate on February 19, 1973.
Apollo 5, also known as AS-204, was the uncrewed first flight of the Apollo Lunar Module (LM) that would later carry astronauts to the surface of the Moon. The Saturn IB rocket bearing the LM lifted off from Cape Kennedy on January 22, 1968. The mission was successful, though due to programming problems an alternate mission to that originally planned was executed.
Apollo 6, also known as AS-502, was the third and final uncrewed flight in the United States' Apollo Program and the second test of the Saturn V launch vehicle. It qualified the Saturn V for use on crewed missions, and it was used beginning with Apollo 8 in December 1968.
Apollo–Soyuz was the first crewed international space mission, carried out jointly by the United States and the Soviet Union in July 1975. Millions of people around the world watched on television as an American Apollo spacecraft docked with a Soviet Soyuz capsule. The project, and its handshake in space, was a symbol of détente between the two superpowers during the Cold War.
The Apollo command and service module (CSM) was one of two principal components of the United States Apollo spacecraft, used for the Apollo program, which landed astronauts on the Moon between 1969 and 1972. The CSM functioned as a mother ship, which carried a crew of three astronauts and the second Apollo spacecraft, the Apollo Lunar Module, to lunar orbit, and brought the astronauts back to Earth. It consisted of two parts: the conical command module, a cabin that housed the crew and carried equipment needed for atmospheric reentry and splashdown; and the cylindrical service module which provided propulsion, electrical power and storage for various consumables required during a mission. An umbilical connection transferred power and consumables between the two modules. Just before reentry of the command module on the return home, the umbilical connection was severed and the service module was cast off and allowed to burn up in the atmosphere.
Christopher Columbus Kraft Jr. was an American aerospace and NASA engineer who was instrumental in establishing the agency's Mission Control Center and shaping its organization and culture. His protégé Glynn Lunney said in 1998: "the Control Center today ... is a reflection of Chris Kraft".
Spacecraft call signs are radio call signs used for communication in crewed spaceflight. These are not formalized or regulated to the same degree as other equivalent forms of transportation, like aircraft. The three nations currently launching crewed space missions use different methods to identify the ground and space radio stations; the United States uses either the names given to the space vehicles or else the project name and mission number. Russia traditionally assigns code names as call signs to individual cosmonauts, more in the manner of aviator call signs, rather than to the spacecraft.
John W. Aaron is a former NASA engineer and was a flight controller during the Apollo program. He is widely credited with saving the Apollo 12 mission when it was struck by lightning soon after launch, and also played an important role during the Apollo 13 crisis.
Flight controllers are personnel who aid space flight by working in such Mission Control Centers as NASA's Mission Control Center or ESA's European Space Operations Centre. Flight controllers work at computer consoles and use telemetry to monitor various technical aspects of a space mission in real-time. Each controller is an expert in a specific area and constantly communicates with additional experts in the "back room". The flight director, who leads the flight controllers, monitors the activities of a team of flight controllers, and has overall responsibility for success and safety.
Glynn Stephen Lunney was an American NASA engineer. An employee of NASA since its creation in 1958, Lunney was a flight director during the Gemini and Apollo programs, and was on duty during historic events such as the Apollo 11 lunar ascent and the pivotal hours of the Apollo 13 crisis. At the end of the Apollo program, he became manager of the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project, the first collaboration in spaceflight between the United States and the Soviet Union. Later, he served as manager of the Space Shuttle program before leaving NASA in 1985 and later becoming a vice president of the United Space Alliance.
NASA's Christopher C. Kraft Jr. Mission Control Center, also known by its radio callsign, Houston, is the facility at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, that manages flight control for the United States human space program, currently involving astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The center is in Building 30 at the Johnson Space Center and is named after Christopher C. Kraft Jr., a NASA engineer and manager who was instrumental in establishing the agency's Mission Control operation, and was the first Flight Director.
A launch status check, also known as a "go/no go poll" and several other terms, occurs at the beginning of an American spaceflight mission in which flight controllers monitoring various systems are queried for operation and readiness status before a launch can proceed. For Space Shuttle missions, in the firing room at the Launch Control Center, the NASA Test Director (NTD) performed this check via a voice communications link with other NASA personnel. The NTD was the leader of the shuttle test team responsible for directing and integrating all flight crew, orbiter, external tank/solid rocket booster and ground support testing in the shuttle launch countdown. The NTD was also responsible for the safety of all personnel inside the pad after external tank loading, including the flight crew, about 10 go/no go reports. He reported to the Launch Director, who has another about 5 go/no go reports. The Launch director declares if a mission is go for launch.
Christopher E. Gerty is an American aerospace engineer who worked on NASA's Constellation Program. Gerty is an advocate of NASA's Open Government Initiative and is a leading voice on the concept of participatory exploration and collaboration. He has fifteen years of experience working on complex, technology-intense projects at NASA. Gerty served as an aquanaut on the NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations 13 crew.
↑ Gerry Griffin Oral History, Part 1, (C-SPAN3, March 12, 1999) At 3m50s - Gerry Griffin (Flight Director, Apollo 13): "I think [Christopher] Kraft was particularly adept at testing people in simulations and all that sort of thing, and picking out the ones that he thought could cut it and those that he [determined] couldn't... might not. ... As you know, we didn't have too many washouts in Mission Control."
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