A Six-Day Timetable

A HALF-HOUR after thrusting out from earth orbit toward the moon, the astronauts faced a test that was crucial to the first actual lunar landings. They successfully separated their spacecraft from the third-stage S-4B rocket, moved 50 feet ahead of it, then turned to inspect it. After sending the S-4B off into orbit around the sun, Apollo was to continue coasting toward the moon, firing its engine briefly only if a mid-course correction was needed to put the craft precisely on its path.

On Sunday, after another opportunity for correcting their trajectory, the astronauts were to make their first live telecast from space. They were also to conduct navigational tests. Other major events this week:

MONDAY: Provided all went well up to this time, more navigation tests, spacecraft attitude changes and a second live telecast were to occupy the astronauts' time. Late in the evening, the pull of earth's gravity would have slowed Apollo to its minimum translunar speed of 2,170 m.p.h. At that point, 30,000 miles from the moon, lunar gravity takes over. Apollo would thus begin accelerating again as it sped closer to the moon.

TUESDAY: Early in the morning, Apollo was due to curve around the western edge of the moon at a speed of 5,720 m.p.h. Around 5 a.m., behind the moon and cut off from radio contact with earth, the astronauts were to fire Apollo's rocket to cut their speed and drop into orbit around the moon. Some 20 minutes later, they would emerge from behind the eastern edge of the moon and resume radio contact. At 7:30 a.m. and again at 9:31 p.m., they were scheduled to transmit live TV pictures of the lunar surface and of the earth, hanging like a Christmas-tree ornament far distant in the sky.

WEDNESDAY: Shortly after midnight on Christmas Day, the astronauts planned to burn Apollo's engine again, in order to boost their speed to 6,060 m.p.h., and head back toward earth. This maneuver would also occur behind the moon, so that long minutes would pass before earth stations knew whether it had been successful. The Apollo crew's itinerary called for spending the remainder of the day and all day Thursday in housekeeping chores and navigation tests while coasting back toward earth. There were also to be two more live telecasts to earth from the spacecraft in the course of its journey homeward.

FRIDAY: After jettisoning of the service module, the Apollo command module was due to re-enter the earth's atmosphere about 10:40 a.m. and splash down in the Pacific recovery zone near Christmas Island about eleven minutes later.

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