The Saturn IB rocket bearing the LM lifted off from Cape Kennedy on January 22, 1968. The mission was successful, though due to programming problems an alternate mission to that originally planned was executed.
Apollo 6 splashed down in the Pacific Ocean after a troubled flight of 9 hours and 57 minutes and was recovered aboard the aircraft carrier USS Okinawa. The spacecraft is on display at the Fernbank Science Center in Atlanta, Georgia.
Launched on the fourth Saturn IB launch vehicle, the Apollo 5 mission lifted off on January 22nd, 1968, from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Similar to Apollo 4 and 6, Apollo 5 was an uncrewed flight with the goal of testing key Apollo Program technology.
On July 24, 1969, President Richard Nixon, ADM John S. McCain (CINCPAC) and several other dignitaries were present while Hornet recovered astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins and their spacecraft Columbia. Armstrong and Aldrin were the first two humans to walk on the Moon.
Apollo 2 and 3: There were no craft named Apollo 2 or 3. Apparently after the Apollo-1 craft was destroyed during a pre-flight test at Cape Canaveral, the first few mission (through Apollo-6) were unmanned missions to test various aspects of the Apollo program - Launch vehicle, CSM, LM, and their inter-play.
Walter Cunningham, the last surviving astronaut from the first successful crewed space mission in NASA's Apollo program, died Tuesday in Houston.
With the world anxiously watching, Apollo 13, a U.S. lunar spacecraft that suffered a severe malfunction on its journey to the moon, safely returns to Earth on April 17, 1970.
The Saturn IB rocket bearing the LM lifted off from Cape Kennedy on January 22, 1968. The mission was successful, though due to programming problems an alternate mission to that originally planned was executed.
Apollo 1 was expected to fly to Earth orbit later in 1967 with astronauts Gus Grissom, Roger Chaffee and Ed White on board. During a test on the launch pad, however, a fire erupted and rapidly asphyxiated all three astronauts.
Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Mark Collins didn't have a toilet onboard the Apollo 11 spacecraft so they had to use a specialised bit of equipment. The 'roll-on cuff' was basically a rubber tube that was hooked on to a 'receiver' and collection bag.
Two Apollo missions were failures: a 1967 cabin fire killed the entire Apollo 1 crew during a ground test in preparation for what was to be the first crewed flight; and the third landing attempt on Apollo 13 was aborted by an oxygen tank explosion en route to the Moon, which disabled the CSM Odyssey's electrical power ...
The command module of Apollo 13 entered Earth's atmosphere and splashed down on target on April 17 at 1:07 PM Eastern Standard Time. The mission has been referred to as a successful failure, in that all the crew members survived a catastrophic accident.
Despite tension between the crew and ground controllers, the mission was a complete technical success, giving NASA the confidence to send Apollo 8 into orbit around the Moon two months later.
This was also the first mission to reunite crewmates from a previous mission (Lovell and Borman, Gemini VII). As of September 2022, all three Apollo 8 astronauts remain alive.
The mission concluded on March 13 and was a complete success. It proved the LM worthy of crewed spaceflight, setting the stage for the dress rehearsal for the lunar landing, Apollo 10, before the ultimate goal, landing on the Moon.
The Apollo 13 malfunction was caused by an explosion and rupture of oxygen tank no. 2 in the service module. The explosion ruptured a line or damaged a valve in the no. 1 oxygen tank, causing it to lose oxygen rapidly.
According to the 200-page report, Grissom, Chaffee, and White had died of cardiac arrest from inhaling too much carbon monoxide and falling asleep. All three astronauts were gone long before they sustained burns. It was a horrific way to go nonetheless, and the waves of grief affected everyone in the program.
Mattingly's first prime assignment was to be the Command Module Pilot on the Apollo 13 mission. Three days prior to launch, he was removed from the mission due to exposure to German measles (which he never contracted) and was replaced by the backup CM pilot, Jack Swigert.
After orbiting the Moon 31 times, Apollo 10 returned safely to Earth; its success enabled the first crewed landing during Apollo 11 two months later.
The Saturn V was used in the Apollo program in the 1960s and 1970s and was also used to launch the Skylab space station. The Saturn V rocket was 363 feet tall, about the height of a 36-story building, and 60 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty.
Apollo astronauts who walked on the Moon
All landed on the surface only once, and five missions consisted of two or more surface EVAs. Four of them are alive as of January 2023. Most astronauts at that time came from the military services and were considered to be on active duty during their NASA service.
the fire that killed Apollo 1 astronauts Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Edward H. White, and Roger B. Chaffee.
The TLI placed Apollo on a "free-return trajectory" - often illustrated as a figure of eight shape. This course would have harnessed the power of the Moon's gravity to propel the spacecraft back to Earth without the need for more rocket fuel.
As the Apollo 13 crew re-entered the Earth's atmosphere there was a blackout period where they couldn't communicate with mission control. The blackout period was supposed to last three minutes, but it lasted 90 seconds longer, leaving those at mission control unaware if the crew were going to make it home safely.