Apollo 8
| Mission Insignia | |
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| Mission Statistics | |
| Mission Name: | Apollo 8 |
| Call Sign: | Command module: Apollo 8 |
| Number of Crew: | 3 |
| Launch: | December 21, 1969 12:51:00 UTC Kennedy Space Center LC 39A |
| Lunar Orbit: | Dec 24 09:59:20 UTC- Dec 25 06:10:16 UTC |
| Landing: | December 27, 1969 15:51:42 UTC 8° 6' N — 165° 1' W
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| Duration: | 147 h 00 min 42 s |
| Number of Lunar Orbits: | 10 |
| Time in Lunar Orbit: | 20 h 10 min 13.0 s |
| Mass: | CSM 28,817 kg; LTA 9,026 kg |
| Crew Picture | |
 Apollo 8 crew portrait (L-R: Lovell, Anders and Borman) | |
| Apollo 8 Crew | |
Apollo 8 was a manned mission of the Apollo space program. Apollo 8 was the first mission that carried humans beyond Earth orbit, and the first time anyone was closer to another celestial body than they were to Earth.
| Table of contents |
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2 Mission Parameters 3 Mission Highlights 4 External link |
After orbiting Earth, the spacecraft orbited the Moon and then returned safely. Apollo 8 was originally meant to have been like the Apollo 9 mission, an Earth orbital test. However, it was moved up to a lunar flight on only the second Apollo manned mission and without the safety of having the redundant systems of a lunar module (if the Apollo 13 malfunction had occurred on Apollo 8 the crew would have died). The reason was that it was becoming clear the Soviets were trying to preempt the first lunar flyby with their Zond program, which aimed to fly a stripped down Soyuz on a Proton rocket carrying 1-2 Cosmonauts. A partially successful unmanned test was carried out in September 1968. This is the one that alarmed NASA into redesignating the Apollo 8 mission on short notice.
Crew
Mission Parameters
See also
Mission Highlights
The Apollo 8 astronauts were the first human beings to venture beyond low Earth orbit and visit another world. What was originally to have been an EarthÃÂorbit checkout of the lunar lander became instead a race with the Soviets to become the first nation to orbit the Moon. The Apollo 8 crew rode inside the command module, with no lunar lander attached. They were the first astronauts to be launched by the Saturn V, which had flown only twice before. The booster worked perfectly, as did the SPS engines that had been checked out on Apollo 7. Apollo 8 entered lunar orbit on the morning of December 24, 1968. For the next 20 hours the astronauts circled the Moon, which appeared out their windows as a gray, battered wasteland. They took photographs, scouted future landing sites, and on Christmas Eve read from the Book of Genesis to TV viewers back on Earth. They also photographed the first Earthrise as seen from the Moon. Apollo 8 proved the ability to navigate to and from the Moon, and gave a tremendous boost to the entire Apollo program.
Mission notes:
The command module is displayed at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago, Illinois. No lunar module was used.
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Reference
- NASA NSSDC Master Catalog
- APOLLO BY THE NUMBERS: A Statistical Reference by Richard W. Orloff (NASA)
| Preceded by : Apollo 7 |
Apollo program | Followed by : Apollo 9 |
External link