Apollo Operations Handbook Extra Vehicular Mobility Unit

The result of eighteen years of design and research, the A7L and A7LB spacesuits served during the Apollo, Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz missions. Designed by International Latex Corporation (ILC) Dover and with a life support backpack provided by Hamilton Standard, the A7L featured a water-cooled undergarment, an inner blue pressurized layer, and a tough white nylon outer hull. After the disastrous Apollo I fire, ILC produced a version that utilized beta cloth that is fire resistant up to 650 degrees Celsius. Two basic versions of the suit were used during Apollo: an EV A7L configuration for the command module pilot (CMP) that provided low pressure and fire protection as well as protection for free-space EVA, and the EV A7L PGA configuration that provided additional protection from the lunar surface environment.

Apollo 7-14 used the A7L design that provided six hours of primary and thirty minutes of emergency life support. The longer "J" missions 15, 16 and 17 utilized the A7LB suit that extended primary life support by an hour, and also featured additional joints to facilitate operation of the lunar roving vehicle. CMPs on these missions wore A7LB based H-series A7L suits, as they needed to perform EVAs to retrieve film from the Scientific Instrument Module in "deep space". Modified A7LBs were also used during both Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz.

Created by NASA in 1968 and revised in 1971 for the Apollo 15, 16 and 17 missions, this handbook explains the extravehicular mobility unit, its subsystems, accessories and operation, as well as emergency procedures. Originally printed in two volumes by NASA, this version incorporates both in one book.