Apollo program - the amazing years of space conguest

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Years of the best space conguest occured before I was even born. Apollo program occurred between 1963 - 1972. And the main goal of the program was to get human beings to the surface of the Moon.

Credit: NASA
However, the Apollo program started with huge tragedy of loss of 3 astronauts (Apollo 1) occurred on January 27, 1967. They were killer in a fire in the Apollo Command Module during a preflight test. The launch was scheduled on February 21 for the Earth orbiting mission.

Apollo 4, 5, 6 were uncrewed testing missions. You can see that Apollo 2 and 3 are missing. Generally, they were cancelled due to the fire of Apollo 1. They were planned to be manned missions.

Apollo 7 was the first crewed flight launched on October 11, 1968.  The main goal was to test the Command and Service Module.

Apollo 8 launched on December 21, 1968. It was the first mission with manned crew to fly in vicinity of the Moon.

Apollo 9 was launched on March 3, 1969 and the crew tested Lunar Module in the Earth's orbit. They were simulating the basic maneuvers to be ready for the Moon.

Apollo 10 was launched on May 18, 1969. It was the second mission to orbit the Moon and testing the Moon landing, separation and communication. The closest approach was 14 km.

Apollo 11 was launched on July 16, 1969 with landing on the Moon in Mare Tranquilitatis on July 20, 1969 at 20:17:40 UT (universal time). The command module pilot remained in the lunar orbit. The astronauts set up scientific experiments, took lunar samples. The lunar module took off the next day on July 21 and they returned back to the Earth on July 24.

Apollo 12 was launched on November 14, 1969. Among scientific experiments, astronauts checked 3 nearby spacecraft which landed on the Moon 2 and half years earlier.

My personally favourite mission, which brought unexpected problems and the originality of solutions. Apollo 13 was launched on April, 11, 1970. It was supposed to be the third crew landing on the Moon in Fra Mauro but due to the explosion of one oxygen tank and huge damage, the mission was aborted. They have made short orbit around the Moon to get back safely to the Earth April 17, 1970. The mission was also called The Successful Failure. They safely returned on .

Apollo 14 was launched on January 31, 1971 and the lunar landing spot was changed for the previous mission's spot Fra Maura. They took scientific experiments as well.

Apollo 15 was launched  on July 26, 1971. This was the first mission using the lunar roving vehicle getting into distance 5 km from the landing spot.

Apollo 16 was launched on April 16, 1972. They used also the lunar roving vehicle for about 27 km long distance collecting samples.

Apollo 17 was launched on December 7, 1972. It was the last Apollo mission. They have made 30 km with the lunar roving vehicle collecting over 100 kg of samples.

However there were prepared already another 3 missions Apollo 18, 19, and 20, cancelled due to the cutbacks. The future problem of every scientist.

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