Apollo – The Welsh Connection!

In recent years Dark Sky Wales have had the honour of hosting Apollo Legend Col. Al Worden, Command Module Pilot of Apollo 15. Al still remains in contact with us and we are hoping to see him back in Wales in the near future. But in this 50^thanniversary year of the first Moon landing by Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and not to forget Michael Collins there is a Welsh connection

Tecwyn Roberts (10 October 1925 – 27 December 1988) was a Welsh born American spaceflight engineer who in the 1960s played important roles in designing the Mission Control Center at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas and creating NASA’s worldwide tracking and communications network. Roberts served as NASA’s first Flight Dynamics Officer with Project Mercury that put the first American into space. He later joined NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center where he served as Director and Manager of the Goddard Space Flight Center’s global tracking and communications system supporting NASA’s manned and unmanned low earth orbiting flight programs

Tecwyn Roberts, alternately nicknamed “Tec” and “Tex”, was born 10 October 1925 at Trefnant Bach cottage in Llanddaniel Fab, Anglesey, Wales. He received his early education at Ysgol Parc y Bont, the small local primary school there. He left the school in 1938 after a successful Scholarship Examination and continued his studies at the Beaumaris Grammar School, from which he graduated in 1942. After leaving Beaumaris Grammar School, he began an engineering apprenticeship with the aero- and marine-engineering company Saunders-Roe at Fryars Bay, Llanfaes, Anglesey, some eight miles from Llanddaniel Fab.

After serving briefly in the Royal Airforce during World War II Roberts was released in 1944 and then began work for Saunders-Roe in Southampton where he attended the University. He obtained a degree in Aeronautical Engineering in 1948. In 1952 he left the UK for Canada and worked for Avro Canada an aircraft manufacturer and became a member of the engineering team that developed the CF-105 Arrow a highly advanced delta-winged interceptor aircraft. From there he moved to the US following the project lead Jim Chamberlin where he joined NASA’s Space Task Group. 

Created in November 1958, the Space Task Group under the leadership of Robert Gilruth was tasked with superintending America’s manned spaceflight program, Project Mercury, having been given the responsibility of placing a man in orbit around the Earth. Of its original 37 engineers, 27 were from Langley Research Center and 10 had been assigned from Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1959, Gilruth’s group was greatly expanded by the addition of the engineers from Canada who had been left without jobs when the Avro Arrow project was cancelled.

Roberts joined NASA in April 1959, one of a group of 25 engineers and technicians hired from Avro Canada by NASA. He was involved immediately in formulating the requirements for the tracking and communications network, and the Mercury Mission Control Center to provide the flight control of the missions.

In 1960, Roberts became NASA’s first Flight Dynamics Officer at the Mercury Control Center, where his tasks centered on controlling the trajectory of the spacecraft and planning adjustments to it.

Roberts may have popularized the use of the phrase “A-OK”, making those three letters a universal symbol meaning “in perfect working order.” The first documented use of the English language phrase “A-OK” is contained within a memo from Tecwyn Roberts, Flight Dynamics Officer, to Flight Director (entitled “Report on Test 3805”, dated 2 February 1961) in penciled notes on the countdown of MR-2, dated 31 January 1961. U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. John “Shorty” Powers popularized the expression while NASA’s public affairs officer for Project Mercury.

In 1962, Roberts was appointed head of the Mission Control Center Requirements Branch, as which he played a key role in the design and further development of the Mercury Control Center at Cape Kennedy and also at the subsequent Mission Control Center at the Manned Spacecraft Center (later Johnson Space Center) in Houston, Texas, where NASA’s manned spaceflight program had been transferred in 1961. NASA’s concept of Mission Control had previously been developed under the leadership of Christopher C. Kraft. When Roberts assumed his new position, Glynn Lunney succeeded him as Flight Dynamics Officer. As head of the Mission Control Center Requirements Branch, he was assigned responsibilities for determination, coordination and implementation of all design requirements for the construction of the new Mission Control Center in Houston. For his accomplishments in that area, Roberts received the NASA Outstanding Achievement Award.

On 21 May 1962, Roberts was appointed head of Manned Flight Division at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. At that time, Roberts and his wife also resided in Maryland. Their only child, Michael (born about 1960), attended Spalding High School in Severn, Maryland.

Goddard Space Flight Center

In July 1964, Roberts became Technical Assistant to the Deputy Assistant Director of Tracking and Data systems at Goddard Space Flight Center, and chief of the Manned Flight Engineering Division. This put Roberts in charge of NASA’s Manned Space Flight Network, a set of tracking stations built to support the American space efforts of Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and Skylab. There were two other space communication networks at this time, the Spacecraft Tracking and Data Acquisition Network (STADAN) for tracking unmanned satellites in low Earth orbit, and the Deep Space Network (DSN) for tracking more distant unmanned missions.

In 1964, Dr. Robert R. Gilruth, director of the Manned Space Center presented a $1,000 cash award and certificate to Tecwyn Roberts, flanked by Roberts’ wife Doris. Also in summer 1964, he was honoured by Gilruth with the NASA Special Service Award for his contribution to the manned space flight program in the area of flight operations. The award was primarily for his determining the technical requirements of the Manned Spaceflight Control Center.

Roberts became chief of the Manned Flight Support Division at the Goddard Space Flight Center during the Apollo Program in 1965. To support the Apollo program, Goddard commissioned three 85 ft, (26 m) antennas that would be equally spaced around the world. These were in Madrid (Spain), Goldstone in California (USA) and at Honeysuckle Creek in Australia. Roberts was present when the Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station was opened by Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt on 17 March 1967.

Later in 1967, Roberts became Chief of the Network Engineering Division, which he headed during the first landing on the moon. In 1969, he received the NASA Exceptional Service Medal for his work in support of the Apollo 8 flight. In 1972, Roberts became Director of Networks at the Goddard Space Flight Center, a position he still held by the time of the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project in July 1975. His chief responsibility in this role was to ensure that contact was maintained between the orbiting U.S. and Soviet spacecraft. This was to be his last direct involvement with NASA’s manned space flights.