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Lunar Equipment Conveyor (LEC)

Copyright © 2004 by Eric M. Jones.
All rights reserved.
Last revised 20 February 2006.

Origin of the LEC

The following discussion comes from the Apollo 11 review done with Neil and Buzz in Santa Fe in 1991:

Armstrong - "(The LEC) was a piece of equipment that did not exist - was not planned - until we were someplace in the middle of our training cycle. And we were not confident about our ability to transfer articles to and from the cabin and the surface. I can't remember who devised this idea, but it was devised collectively by our EVA planning group. It was a jury-rig that we collectively devised."

Aldrin - "It was needed. There wasn't another solution to the problem. Didn't it do the job reasonably well?"

Armstrong - "Yeah, it did."

Aldrin - "It wasn't very professional."

Armstrong - "It was a bit of a jury-rig, but it did the job."

Aldrin - "I guess one problem was that it tended to carry up dust? It didn't have a pulley, you just lifted at the top. Or did it have a pulley?" (see below)

Armstrong - "It was a flat nylon strap, as I remember..."

Aldrin - "Didn't it just go through the AOT guard, or did it have a pulley?"

Armstrong - "I don't remember. It may have been some kind of a cylinder with a hook."

Aldrin, from the 1969 Technical Debrief - "There are alternate ways of bringing things up, other than by the LEC. I think there is promise of being able to bring things up over the side (of the porch); straight up, versus making use of the LEC. We didn't have the opportunity to exercise those."

The Apollo 11 style LEC was used on Apollos 11 through 15; although, beginning with Apollo 14, the astronauts sometimes carried equipment up and down the ladder by hand. The Apollo 16 and 17 crews flew with only a simple lanyard with which they raised and lowered the Equipment Transfer Bag with its cargo of relatively fragile cameras at the side of the porch, as Buzz had suggested. None of the astronauts had clear memories of the LEC attachment hardware that was used in the cabin.

The LEC

Flown Apollo 11 LEC
Labeled version of NASA photo S69-37994 showing components of the flown Apollo 11 LEC prior to stowage
The LEC was a flat, woven strap about one inch (2.5 cm) wide. There was a carabiner (or 'snap lock' or, simply, a 'hook') at each end. Initially, the LMP kept the carabiners in the cabin.. A simple pulley - a metal tube cut slightly longer than the strap width - with two metal hooks attached was used to secure the LEC to a yellow handgrip (aka PLSS Upper Mounting Station Pin) in a recess in the cabin ceiling. Midway along the strap between the two carabiners, a seperate, short loop was attached to the main strap, possibly as a handle for the CDR's use when he took the LEC outside and almost certainly as a marker for the midpoint.

Prior to deployment, the LEC was stowed in nested cloth bags.

NASA photo S69-37994 ( 269k ) shows the LEC positioned on the parts of the inner bag, which will be assembled with Velcro fastenings.

NASA photo S69-37995 ( 242k ) shows the inner bag partially assembled.

NASA photo S69-37996 ( 257k ) shows the inner bag fully assembled.

NASA photo S69-37997 ( 248k ) shows the outer stowage bag containing what are believed to be two 'waist tethers', each with a carabiner at either end. Note that the outer bag, itself, is equpped with a short strap and carabiner. The purpose of the 'waist tethers' is not clear; but, during Apollo 11, one was attached to the spare Hasselblad that Buzz placed on the cabin floor just inside the hatch during the EVA.

NASA photo S69-37999 ( 253k ) shows the outer bag with its own strap and carabiner tucked in and, stowed on edge at left and right, two extra carabiners. These are probably the carabiners that Neil and Buzz attached to their neckring tiedown straps. Buzz's can be seen in a detail from AS11-40-5873 and, more clearly, in a detail from training photo KSC-69PC-362.

NASA photo S69-37998 ( 283k ) shows the outer bag with the LEC carabiners and pulley added. The inner bag is out of frame to the left.

NASA photo S69-38000 ( 312k ) shows the inner bag in place prior to closure of the outer bag.

LEC deployment and Use

Journal Contributor Karl Dodenhoff has located a drawing which shows both the attachment hardware in the LM cabin and the attachments for the cargo. The attachment in the cabin involved a cylindrical fitting in the cabin overhead. This diagram prompted Journal Contributor Markus Mehring to suggest that "from a psychological point of view, the mechanism is not in their constant field of view, they just encountered it much too rarely throughout the mission to keep it in mind. This should have been a hint for us where to look for it in the first place, it just had to be somewhere behind them, or possibly above them." Gary Neff calls attention to the yellow rod in Apollo 15 photo S71-40733. The photo was taken during close-out of LM-10 prior to stowage in the Apollo 15 stack. Photo courtesy of John Duncan and Gary Kitmacher. The LEC drawing, indicates that the two hooks on the simple LEC pulley were fitted over this rod.]

[Training photo S69-32232 shows Neil operating the LEC while Buzz watches. During the mission, Buzz was always in the cabin during LEC operations.]

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