Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
As the spacecraft rapidly approached Earth on the final day of the mission, the Apollo 10 crew traveled faster than any humans before or since, relative to Earth: 39,897 km/h (11.08 km/s or 24,791 mph). [81] [82] This is because the return trajectory was designed to take only 42 hours rather than the normal 56. [83]
The first three lunar missions (Apollo 8, Apollo 10, and Apollo 11) used a free return trajectory, keeping a flight path coplanar with the lunar orbit, which would allow a return to Earth in case the SM engine failed to make lunar orbit insertion. Landing site lighting conditions on later missions dictated a lunar orbital plane change, which ...
Launch Complex 39B was designed to handle launches of the Saturn V rocket, the largest and most powerful launch vehicle, which would propel Apollo spacecraft to the Moon. Launch Complex 39B's inaugural launch in May 1969 was also that of the only Saturn V to launch from the pad; SA-505, used to launch the Apollo 10 mission.
Thomas P. Stafford, an Oklahoma-born astronaut who made history with the Gemini and Apollo space projects, died Monday. He was 93. While Stafford never stepped foot on the lunar surface, his role ...
Launch of AS-506 space vehicle on July 16, 1969, at pad 39A for mission Apollo 11 to land the first men on the Moon. The Apollo program was a United States human spaceflight program carried out from 1961 to 1972 by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which landed the first astronauts on the Moon. [1]
In the spring of 1968, Deke Slayton announced that the previous backup crew for Apollo 2 would become the primary crew for Apollo 10. In preparation for the mission, Stafford helped design a color camera to replace the grainy black-and-white video broadcast before from space; he felt that public outreach was a vital aspect of the mission. [7]
LCC has conducted launches since the unmanned Apollo 4 (Apollo-Saturn 501) launch on November 9, 1967. LCC's first launch with a human crew was Apollo 8 on December 21, 1968. NASA's Space Shuttle program also used LCC. NASA has renovated the center for Space Launch System (SLS) missions, which began in 2022 with Artemis 1.
To support the final Shuttle mission to the Hubble Space Telescope STS-125 launched from pad 39A in May 2009, Endeavour was placed on 39B if needed to launch the STS-400 rescue mission. After the completion of STS-125 , 39B was converted to launch the single test flight of the Constellation Program Ares I-X on October 28, 2009. [ 44 ]