Charlie Duke’s Apollo 16 Lunar Module Flown and Lunar Surface-Used A7LB Bio-Harness

This space suit wiring harness transmitted Duke’s vital signs to Mission Control throughout the mission, including Duke’s three lunar EVAs and Lunar Rover rides.

During the launch of Apollo 16, Charles Duke had a heartbeat of 144. It’s an absolutely natural response to the sensation of 7.5 million pounds of thrust lifting 95 tons into orbit. And it was his first space flight. John Young was commander of the mission, and this was his fourth. His heart rate was 70. He also got the lunar rover to skid and set a record for fastest driving on the Moon. Must have felt like Duke’s Hazard.

Loss of potassium, a crucial body chemical, led to serious medical problems, including abnormal heart rhythm, on Apollo 15. So for Apollo 16, they prescribed a postassium‐supplemented diet and took daily high-res EKG heart scans. (NYT)

This Beta cloth-covered electrical bio harness, 8″ x 10.5″ overall, connected the sensors on Duke’s chest to the main communications harness of his spacesuit. Printed on the harness are the words, “Harness Assy, Bio, S/N A7L 101054-04” which is crossed out with a red line and “A7LB 109043 01” stamped next to it, “Cicoil Corp 770A100-4”, “S/N 117”, and “Mfg date 468”.

EE World: “The Cicoil assembly enabled continuous monitoring of the vital signs, such as blood pressure, respiration, body temperature and pulse rate for each astronaut during flight, orbit, spacewalk and lunar surface operations. Cicoil’s Space Flight approved Biomedical Instrumentation Harnesses were chosen for their unique ability to separately encase shielded signal pairs to eliminate electronic interference and provide uninterrupted signal integrity when exposed to temperature extremes (–65° to 260°C), UV Light, radiation and vibration…

The flawless operational performance of Cicoil’s Bio-Harness designs were, in NASA’s words, “Vital to the successful achievement” of these history-making flights.”

The harness has three small metal female plugs (colored red, yellow, and blue for proper mating) that connected with the body sensors and a rectangular metal female plug that connected to the communications harness. This system transmitted Duke’s primary medical data back to Mission Control during the entire flight. An interesting piece of equipment that spent twenty hours on the lunar surface.

Part of the Future Ventures’ 🚀 Space Collection. Complete Kennedy Space Center Documentation below.

One response to “Charlie Duke’s Apollo 16 Lunar Module Flown and Lunar Surface-Used A7LB Bio-Harness”

jurvetson

Jun 14, 2021 at 12:42 am

The testing timeline leading to FLOWN ON APOLLO 16: Testing began four years before flight, in 1968:Registered to the Apollo 16 LMP:The John F. Kennedy Space Center, Astronaut Suiting Operations report for Apollo 16, page 2-12.3 shows under the section "Space Suit Equipment": Stowage list Item No. 0216, Bioinstrumentation Harness A7LB-109043-01 *A7L 101054-04 [prior number], S/N 117 was for the LMP, Charles Duke. The documentation includes the complete NASA Acceptance Data Package from ILC Industries for this particular Bio Harness. This 50+ page document traces every aspect of its manufacture, testing and flight history; it specifies in several places that this harness was selected for and flown on Apollo 16: Sample page, including "ADP COMPLETENESS REVIEW GOV’T INSPECTED AND ACCEPTED on 12/6/71and "Support suiting exercise at crewman request. ‘Duke’" on 4/10/72, six days before launch. Not sure why "Duke" is in quote marks here.

NASA detailed document on the Bioinstrumentation System
And from the NASA collection of in-flight medical measurement results: "Apollo 16: All three crewmen suffered varying degrees of skin irritation at the biosensor sites. This skin irritation resulted principally from the crew’s desire to wear the biosensor harnesses continuously in order to save the 15 to 20 minutes required to apply these bioharnesses. The irritation subsided in 48 hours without medical treatment.

As a precaution, antiarrhythmic medications were included in the Apollo 16 medical kit for the first time. As an added precaution, daily, high-resolution electrocardiograms were obtained for each crewman and an accurate metabolic input/output report was maintained during flight."

Here is the segment of the electrocardiograph (EKG) recording of the Apollo 16 crew heartbeats during launch. The top line is Commander Young’s, the second line is of Ken Mattingly, and the bottom two lines are Duke’s. The launch segment apparently was routine to Young, showing the weakest amplitude of signal as compared to the two rookies:

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