Apollo 10 - part 3

Launch Day



Headed for the launch pad, Apollo 10 commander Tom Stafford pats the nose of a stuffed Snoopy held by Jamye Flowers (Coplin), astronaut Gordon Cooper's secretary. Photo Credit: NASA




And again, in slow motion...

Apollo 10 - part 2

Meet the Crew

Gene Cernan : John Young : Tom Stafford

Gene Cernan, whilst paving the way for the first man on the moon, was eventually to be the last man on the Moon.

John Young had flown Gemini, and went on to fly the Apollo Command Module, Apollo Lunar Module and the Space Shuttle. He also drove the Lunar Rover on the Moon.

Tom Stafford flew Gemini, Apollo and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project.


This was the first manned space mission to contain an all-veteran crew - the mission was very challenging and therefore proven, experienced crewmembers were selected to carry it out. This was essentially a dress rehearsal for a Moon landing, and was required to bring Stafford and Cernan's lunar module "Snoopy" to only 8.4 nautical miles (15.6 km) above the lunar surface.

Except for the final descent from 8.4 miles down to the surface, the landing and later Lunar liftoff, the mission was designed to simulate exactly the landing approach, and later Lunar orbit rendezvous after lift-off with the Command Module ("Charlie Brown").

For Mission Control in Houston and Apollo's extensive tracking and control network around the world this crucial, but nonetheless challenging test was intended to form a dry run for a Moon landing mission.

But remember - none of this was routine. Little of it had been done before.

And none of it had been done whilst circling the Moon, a quarter of a million miles away...

Apollo 10 - part 1

Coming soon - Apollo 10


Apollo 10 leaves the VAB behind as it heads towards pad 39B

The Apollo 10 mission was to be the all up test for the first manned Moon landing mission. The crew would do everything the first landing mission would do - except touch down on the Moon.

The key objectives were to be a full test of the Lunar Module in Moon orbit and perhaps the most nerve wracking of all manoeuvres, the rendezvous and docking of the Lunar and Command modules a quarter of a million miles away over the surface of the Moon. As ever, there was no hope of rescue if anything went wrong.

We'll meet the crew in a couple of days, then join us for the launch on May 18th.

Apollo 9 - part 3

Here's a couple more short clips of the Apollo 9 mission. One shows the Command and Service Module, 'Gumdrop', orbiting with the hatch open, allowing EVAs to be performed around the spacecraft. The other features the Lunar Module, 'Spider', being tested in Earth orbit. This mission was the first time a manned 'pure' spacecraft had been tested in space. By that I mean that the Lunar Module had no capacity to serve as a viable re-entry vehicle to Earth. It was built only to operate in space and in a low gravity environment like the Moon.

The astronauts took Spider out to over a hundred miles away from the Command and Service Module, using the Lunar descent engine to travel out, and the Lunar ascent engine to return. The film clearly shows the ascent stage of the LM (minus the LM descent stage with it's landing legs) returning to rendezvous with the CSM. The crew then successfully re-docked with the CSM. That's proper test pilot stuff.

Having rehearsed and proved the major procedures of undocking, free flight, rendezvous and redocking, the next time U.S. astronauts would perform the feat would be a quarter of a million miles away whilst orbiting the Moon.

That test, amongst many others would take place on the Apollo 10 mission, scheduled for May 1969.

Apollo 9 - part 2

Apollo 9 - part 1

Continuing the 40 year retrospective look at the Apollo Moon landing programme:- Coming Soon - Apollo 9!


Launch date is set for March 3rd. This will be the first tests in space of the Lunar Module - which needs to work properly to enable a landing on the Moon, followed of course by a safe return to Earth for the crew. The LEM tests will be carried out in Earth orbit.