Apollo 10 Flown Heatshield Ablator Plug #5

This Apollo 10 Heatshield Plug flew to the Moon on the Apollo 10 mission in May 1969 and played a small but vital part in securing the heatshield to the Apollo 10 Command Module thus enabling a successful re-entry for the crew. Which also happened to be the fastest ever re-entry of a manned spacecraft.

This piece came from the personal collection of John Hirasaki - who was a member of the Landing and Recovery Division at the Manned Spacecraft Center with responsibility in post landing deactivation procedures for the Command Module's Reaction Control System. Hirasaki also spent time with returning astronauts in the Mobile Quarantine Facility as project engineer for the MQF.

Heatshield plugs are made of a lightweight fiberglass 'honeycomb', which is hand-filled with an ablative resin material. They were used to cover bolts in the heatshield, to protect them from the heat of re-entry

The plug measures 1.5" in diameter and is 2.3" tall, and has identification number '10' engraved to bottom;

It is very un-common to find one of these large size heatshield plugs that is not encapsulated in lucite.