+ 1970 News Releases (7.6 Mb PDF file) - NASA

NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
MANNEDSPACECRAF
IIlllllC ENTE .
!Houston
December 31, 1970
REL=Ao_D AT NASA HEADQUARTERS
The Apollo 14 flight crew_ foll¢_ing splashdown in the Pacific
on February 9, will be flown home from Samoa rather than from Hawaii_
as previously
planned.
This revision in recovery procedures by the Natiomal Aeronautics
and Space Administration will reduce the return time to the Manned
Spacecraft Center_ Houston_ by five or six days.
As in Apollos 11 and 12_ the three astronauts_ after emerging from
their spacecraft into a lifcraft, will be transferred by helicopter to
the recovery carrier and imu_diately enter a Mobile Quarantine Facility
(MQF) resembling an alumiaum camping trailer.
When the carrier arrives within helicopter range of Samoa, 40 to 45
hours later, they will leaw_ the MQF through a recently designed double
airlook. In the airlook they wfll put on clean flight suits and respirators_
then board an adjacent helieopter, and be flown to Samoa.
There the helicopter will be towed to the rear of a waiting C-141
transport plane carrying a second M_F_ into which the men will transfer
for the flight to Houston with only a refueling stop in Hawaii. _le crew
will remain in the _F at aL1 times during the flight from Samoa to Houston.
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