User:Kees08/List of crewed Apollo missions
Missions and test flights of NASA's Apollo Program / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Apollo program was the third United States human spaceflight program carried out by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which accomplished landing the first humans on the Moon from 1969 to 1972.[1] During the Apollo 11 mission, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed their Apollo Lunar Module (LM) and walked on the lunar surface, while Michael Collins remained in lunar orbit in the command and service module (CSM), and all three landed safely on Earth on July 24, 1969.[2] Five subsequent Apollo missions also landed astronauts on the Moon, the last in December 1972. In these six spaceflights, twelve men walked on the Moon.[3]
Apollo ran from 1961 to 1972, with the first crewed flight in 1968. It achieved its goal of crewed lunar landing, despite the major setback of a 1967 Apollo 1 cabin fire that killed the entire crew during a prelaunch test.[4] After the first landing, sufficient flight hardware remained for nine follow-up landings with a plan for extended lunar geological and astrophysical exploration. Budget cuts forced the cancellation of three of these.[5] Five of the remaining six missions achieved successful landings, but the Apollo 13 landing was prevented by an oxygen tank explosion in transit to the Moon, which damaged the CSM's propulsion and life support. The crew returned to Earth safely by using the Lunar Module as a "lifeboat" for these functions.[6] Apollo used Saturn family rockets as launch vehicles, which were also used for an Apollo Applications Program, which consisted of Skylab, a space station that supported three crewed missions from 1973 through 1974, and the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project, a joint Earth orbit mission with the Soviet Union in 1975.[7]
Apollo set several major human spaceflight milestones. It stands alone in sending crewed missions beyond low Earth orbit.[3] Apollo 8 was the first crewed spacecraft to orbit another celestial body, while the final Apollo 17 mission marked the sixth Moon landing and the ninth crewed mission beyond low Earth orbit. The program returned 842 pounds (382 kg) of lunar rocks and soil to Earth, greatly contributing to the understanding of the Moon's composition and geological history.[8] The program laid the foundation for NASA's subsequent human spaceflight capability. Apollo also spurred advances in many areas of technology incidental to rocketry and crewed spaceflight, including avionics, telecommunications, and computers.[9]
The Apollo program used four types of launch vehicles. The first was the Little Joe II, which was used for uncrewed suborbital launch escape system development.[10] The second is the Saturn I, which was used for uncrewed suborbital and orbital hardware development.[11] The third is the Saturn IB which was used for preparatory uncrewed missions and Apollo 7.[12] Last, the Saturn V which was used for uncrewed and crewed Earth orbit and lunar missions.[13] The Marshall Space Flight Center, which designed the Saturn rockets, referred to the flights as Saturn-Apollo (SA), while Kennedy Space Center referred to the flights as Apollo-Saturn (AS). This is why the uncrewed Saturn I flights are referred to as SA and the uncrewed Saturn IB are referred to as AS.