posted 04-05-2007 11:55 PM               

Apollo Boilerplate-19 to 'drop-in' at Downey

Apollo Boilerplate-12 (BP-12) will not be alone at the new Columbia Memorial Space Science and Learning Center in Downey, California. Current plans show that when the center opens in 2008, the command module-shaped test capsule will be joined by another, Boilerplate-19 (BP-19), on exhibit in the center's lobby. BP-19 was thought to be under the control of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, according to A Field Guide to American Spacecraft.

The two spacecraft will be dedicated to the legacy of all who worked at Downey to help America to be the first nation to allow mankind to walk on the Moon.

BP-19 was constructed in Downey, California by North American Aviation and accepted for use by NASA in 1963. It was used in parachute tests at Naval Air Station China Lake and was later configured as a Block II type vehicle. It has been on outside display in a gazebo for many years at the Apollo Park in Lancaster, CA. It is owned by the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, which has approved it moving to Downey. It is planned to be moved to its new home late this year.

BP-19. Credit: Rob Godwin, Apogee Books, used with permission

Thursday, April 12 will mark the groundbreaking of the new Columbia Memorial Space Science and Learning Center in Downey, CA at 4:30 p.m. The public is invited. The address is 12214 Lakewood Blvd., Downey, CA outside Downey Landing Studios.

posted 07-10-2008 06:43 PM               

The Smithsonian Apollo test article is coming home on July 16, 2008.

The City of Downey, with assistance from the Aerospace Legacy Foundation and Industrial Reality Group (who now own the historic NASA/NAA Apollo production site) will receive a second Apollo command module boilerplate by truck on July 16. It will, after restoration, be exhibited in the new Columbia Memorial Space Center, which when open this winter, will tell the story of the history of the site while preparing youth to take trips into space in the future.

The Apollo boilerplate is on loan from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and will be trucked from Lancaster, CA.

The new Columbia Memorial Space Center and Aerospace Legacy offices will have limited access while we await the two spaceship test articles to be unloaded. Some veterans of Apollo and shuttle programs who worked at the site will be available for questions. Arrival time is expected within a three hour window between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.

The two Apollo boilerplate test articles are from the earliest periods of America's lunar exploration program.

Apollo Boilerplate #12, which is already on the site, was flown and recovered on the first Apollo test flight on May 13, 1964. Thereafter, it was used on at least two impact tests at Downey before being given to the local union hall until it was recovered by Downey last year.

Apollo Boilerplate #19 was carried aloft at least nine times and used in parachute drop tests over El Centro Naval Station before it was given by NASA to the Smithsonian. It has for many years been on display in Lancaster.

Can't attend on July 16? The City of Downey will be having a program and ceremony at a later date where city officials will have both test articles open for public inspection before they are prepared for display.

posted 07-11-2008 04:38 PM               

The Aerospace Legacy Foundation will have its president, Gerald Blackburn on site advising on the recovery of the test article from Lancaster. He was an engineer on Apollo and Shuttle before he retired to run our Foundation.

posted 07-15-2008 04:11 PM               

Surprisingly, this is the command module that appears in the parachute tests dropping from a C-133 Cargo Master in the recent "Moon Machines: The Command Module" episode.

posted 07-16-2008 06:59 PM               

BP-19 on its lift in front of the Apollo construction high bay at Bldg. 290. This was the clean room where the lunar spacecraft were built (the boilerplates did not need such care and were built in Bldg. 1). Notice that the resin and fiberglass heat shield has already been removed.

Among the visitors was one man who helped work on missile guidance systems here — in 1949! Also present were various news crews and the widow of one of the former company's vice presidents, Eva Thomas.

Also in attendance was "Andy Astronaut" — a long time Apollo staple from the old plant days and open houses. This was his first appearance here in nine years.

After the truck with the capsule stopped in front of the building, the heat shield was removed as the capsule was lifted free of the truck. It was then placed next to its sister spacecraft Boilerplate #12 from the first Little Joe flight of May 1964. Then the suspense was too much and the hatch was opened by the Columbia Memorial Space Center director Jon Betthauser, and we could see inside BP-19 for the first time in 35 years.

It was exceptionally nice inside except for some debris in the capsule's base caused from an opening in the roof from many years ago it seems. It still has its rigging and weights inside, and it will make for a beautiful display of how Apollo appeared during the heyday of its testing before it took man to the moon.

Above, below: BP-19 being swung into its restoration area.

Credit: JayCee Cruz, Aerospace Legacy Foundation

posted 07-16-2008 08:37 PM               

BP-19's resin fiberglas composite heat shield used for the drop tests has stood up to many years in the high desert.

Columbia Memorial Space Center Director Jon Betthauser holds the hatch that he just removed from BP-19 and it's ID plate mounted on it. To the right is Aerospace Legacy Foundation Director Jerry Blackburn.

(There was an ID plate on the heat shield also - I got to see it first and I laughed as I read it aloud for the crowd - it said- "Heat Shield. Made at NAA- Downey, CA")

Boilerplate BP-12 with "Andy Astronaut" striking his best Major Matt pose. Andy Monsen had been the resident astronaut figure at the plant from 1979-1999. You can't see inside his face plate so people would not know who he was - and not mistake Andy for our real astronaut heroes.

I want to thank the City of Downey and the Columbia Memorial Space Center for allowing those who came down to see this event, and the IRG group who owns the site for allowing us to come onto the property.

The Aerospace Legacy Foundation supports the center and was one of the driving forces behind the creation of the center.

posted 02-11-2011 07:58 PM               

Apollo Boilerplate 19...

Apollo Boilerplate 19 exhibit installed at the Columbia Memorial Space Center at Downey California.

posted 03-06-2012 08:42 AM               

Restored drop-test capsule to land at learning center

A drop-test dummy capsule that NASA used in the lead up to the Apollo moon landings has been restored to its former glory to inspire a new generation of space explorers.

The red and white painted capsule, known as "Boilerplate 19A" (BP-19A), was built in the early 1960s by the same aerospace company and to the same basic design specs as the space-worthy command modules that flew crews to the moon and back. Instead of lifting off though, BP-19A was dropped out of the back of a cargo plane to test the recovery systems that would safely land astronauts back on Earth.

More than four decades after its final test flight and years after being displayed outdoors in a county park, BP-19A was entrusted to SpaceWorks, the exhibition design and artifact preservation division of the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center in Hutchinson, KS, for its restoration.