Significant bracket-bound manual from the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory entitled "R-547, Guidance System Operations Plan, AS-278, Vol. I, CM GNCS Operations, October 1966," bound in its original blue "Apollo Guidance, Navigation and Control" softcover wrappers, 8.5″ x 11″ x 1.5″, marked "R. Larson" on the title page. The introduction defines the plan's purpose: "This plan governs the operation of the Command Module Guidance, Navigation and Control System and defines its functional interface with the spacecraft, flight crew, and ground support systems on Apollo Mission AS-278." The plan offers a detailed outline of the Command Module's Guidance, Navigation, and Control System (GNCS) operations, detailing data links, digital autopilot, operational modes, and guidance equations. The "operational modes" section includes a detailed discussion of the form and function of the Apollo Display and Keyboard (DSKY), the interface through which the astronauts interacted with the onboard computer. The plan also includes lengthy printouts of program and routine listings as part of the "Apollo Computer Logic Checklist Interface." In very good to fine condition, with some creasing and soiling to covers.
AS-207/208 (also known as AS-278) was slated to be a dual mission with the Command and Lunar Modules, launched on separate Saturn IBs, to perform a rendezvous and docking in space. This would have been the first test of the LM in Earth orbit. The mission was canceled after the Apollo 1 fire, and the same crew—Jim McDivitt, Dave Scott, and Rusty Schweickart—would run a modified version of the mission on Apollo 9, at a much later date.
Russ Larson worked as a project manager and astronaut liaison at MIT's Instrumentation Lab, where he was involved in programming the Lunar Module's Apollo Guidance Computer; he worked directly with the astronaut crews, training them on the simulators and guidance system.
