Apollo Abort Modes - Overview

Overview

Of the five abort modes, the modes up to two (II) are variations of jettisoning the entire rocket followed by an immediate landing in the sea (splashdown). Mode three (III) and up are variations of jettisoning only the failing rocket stage, using the other stages to continue into Earth orbit. Once there, a backup Earth orbit mission could be performed so that the flight was not entirely in vain. In all cases, the Command Module (CM) with the astronauts performs a splashdown by:

• dumping the hypergolic fuel overboard since the toxic substance would be an unnecessary risk to recovery personnel
• if high enough, deploying high-speed parachutes (drogue parachute)
• jettisoning the drogues and deploying the main parachutes
• splashing down in the sea and waiting for recovery team to arrive.