175-518: Apollo 10 (May 18–26, 1969) was the fourth human spaceflight in the United States' Apollo program and the second to orbit the Moon . NASA , the mission's operator, described it as a "dress rehearsal" for the first Moon landing ( Apollo 11 , two months later). It was designated an "F" mission , intended to test all spacecraft components and procedures short of actual descent and landing. After
350-473: A chicken coop , and that the particles made them itch and got into the air conditioning system, and they were scraping it off the filter screens for the rest of the mission. This was merely an annoyance, but the particles may have gotten into the docking ring joining the two craft and caused it to misalign slightly. Mission Control determined that this was still within safe limits. After Stafford and Cernan checked out Snoopy , they returned to Charlie Brown for
525-530: A list of mission types , designated by letters, that needed to be flown before a landing attempt, which would be the "G" mission. The early uncrewed flights were considered "A" or "B" missions, while Apollo 7 , the crewed-flight test of the Command and Service Module (CSM), was the "C" mission. The first crewed orbital test of the Lunar Module (LM) was accomplished on Apollo 9 , the "D" mission. Apollo 8 , flown to
700-417: A spacecraft on a LVM 3 rocket and return them safely for a water landing at a predefined landing zone. On 15 August 2018, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi , declared India will independently send humans into space before the 75th anniversary of independence in 2022. In 2019, ISRO revealed plans for a space station by 2030, followed by a crewed lunar mission. The program envisages the development of
875-467: A NASA flight readiness team cleared Apollo 11 to proceed with its scheduled July 1969 flight. On July 16, 1969, the next Saturn V to launch carried the astronauts of Apollo 11: Neil Armstrong , Buzz Aldrin , and Michael Collins. On July 20, Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the Moon, and four days later the three astronauts returned to Earth, fulfilling John F. Kennedy 's challenge to Americans to land astronauts on
1050-402: A Space Task Group to recommend follow-on human spaceflight programs after Apollo. The group proposed an ambitious Space Transportation System based on a reusable Space Shuttle , which consisted of a winged, internally fueled orbiter stage burning liquid hydrogen, launched with a similar, but larger kerosene -fueled booster stage, each equipped with airbreathing jet engines for powered return to
1225-401: A billion people had watched some part of their activities. In June 1969, the crew would accept a special Emmy Award on behalf of the first four Apollo crews for their television broadcasts from space. One slight course correction was necessary; this occurred at 26:32:56.8 into the mission and lasted 7.1 seconds. This aligned Apollo 10 with the trajectory Apollo 11 was expected to take. One issue
1400-634: A central control room he modeled on the one that he had used on the Minuteman project. In November 1965, Phillips personally took a tiger team to North American Aviation (NAA) in Downey, California , the prime contractor for the Apollo Command/Service Module (CSM) and the Saturn V's S-II second stage, to investigate problems of delays, quality shortfalls and cost overruns. On 19 December, he wrote
1575-450: A congratulatory phone call from President Richard Nixon . As they had not made contact with the lunar surface, Apollo 10's crew were not required to quarantine like the first landing crews would be. They were flown to Pago Pago International Airport in Tafuna for a greeting reception, before boarding a C-141 cargo plane to Ellington Air Force Base near Houston . Orbital operations and
1750-693: A few hours before separation of the CM from the SM. The burn lasted about 6.7 seconds. 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). This is because the return trajectory was designed to take only 42 hours rather than the normal 56. The Apollo 10 crew also traveled farther than any humans before or since from their (Houston) homes: 408,950 kilometers (220,820 nmi) (though
1925-568: A fully-autonomous orbital vehicle capable of carrying 2 or 3 crew members to an about 300 km (190 mi) low Earth orbit and bringing them safely back home. Since 2008, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency has developed the H-II Transfer Vehicle cargo-spacecraft-based crewed spacecraft and Kibō Japanese Experiment Module –based small space laboratory. NASA is developing a plan to land humans on Mars by
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#17328690399132100-514: A group of amateur astronomers in the UK started a project to search for it. In June 2019, the Royal Astronomical Society announced a possible rediscovery of Snoopy , determining that small Earth-crossing asteroid 2018 AV 2 is likely to be the spacecraft with "98%" certainty. It is the only once-crewed spacecraft known to still be in outer space without a crew. Snoopy's descent stage
2275-659: A human into orbit independently. The goal of the second phase of CMS was to make technology breakthroughs in extravehicular activities (EVA, or spacewalk), space rendezvous , and docking to support short-term human activities in space. On 25 September 2008 during the flight of Shenzhou 7 , Zhai Zhigang and Liu Boming completed China's first EVA. In 2011, China launched the Tiangong 1 target spacecraft and Shenzhou 8 uncrewed spacecraft. The two spacecraft completed China's first automatic rendezvous and docking on 3 November 2011. About 9 months later, Tiangong 1 completed
2450-737: A launch escape system. The SLA was a mating structure joining the Instrument Unit on the S-IVB stage of the Saturn V launch vehicle and the CSM, and acted as a housing for the LM, while the Launch Escape System (LES) contained rockets to propel the CM to safety if there was an aborted launch. At about 76.99 metric tons, Apollo 10 would be the heaviest spacecraft to reach orbit to that point. Apollo 10 launched from KSC on May 18, 1969, at 12:49:00 EDT (16:49:00 UT), at
2625-472: A lunar orbit of 314.8 by 111.5 kilometers (170.0 by 60.2 nautical miles). This was followed, after two orbits of the Moon, with a 13.9-second firing of the SPS to circularize the orbit to 113.0 by 109.6 kilometers (61.0 by 59.2 nautical miles) at 80:25:08.1. Within the first couple of hours after the initial lunar orbit insertion burn and following the circularization burn, the crew turned to tracking planned landmarks on
2800-451: A memo to NAA president Lee Atwood with a copy of a report of his findings and some recommended fixes, which he also sent to Mueller. Mueller also sent Atwood a follow-on letter strongly expressing his disappointment with the CSM and S-II problems, requiring a response by the end of January 1966 and a follow-on visit of Phillips's team in March. Phillips privately wrote to Mueller recommending that
2975-507: A mere underling. In December 1963, this was accomplished, and Phillips was assigned to NASA. The following month, Phillips wrote to Schriever requesting that Air Force personnel be provided to fill program control positions in the OMSF. The AFSC sent two officers. Phillips then asked for 55 more. Such a large request prompted negotiations between NASA and the Air Force. The United States Secretary of
3150-424: A one-sentence job description: "The flight director may take any actions necessary for crew safety and mission success." CAPCOMs were Duke, Engle, Jack Lousma , and Bruce McCandless II . The command module was given the call sign "Charlie Brown" and the lunar module the call sign "Snoopy". These were taken from the characters in the comic strip, Peanuts , Charlie Brown and Snoopy . These names were chosen by
3325-409: A rest. Then they re-entered Snoopy and undocked it from the CSM at 98:29:20. Young, who remained in the CSM, became the first person to fly solo in lunar orbit. After undocking, Stafford and Cernan deployed the LM's landing gear and inspected the LM's systems. The CSM performed an 8.3-second burn with its RCS thrusters to separate itself from the LM by about 30 feet, after which Young visually inspected
3500-566: A runway at the Kennedy Space Center launch site. Other components of the system included a permanent, modular space station; reusable space tug ; and nuclear interplanetary ferry, leading to a human expedition to Mars as early as 1986 or as late as 2000, depending on the level of funding allocated. However, Nixon knew the American political climate would not support congressional funding for such an ambition, and killed proposals for all but
3675-584: A second pass at ALS-2, when the craft came within 14.4 kilometers (7.8 nautical miles) of the Moon, its closest approach. Reporting on his observations of the site from the LM's low passes, Stafford indicated that ALS-2 seemed smoother than he had expected and described its appearance as similar to the desert surrounding Blythe , California; but he observed that Apollo 11 could face rougher terrain downrange if it approached off-target. Based upon Apollo 10's observations from relatively low altitude, NASA mission planners became comfortable enough with ALS-2 to confirm it as
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#17328690399133850-781: A single manager. Phillips died of cancer in Palos Verdes, California , on 31 January 1990. He was buried in the United States Air Force Academy Cemetery in Colorado Springs, Colorado , with military honors. His papers are in the Library of Congress . Phillips was a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers , and a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics . He
4025-403: A system of "work packages", under which the project was broken down into discrete tasks, each with its own personnel, budget and manager, but this did not resolve all of its problems. In February 1967, Thomas J. Kelly was replaced as project manager by Grumman vice president George F. Titterton , who was sent back from the executive suites to the factory building to manage the project. When
4200-509: A system of design reviews and change control that would give managers both the authority and the information necessary to manage the project. Daily reports were sent to headquarters, where they were kept by a central control room he modeled on the one that he had used on the Minuteman project. The Apollo program's mission was accomplished in July 1969 with the Apollo 11 Moon landing, and Phillips returned to
4375-468: A third, successful attempt at crewed spaceflight. To achieve independent human spaceflight capability, China developed the Shenzhou spacecraft and Long March 2F rocket dedicated to human spaceflight in the next few years, along with critical infrastructures like a new launch site and flight control center being built. The first uncrewed spacecraft, Shenzhou 1 , was launched on 20 November 1999 and recovered
4550-514: Is spaceflight with a crew or passengers aboard a spacecraft , often with the spacecraft being operated directly by the onboard human crew. Spacecraft can also be remotely operated from ground stations on Earth, or autonomously , without any direct human involvement. People trained for spaceflight are called astronauts (American or other), cosmonauts (Russian), or taikonauts (Chinese); and non-professionals are referred to as spaceflight participants or spacefarers . The first human in space
4725-443: Is similar to the gap between the end of Apollo in 1975 and the first Space Shuttle flight in 1981, and is referred to by a presidential Blue Ribbon Committee as the U.S. human spaceflight gap. Since the early 2000s, a variety of private spaceflight ventures have been undertaken. As of November 2024, SpaceX and Boeing have launched humans to orbit, while Blue Origin has launched 8 crewed flights, six of which crossed
4900-485: Is sometimes criticized as imperialist and lacking. In addition to the lack of international inclusion, the inclusion of women and people of color has also been lacking. To make spaceflight more inclusive, organizations such as the Justspace Alliance and IAU -featured Inclusive Astronomy have been formed in recent years. The first woman to ever enter space was Valentina Tereshkova . She flew in 1963, but it
5075-688: The Kibō Japanese Experiment Module and H-II Transfer Vehicle cargo spacecraft. As an alternative to HOPE-X, NASDA in 2001 proposed the Fuji crew capsule for independent or ISS flights, but the project did not proceed to the contracting stage. From 1993 to 1997, the Japanese Rocket Society , Kawasaki Heavy Industries , and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries worked on the proposed Kankoh-maru vertical-takeoff-and-landing single-stage-to-orbit reusable launch system. In 2005, this system
5250-460: The Apollo 1 fire killed three astronauts in a ground test on 27 January 1967, just before what was to have been the first manned Apollo mission, a Congressional investigation uncovered the existence of what came to be known as "the Phillips Report ". NASA Administrator James E. Webb was called before Congress and when questioned by Senator Walter Mondale , he testified that he was unaware of
5425-779: The Army Air Corps , attended flying school and earned his pilot wings . He married Betty Anne Brown, who was also from Cheyenne, at Fort Benning in August 1942. They had three daughters: Dana, Janie, and Kathleen. Phillips was given basic flight training in PT-17 biplanes by civilian instructors at Rankin Field in Tulare, California , and then at Lemoore Army Airfield in Lemoore, California in PT-15 biplanes. This
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5600-620: The Constellation program included plans for retiring the Space Shuttle program and replacing it with the capability for spaceflight beyond low Earth orbit. In the 2011 United States federal budget , the Obama administration canceled Constellation for being over budget and behind schedule, while not innovating and investing in critical new technologies. As part of the Artemis program , NASA is developing
5775-589: The Eighth Air Force 's 364th Fighter Group . After the war he was an electronics officer during Operation Greenhouse nuclear weapon tests at Eniwetok Atoll , and served in project officer assignments with the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress heavy bomber, AIM-4 Falcon air-to-air missile , and Bomarc surface-to-air missile programs. He helped negotiate the agreement with the United Kingdom for
5950-626: The Eighth Air Force . The 364th Fighter Group converted to the North American P-51 Mustang in the summer of 1944. The group's main role was escorting Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombers on long-range bombing missions. Phillips completed two combat tours of duty in the European Theater of Operations . He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross with an oak leaf cluster , Air Medal with seven oak leaf clusters, and
6125-524: The Indian Human Spaceflight Program , India was planning to send humans into space on its orbital vehicle Gaganyaan before August 2022, but it has been delayed to 2024, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) began work on this project in 2006. The initial objective is to carry a crew of two or three to low Earth orbit (LEO) for a 3-to-7-day flight in
6300-769: The International Space Station (ISS). On 15 October 2003, the first Chinese taikonaut, Yang Liwei , went to space as part of Shenzhou 5 , the first Chinese human spaceflight. As of March 2024, humans have not traveled beyond low Earth orbit since the Apollo 17 lunar mission in December 1972. Currently, the United States, Russia, and China are the only countries with public or commercial human spaceflight-capable programs . Non-governmental spaceflight companies have been working to develop human space programs of their own, e.g. for space tourism or commercial in-space research . The first private human spaceflight launch
6475-649: The Kármán line , the 100 kilometres (62 mi) altitude used by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) to denote the edge of space. In 1961, US President John F. Kennedy raised the stakes of the Space Race by setting the goal of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth by the end of the 1960s. That same year, the US began the Apollo program of launching three-man capsules atop
6650-525: The Kármán line . Virgin Galactic has launched crew to a height above 80 km (50 mi) on a suborbital trajectory. Several other companies, including Sierra Nevada and Copenhagen Suborbitals , have developed crewed spacecraft. SpaceX, Boeing, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic plan to fly commercial passengers in the emerging space tourism market. SpaceX has developed Crew Dragon flying on Falcon 9 . It first launched astronauts to orbit and to
6825-451: The Lynx single-passenger spaceplane since the 2000s, but development was halted in 2017. Participation and representation of humanity in space has been an issue ever since the first phase of space exploration. Some rights of non-spacefaring countries have been secured through international space law , declaring space the " province of all mankind ", though the sharing of space by all humanity
7000-640: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Instrumentation Laboratory . They each spent more than 300 hours in simulators of the CM or LM at the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC) in Houston and at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. To train for the high-acceleration conditions they would experience in returning to Earth's atmosphere, they endured MSC's centrifuge. While Apollo 10 was meant to follow
7175-691: The Orion spacecraft to be launched by the Space Launch System . Under the Commercial Crew Development plan, NASA relies on transportation services provided by the private sector to reach low Earth orbit, such as SpaceX Dragon 2 , the Boeing Starliner or Sierra Nevada Corporation 's Dream Chaser . The period between the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2011 and the first launch into space of SpaceShipTwo Flight VP-03 on 13 December 2018
Apollo 10 - Misplaced Pages Continue
7350-525: The Saturn family of launch vehicles . In 1962, the US began Project Gemini , which flew 10 missions with two-man crews launched by Titan II rockets in 1965 and 1966. Gemini's objective was to support Apollo by developing American orbital spaceflight experience and techniques to be used during the Moon mission. Meanwhile, the USSR remained silent about their intentions to send humans to the Moon and proceeded to stretch
7525-472: The Sea of Tranquillity , the contemplated landing site for Apollo 11. According to Stafford, Our flight was to take the first lunar module to the moon. We would take the lunar module, go down to within about ten miles above the moon, nine miles above the mountains, radar map, photo map, pick out the first landing site, do the first rendezvous around the moon, pick out some future landing sites, and come home. Apollo 10
7700-508: The Shuguang spacecraft. Nineteen PLAAF pilots were selected for this goal in March 1971. The Shuguang-1 spacecraft, to be launched with the CZ-2A rocket, was designed to carry a crew of two. The program was officially canceled on 13 May 1972 for economic reasons. In 1992, under China Manned Space Program (CMS), also known as "Project 921", authorization and funding was given for the first phase of
7875-589: The Space Shuttle era, and the first American space mission whose crew were all spaceflight veterans. The backup crew for Apollo 10 was L. Gordon Cooper Jr as commander, Donn F. Eisele as command module pilot, and Edgar D. Mitchell as lunar module pilot. By the normal crew rotation in place during Apollo, Cooper, Eisele, and Mitchell would have flown on Apollo 13 , but Cooper and Eisele never flew again. Deke Slayton , Director of Flight Crew Operations, felt that Cooper did not train as hard as he could have. Eisele
8050-450: The Tianhe core module , was launched into orbit by China's most powerful rocket Long March 5B on 29 April 2021. It was later visited by multiple cargo and crewed spacecraft and demonstrated China's capability of sustaining Chinese astronauts' long-term stay in space. According to CMS announcement, all missions of Tiangong Space Station are scheduled to be carried out by the end of 2022. Once
8225-618: The University of Michigan in 1950. Phillips returned to England in 1956, where he served with the 7th Air Division of the Strategic Air Command . He participated in the negotiation of the agreement with the United Kingdom for the deployment and use of the American Thor nuclear-armed intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), which earned him the Legion of Merit . He returned to
8400-670: The deployment and use of the American Thor nuclear-armed intermediate-range ballistic missiles . In 1958, he was assigned to the Air Force Ballistic Missile Division of the Air Research and Development Command , as the Director of the Minuteman Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) Program. As such, he oversaw the first deployments of Minuteman missiles in 1962. In 1964, Phillips
8575-651: The test flight phase of their development process. One large spaceliner concept currently in early development is the SpaceX Starship , which, in addition to replacing the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch vehicles in the legacy Earth-orbit market after 2020, has been proposed by SpaceX for long-distance commercial travel on Earth, flying 100+ people suborbitally between two points in under one hour, also known as "Earth-to-Earth". Small spaceplane or small capsule suborbital spacecraft have been under development for
8750-682: The 1978 flight of Vladimir Remek. As of 2010 , citizens from 38 nations (including space tourists ) have flown in space aboard Soviet, American, Russian, and Chinese spacecraft. Human spaceflight programs have been conducted by the Soviet Union–Russian Federation, the United States, Mainland China , and by American private spaceflight companies. The following space vehicles and spaceports are currently used for launching human spaceflights: The following space stations are currently maintained in Earth orbit for human occupation: Most of
8925-548: The 2030s. The first step has begun with Artemis I in 2022, sending an uncrewed Orion spacecraft to a distant retrograde orbit around the Moon and returning it to Earth after a 25-day mission. SpaceX is developing Starship , a fully reusable two-stage system, with near-Earth and cislunar applications and an ultimate goal of landing on Mars. The upper stage of the Starship system, also called Starship, has had 9 atmospheric test flights as of September 2021. The first test flight of
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#17328690399139100-693: The Air Force , Eugene M. Zuckert , agreed to consider the request, subject to NASA providing position statements so that he could ensure that the work would benefit their careers. The Air Force agreed that it would provide officers for tours of duty lasting at least three years. Phillips ultimately requested and received the assignment of 128 more officers, most of whom were based at the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC) in Houston, Texas . The officers assigned included Brigadier General David M. Jones , who became his deputy; Colonel Edmund F. O'Connor , as director of MSFC Industrial Operations; Colonel Samuel Yarchin, who became
9275-712: The Air Force Systems Command in Los Angeles. In August 1972, he was appointed the seventh Director of the National Security Agency (DIRNSA) and the Chief of the Central Security Service . After two years in those positions, he was assigned as the commander of the Air Force Systems Command at Andrews Air Force Base , Maryland , in August 1973. He retired from the Air Force in 1975 as a general. In
9450-471: The Air Force. Phillips was born on 19 February 1921 in Springerville, Arizona , where his father was an electrician, and his mother was a schoolteacher. He was the oldest of six children; he had three brothers and two sisters. He attended public schools in Denver, Colorado , and Cheyenne, Wyoming , where he graduated from Cheyenne High School in 1938. He was interested in electricity and electrical equipment, and acquired an amateur radio license. There
9625-545: The American portion of the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project , which flew in July 1975. He commanded the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards Air Force Base in California, and retired in November 1979 as a lieutenant general . Young commanded the Apollo 16 lunar landing mission flown in April 1972. From 1974 to 1987, Young served as Chief Astronaut, commanding the STS-1 (1981) and STS-9 (1983) Space Shuttle missions in April 1981 and November 1983, respectively, and retired from NASA's Astronaut Corps in 2004. Gene Cernan commanded
9800-476: The Apollo 13 crew was 200 km farther away from Earth as a whole). While most Apollo missions orbited the Moon at 111 kilometers (60 nmi) from the lunar surface, the distance between the Earth and Moon varies by about 43,000 kilometers (23,000 nmi), between perigee and apogee , throughout each lunar month, and the Earth's rotation makes the distance to Houston vary by at most another 11,000 kilometers (5,900 nmi) each day. The Apollo 10 crew reached
9975-470: The Apollo 13 crew. The crew was switched to Apollo 14 , which saw Shepard and Mitchell walk on the Moon. For projects Mercury and Gemini , a prime and a backup crew had been designated, but for Apollo, a third group of astronauts, known as the support crew, was also designated. Slayton created the support crews early in the Apollo program on the advice of McDivitt, who would lead Apollo 9. McDivitt believed that, with preparation going on in facilities across
10150-499: The Apollo Program Manager, listened to the arguments on both sides and decided that having a dress rehearsal was crucial. On November 13, 1968, NASA announced the crew members of Apollo 10. Thomas P. Stafford, the commander, was 38 years old at the time of the mission. A 1952 graduate of the Naval Academy , he was commissioned in the Air Force . Selected for the second group of astronauts in 1962, he flew as pilot of Gemini 6A (1965) and command pilot of Gemini 9A (1966). John Young,
10325-420: The CSM completed its 31st orbit of the Moon, they returned safely to Earth. While NASA had considered attempting the first crewed lunar landing on Apollo 10, mission planners ultimately decided that it would be prudent to have a practice flight to hone the procedures and techniques. The crew encountered some problems during the flight: pogo oscillations during the launch phase and a brief, uncontrolled tumble of
10500-410: The CSM from the S-IVB stage, turning around, and docking its nose to the top of the lunar module (LM), before separating from the S-IVB. Apollo 10 was the first mission to carry a color television camera inside the spacecraft, and mission controllers in Houston watched as Young performed the maneuver. Soon thereafter, the large television audience was treated to color views of the Earth. One problem that
10675-475: The CSM was placed atop the launch vehicle on February 6, 1969. The completed space vehicle was rolled out to Launch Complex 39B on March 11, 1969—the fact that it had been assembled in the VAB's High Bay 2 (the first time it had been used) required the crawler to exit the rear of the VAB before looping around the building and joining the main crawlerway , proceeding to the launch pad. This rollout, using Mobile Launch Platform-3 (MLP-3), happened eight days after
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#173286903991310850-417: The CSM. The mission-loaded LM weighed 13,941 kilograms (30,735 lb), compared to 15,095 kilograms (33,278 lb) for the Apollo 11 LM which made the first landing. Additionally, the software necessary to guide the LM to a landing was not available at the time of Apollo 10. Craig Nelson wrote in his book Rocket Men that NASA took special precaution to ensure Stafford and Cernan would not attempt to make
11025-423: The Earth and Moon from the crew's vantage point. Cernan reported later that he and his crewmates became the first to "successfully shave in space" during the return trip, using a safety razor and thick shaving gel , as such items had been deemed a safety hazard and prohibited on earlier flights. The crew fired the engine of the CSM for the only mid-course-correction burn required during the return trip at 188:49:58,
11200-444: The Earth's atmosphere, its remnants scattering in the Pacific Ocean. After translunar injection , the Saturn V's S-IVB third stage was accelerated past Earth escape velocity to become space debris ; as of 2020, it remains in a heliocentric orbit. The ascent stage of the Lunar Module Snoopy was jettisoned into a heliocentric orbit. Snoopy' s ascent stage orbit was not tracked after 1969, and its whereabouts were unknown. In 2011,
11375-441: The Engineering Division at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base , Ohio ; duty as an electronics officer with the nuclear weapons experiments at Eniwetok Atoll during Operation Greenhouse ; and in project officer assignments with the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress heavy bomber, the AIM-4 Falcon air-to-air missile , and the Bomarc surface-to-air missile programs. He earned a Master of Science degree in electrical engineering from
11550-409: The French Croix de Guerre . After the war, Phillips was assigned to the European Theater headquarters in Frankfurt , West Germany , where he served on the G-1 staff, which was responsible for personnel, and was headed by Major General James M. Brevans. In July 1947, he was transferred to Langley Air Force Base , Virginia . Phillips's research and development assignments included six years with
11725-513: The ISS in May 2020 as part of the Demo-2 mission. Developed as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Development program, the capsule is also available for flights with other customers. A first tourist mission, Inspiration4 , launched in September 2021. Boeing developed the Starliner capsule as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Development program, which is launched on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V launch vehicle. Starliner made an uncrewed flight in December 2019. A second uncrewed flight attempt
11900-438: The LM ascent stage in lunar orbit during its solo flight. However, the mission accomplished its major objectives. Stafford and Cernan observed and photographed Apollo 11's planned landing site in the Sea of Tranquility . Apollo 10 spent 61 hours and 37 minutes orbiting the Moon, for about eight hours of which Stafford and Cernan flew the LM apart from Young in the CSM, and about eight days total in space. Additionally, Apollo 10 set
12075-450: The LM from the CSM. The CSM performed another separation burn, this time separating the two spacecraft by about 3.7 kilometers (2 nautical miles). The LM crew then performed the descent orbit insertion maneuver by firing their descent engine for 27.4 seconds at 99:46:01.6, and tested their craft's landing radar as they approached the 15,000-meter (50,000-foot) altitude where the subsequent Apollo 11 mission would begin powered descent to land on
12250-419: The Moon 31 times over the span of about 61 hours and 37 minutes. During their journey back to Earth, the crew performed some observational activities which included star-Earth horizon sightings for navigation. The crew also performed a scheduled test to gauge the reflectivity of the CSM's high-gain antenna and broadcast six television transmissions of varying durations to show views inside the spacecraft and of
12425-418: The Moon and return them safely to Earth by the end of the 1960s. In July 1969, Stafford replaced Alan Shepard as Chief Astronaut , and then became deputy director of Flight Crew Operations under Deke Slayton. In his memoirs, Stafford wrote that he could have put his name back in the flight rotation, but wanted managerial experience. In 1972, Stafford was promoted to brigadier general and assigned to command
12600-403: The Moon to obtain readings from seismometers placed nearby on the surface, with two exceptions: Apollo 13's ascent stage, which the crew used as a "life boat" to get safely back to Earth before releasing it to burn up in Earth's atmosphere, and Apollo 16 's, which NASA lost control of after jettison. After ejecting the LM ascent stage, the crew slept and performed photography and observation of
12775-410: The Moon's orbit without an LM, was considered a "C-prime" mission, but its success gave NASA the confidence to skip the "E" mission, which would have tested the full Apollo spacecraft in medium or high Earth orbit. Apollo 10, the dress rehearsal for the lunar landing, was to be the "F" mission. NASA considered skipping the "F" mission as well and attempting the first lunar landing on Apollo 10. Some with
12950-411: The Moon, and sent Frank Borman , James Lovell , and William Anders into 10 orbits around the Moon in Apollo 8 in December 1968. In 1969, Apollo 11 accomplished Kennedy's goal by landing Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Moon on 21 July and returning them safely on 24 July, along with Command Module pilot Michael Collins . Through 1972, a total of six Apollo missions landed 12 men to walk on
13125-422: The Moon, half of which drove electric powered vehicles on the surface. The crew of Apollo 13 — Jim Lovell , Jack Swigert , and Fred Haise —survived an in-flight spacecraft failure, they flew by the Moon without landing, and returned safely to Earth. During this time, the USSR secretly pursued crewed lunar orbiting and landing programs . They successfully developed the three-person Soyuz spacecraft for use in
13300-430: The Moon, the prominence of the number represents the contributions the mission made to the Apollo program. A CSM circles the Moon as an LM ascent stage flies up from its low pass over the lunar surface with its engine firing. The Earth is visible in the background. On the mission patch, a wide, light blue border carries the word APOLLO at the top and the crew names around the bottom. The patch is trimmed in gold. The insignia
13475-475: The Moon. Previously, the LM's landing radar had only been tested under terrestrial conditions. While the LM executed these maneuvers, Young monitored the location and status of the LM from the CSM, standing by to rescue the LM crew if necessary. Cernan and Stafford surveyed ALS-2, coming within 15.6 kilometers (8.4 nautical miles) of the surface at a point 15 degrees to its east, then performed a phasing burn at 100:58:25.93, thrusting for just under 40 seconds to allow
13650-642: The Russian Federal Space Agency, which became known as the Roscosmos State Corporation . The Shuttle-Mir Program included American Space Shuttles visiting the Mir space station, Russian cosmonauts flying on the Shuttle, and an American astronaut flying aboard a Soyuz spacecraft for long-duration expeditions aboard Mir . In 1993, President Bill Clinton secured Russia's cooperation in converting
13825-475: The S-IVB third stage was slightly heavier, all three stages could carry a greater weight of propellant, and the S-II second stage generated more thrust than that of Apollo 9. The Apollo spacecraft for the Apollo 10 mission was composed of Command Module 106 (CM-106), Service Module 106 (SM-106, together with the CM known as CSM-106), Lunar Module 4 (LM-4), a spacecraft-lunar module adapter (SLA), numbered as SLA-13A, and
14000-406: The Shuttle, possibly to be followed by the space station. Plans for the Shuttle were scaled back to reduce development risk, cost, and time, replacing the piloted fly-back booster with two reusable solid rocket boosters , and the smaller orbiter would use an expendable external propellant tank to feed its hydrogen-fueled main engines . The orbiter would have to make unpowered landings. In 1973,
14175-466: The U.S., meetings that needed a member of the flight crew would be missed. Support crew members were to assist as directed by the mission commander. Usually low in seniority, they assembled the mission's rules, flight plan , and checklists, and kept them updated. For Apollo 10, they were Joe Engle , James Irwin , and Charles Duke . Flight directors were Gerry Griffin , Glynn Lunney , Milt Windler , and Pete Frank . Flight directors during Apollo had
14350-637: The US launched the Skylab sortie space station and inhabited it for 171 days with three crews ferried aboard an Apollo spacecraft. During that time, President Richard Nixon and Soviet general secretary Leonid Brezhnev were negotiating an easing of Cold War tensions known as détente . During the détente, they negotiated the Apollo–Soyuz program, in which an Apollo spacecraft carrying a special docking adapter module would rendezvous and dock with Soyuz 19 in 1975. The American and Soviet crews shook hands in space, but
14525-547: The US's reusable Space Shuttle orbiter , which they called Buran -class orbiter or simply Buran , which was designed to be launched into orbit by the expendable Energia rocket, and was capable of robotic orbital flight and landing. Unlike the Space Shuttle, Buran had no main rocket engines, but like the Space Shuttle orbiter, it used smaller rocket engines to perform its final orbital insertion. A single uncrewed orbital test flight took place in November 1988. A second test flight
14700-487: The US. China was the third nation in the world, after the USSR and US, to send humans into space. During the Space Race between the two superpowers, which culminated with Apollo 11 landing humans on the Moon, Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai decided on 14 July 1967 that China should not be left behind, and initiated their own crewed space program: the top-secret Project 714, which aimed to put two people into space by 1973 with
14875-575: The United States in 1958, and was assigned to the Air Force Ballistic Missile Division of the Air Research and Development Command, in Los Angeles, California , as the Director of the Minuteman Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) program. He was promoted to brigadier general in April 1961. This made him the youngest general officer in the US armed forces at the time. In July 1960, Phillips froze
15050-868: The University of Wyoming in June 1963. On 26 September 1971, Phillips was awarded the Smithsonian Institution 's Langley Gold Medal in aviation and space exploration for his contributions to the Apollo Program from 1964 to 1969. He was the 14th recipient of the Langley Medal since the award was first presented to the Wright Brothers in 1909. In April 1971, he was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering for his leadership and his direction of
15225-542: The University of Wyoming, where the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) was compulsory, Phillips was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the infantry . He sat a competitive examination for a regular commission, and was accepted. By the time he graduated, the United States had entered World War II . He then entered active military service, and in June 1942 went to Fort Benning, Georgia , where he received infantry officer training. He transferred to
15400-417: The abort guidance system; it was to be moved as part of the procedure, but both of the crew members switched it, thus returning it to the original position. Had they fired Snoopy in the wrong direction, they might have missed the rendezvous with Charlie Brown or crashed into the Moon. Once Stafford had regained control of the LM ascent stage, which took about eight seconds, the pair fired the ascent engine at
15575-404: The agency advocated this, feeling it senseless to bring astronauts so close to the lunar surface, only to turn away. Although the lunar module intended for Apollo 10 was too heavy to perform the lunar mission, the one intended for Apollo 11 could be substituted by delaying Apollo 10 a month from its May 1969 planned launch. NASA official George Mueller favored a landing attempt on Apollo 10 ; he
15750-467: The astronauts with the approval of Charles Schulz , the strip's creator, who was uncertain it was a good idea, since Charlie Brown was always a failure. The choice of names was deemed undignified by some at NASA, as were the choices for Apollo 9's CM and LM ("Gumdrop" and "Spider"). Public relations chief Julian Scheer urged a change for the lunar landing mission. But for Apollo 10, according to Cernan, "The P.R.-types lost this one big-time, for everybody on
15925-675: The command module pilot, was 38 years old and a commander in the Navy at the time of Apollo 10. A 1952 graduate of Georgia Tech who entered the Navy after graduation and became a test pilot in 1959, he was selected as a Group 2 astronaut alongside Stafford. He flew in Gemini 3 with Gus Grissom in 1965, becoming the first American not of the Mercury Seven to fly in space. Young thereafter commanded Gemini 10 (1966), flying with Michael Collins . Eugene Cernan,
16100-699: The construction is completed, Tiangong will enter the application and development phase, which is poised to last for no less than 10 years. The European Space Agency began development of the Hermes shuttle spaceplane in 1987, to be launched on the Ariane 5 expendable launch vehicle. It was intended to dock with the European Columbus space station . The projects were canceled in 1992 when it became clear that neither cost nor performance goals could be achieved. No Hermes shuttles were ever built. The Columbus space station
16275-453: The construction of which took place from 1986 to 1996. Mir orbited at an altitude of 354 kilometers (191 nautical miles), at an orbital inclination of 51.6°. It was occupied for 4,592 days and made a controlled reentry in 2001. The Space Shuttle started flying in 1981, but the US Congress failed to approve sufficient funds to make Space Station Freedom a reality. A fleet of four shuttles
16450-459: The crew during the mission, generated some complaints back on Earth. Stafford discarded the descent stage about five seconds after the tumbling began and fought to regain control manually, suspecting that there might have been an "open thruster", or a thruster stuck firing. He did so in time to orient the spacecraft to rejoin Charlie Brown . The problem was traced to a switch controlling the mode of
16625-399: The crew encountered was bad-tasting food, as Stafford apparently used a double dose of chlorine in their drinking water, which had to be placed in their dehydrated food to reconstitute it. At 75:55:54 into the mission, 176.1 kilometers (95.1 nautical miles) above the far side of the Moon, the CSM's service propulsion system (SPS) engine was fired for 356.1 seconds to slow the spacecraft into
16800-405: The crew might have landed, having gotten so close. They might have wanted to, but it was impossible for that lunar module to land. It was an early design that was too heavy for a lunar landing, or, to be more precise, too heavy to be able to complete the ascent back to the command module. It was a test module, for the dress rehearsal only, and that was the way it was used. The descent stage of the LM
16975-431: The decades, a number of spacecraft have been proposed for spaceliner passenger travel. Somewhat analogous to travel by airliner after the middle of the 20th century, these vehicles are proposed to transport large numbers of passengers to destinations in space, or on Earth via suborbital spaceflights . To date, none of these concepts have been built, although a few vehicles that carry fewer than 10 persons are currently in
17150-507: The delivery of nuclear weapons , producing rockets large enough to be adapted to carry the first artificial satellites into low Earth orbit . After the first satellites were launched in 1957 and 1958 by the Soviet Union, the US began work on Project Mercury , with the aim of launching men into orbit. The USSR was secretly pursuing the Vostok program to accomplish the same thing, and launched
17325-511: The deputy director of the Saturn V Project Office; and Colonel Carroll H. Bolender, who became the Apollo mission director. Phillips was promoted to the rank of major general in February 1964. Phillips aggressively took on the job with constant daily meetings, phone contact, and visits to contractor sites which kept him on the road 75 per cent of the time. He described the job to New York Times reporter John Noble Wilford this way: I'm at
17500-565: The design of Minuteman, precluding further design changes, even though he knew that its range was 1,000 miles (1,600 km) short of its specified requirement. It was estimated that it would take between six months and a year of further development to achieve this. Given a choice between meeting the specification and meeting the schedule, he chose the latter. In 1962, the first Minuteman missiles were based at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana , from whence they could still reach their targets even with
17675-563: The dog was also appropriate since, in the comic strip, Snoopy had journeyed to the Moon the year before, thus defeating, according to Schulz, "the Americans, the Russians, and that stupid cat next door". The shield-shaped mission insignia shows a large, three-dimensional Roman numeral X sitting on the Moon's surface, in Stafford's words, "to show that we had left our mark". Although it did not land on
17850-425: The equator on the near side". Richard Orloff and David M. Harland , in their sourcebook on Apollo, stated that "the descent stage was left in the low orbit, but perturbations by ' mascons ' would have caused this to decay, sending the stage to crash onto the lunar surface". NASA reports Multimedia Human spaceflight Human spaceflight (also referred to as manned spaceflight or crewed spaceflight )
18025-474: The existence of the report. He only found out about it from Phillips and Mueller after the hearing. However, Congress found no fault with Phillips's management system. Webb now insisted that NAA remove Storms, and he was replaced by William D. Bergen. The fire led Phillips to institute stricter measures to ensure quality and safety. Safety offices were established at every NASA field center in September 1967, and
18200-702: The farthest point in their orbit around the far side of the Moon at about the same time Earth's rotation put Houston nearly a full Earth diameter farther away. At 191:33:26, the CM (which contained the crew) separated from the SM in preparation for reentry , which occurred about 15 minutes later at 191:48:54.5. Splashdown of the CM occurred about 15 minutes after reentry in the Pacific Ocean about 740 kilometres (400 nmi) east of American Samoa on May 26, 1969, at 16:52:23 UTC and mission elapsed time 192:03:23. The astronauts were recovered by USS Princeton . They spent about four hours aboard, during which they took
18375-474: The final Apollo lunar mission, Apollo 17, flown in December 1972. Cernan retired from NASA and the Navy as a captain in 1976. The Smithsonian has been accountable for the command module Charlie Brown since 1970. The spacecraft was on display in several countries until it was placed on loan to the London Science Museum in 1978. Charlie Brown' s SM was jettisoned just before re-entry and burned up in
18550-498: The first American in orbit, aboard Friendship 7 on a Mercury-Atlas rocket . The USSR launched five more cosmonauts in Vostok capsules , including the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova , aboard Vostok 6 on 16 June 1963. Through 1963, the US launched a total of two astronauts in suborbital flights and four into orbit. The US also made two North American X-15 flights ( 90 and 91 , piloted by Joseph A. Walker ), that exceeded
18725-430: The first human into space, the cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin . On 12 April 1961, Gagarin was launched aboard Vostok 1 on a Vostok 3KA rocket and completed a single orbit. On 5 May 1961, the US launched its first astronaut , Alan Shepard , on a suborbital flight aboard Freedom 7 on a Mercury-Redstone rocket . Unlike Gagarin, Shepard manually controlled his spacecraft's attitude . On 20 February 1962, John Glenn became
18900-496: The first landing. Nelson quoted Cernan as saying "A lot of people thought about the kind of people we were: 'Don't give those guys an opportunity to land, 'cause they might!' So the ascent module, the part we lifted off the lunar surface with, was short-fueled. The fuel tanks weren't full. So had we literally tried to land on the Moon, we couldn't have gotten off." Mueller, NASA's Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight, stated, There had been some speculation about whether or not
19075-429: The first manual rendezvous and docking with Shenzhou 9 , which carried China's first female astronaut Liu Yang . In September 2016, Tiangong 2 was launched into orbit. It was a space laboratory with more advanced functions and equipment than Tiangong 1 . A month later, Shenzhou 11 was launched and docked with Tiangong 2 . Two astronauts entered Tiangong 2 and were stationed for about 30 days, verifying
19250-415: The first spacewalk, but overcame the early Soviet lead by performing several spacewalks, solving the problem of astronaut fatigue caused by compensating for the lack of gravity, demonstrating the ability of humans to endure two weeks in space, and performing the first space rendezvous and docking of spacecraft. The US succeeded in developing the Saturn V rocket necessary to send the Apollo spacecraft to
19425-584: The first woman to enter space through the United States program.Since then, eleven other countries have allowed women astronauts. The first all-female spacewalk occurred in 2018, by Christina Koch and Jessica Meir . These two women had both participated in separate spacewalks with NASA. The first mission to the Moon with a woman aboard is planned for 2024. Despite these developments, women are still underrepresented among astronauts and especially cosmonauts. More than 600 people have flown in space but only 75 have been women. Issues that block potential applicants from
19600-668: The following month the MSC created the Spacecraft Incident Investigation and Reporting Panel. The design of the first CSM and LM was frozen in October 1967, except for essential changes, which had to be approved by the MSC senior management board. Software changes were also restricted in February 1968. By this time, Phillips felt that restrictions had gone too far, and in October managers were permitted to approve minor changes, although any affecting schedules still had to be approved by
19775-484: The fully integrated two-stage system occurred in April 2023. A modified version of Starship is being developed for the Artemis program . Samuel C. Phillips Samuel Cochran Phillips (19 February 1921 – 31 January 1990) was a United States Air Force general who served as Director of NASA 's Apollo program from 1964 to 1969, as commander of the Space and Missile Systems Organization (SAMSO) from 1969 to 1972, as
19950-418: The launch of Apollo 9, while that mission was still in orbit. The launch vehicle for Apollo 10 was a Saturn V, designated AS-505, the fifth flight-ready Saturn V to be launched and the third to take astronauts to orbit. The Saturn V differed from that used on Apollo 9 in having a lower dry weight (without propellant) in its first two stages, with a significant reduction to the interstage joining them. Although
20125-465: The launch was slipped one day to May 18, to allow for a better view of ALS-3, to the west of ALS-2. Another deviation from the plans for Apollo 11 was that Apollo 10 was to spend an additional day in lunar orbit once the CSM and LM rendezvoused; this was to allow time for additional testing of the LM's systems, as well as for photography of possible future Apollo landing sites. The Apollo 10 astronauts undertook five hours of formal training for each hour of
20300-415: The level which knows all the things you have to know to make a major decision. Below the program director, there isn't anyone who has the whole picture. Above the program director, the men have so many other responsibilities. Through the institution of common procedures, documentation and terminology, Phillips hoped to prevent potentially catastrophic failures and oversights, and to head off criticism from
20475-485: The limits of their single-pilot Vostok capsule by adapting it to a two or three-person Voskhod capsule to compete with Gemini. They were able to launch two orbital flights in 1964 and 1965 and achieved the first spacewalk , performed by Alexei Leonov on Voskhod 2 , on 8 March 1965. However, the Voskhod did not have Gemini's capability to maneuver in orbit, and the program was terminated. The US Gemini flights did not achieve
20650-415: The lowest point of the LM's orbit, mimicking the orbital insertion maneuver after launch from the lunar surface in a later landing mission. Snoopy coasted on that trajectory for about an hour before firing the engine once more to further fine-tune its approach to Charlie Brown . Snoopy rendezvoused with and re-docked with Charlie Brown at 106:22:02, just under eight hours after undocking. The docking
20825-399: The lunar module pilot, was a 35-year-old commander in the Navy at the time of Apollo 10. A 1952 graduate of Purdue University , he entered the Navy after graduation. Selected for the third group of astronauts in 1963, Cernan flew with Stafford on Gemini 9A before his assignment to Apollo 10. With five prior flights among them, the Apollo 10 crew was the most experienced to reach space until
21000-528: The lunar programs, but failed to develop the N1 rocket necessary for a human landing, and discontinued their lunar programs in 1974. Upon losing the Moon race they concentrated on the development of space stations , using the Soyuz as a ferry to take cosmonauts to and from the stations. They started with a series of Salyut sortie stations from 1971 to 1986. In 1969, Nixon appointed his vice president, Spiro Agnew , to head
21175-428: The lunar surface below. About an hour after the second burn, the LM crew of Stafford and Cernan entered the LM to check out its systems. They were met with a blizzard of fiberglass particles from the earlier problem, which they cleaned up with a vacuum cleaner as best they could. Stafford had to help Cernan remove smaller bits from his hair and eyebrows. Stafford later commented that Cernan looked like he just came out of
21350-522: The lunar surface from orbit. Though the crew located 18 landmarks on the surface and took photographs of various surface features, crew fatigue necessitated the cancellation of two scheduled television broadcasts. Thereafter, the main Service Propulsion System engine of the CSM re-ignited for about 2.5 minutes to set Apollo 10 on a trajectory towards Earth, achieving such a trajectory at 137:39:13.7. As it departed lunar orbit, Apollo 10 had orbited
21525-425: The many pieces of the Apollo program together and making them work on time. During the Apollo 11 mission in July 1969 which achieved the program's manned landing goal, Phillips announced his intention to leave NASA and return to Air Force duty. During his NASA service, he was promoted to lieutenant general . In September 1969, Phillips assumed command of the Space and Missile Systems Organization (SAMSO), of
21700-631: The media, Congress and the Government Accountability Office . An important step was the issuance of the Apollo Configuration Management Manual in 1964, which was largely copied from the AFSC's manual. Phillips proposed a system of design reviews and change control that would give managers both the authority and the information necessary to manage the project. Daily reports were sent to headquarters, where they were kept by
21875-531: The mission's eight-day duration. This was in addition to the normal mission preparations such as technical briefings, pilot meetings and study. They took part in the testing of the CSM at the Downey , California, facility of its manufacturer, North American Rockwell , and of the LM at Grumman in Bethpage , New York. They visited Cambridge , Massachusetts, for briefings on the Apollo Guidance Computer at
22050-407: The next day, marking the first step of the realization of China's human spaceflight capability. Three more uncrewed missions were conducted in the next few years in order to verify the key technologies. On 15 October 2003 Shenzhou 5 , China's first crewed spaceflight mission, put Yang Liwei in orbit for 21 hours and returned safely back to Inner Mongolia , making China the third nation to launch
22225-589: The only Apollo flight to launch from that pad and the only one to be controlled from its Firing Room 3. Problems that arose during the countdown were dealt with during the built-in holds, and did not delay the mission. On the day before launch, Cernan had been stopped for speeding while returning from a final visit with his wife and child. Lacking identification and under orders to tell no one who he was, Cernan later attested in his autobiography that he had feared being arrested. Launch pad leader Gunther Wendt , who had pulled over nearby after recognizing Cernan, explained
22400-520: The past decade or so; as of 2017 , at least one of each type is under development. Both Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin have craft in active development : the SpaceShipTwo spaceplane and the New Shepard capsule, respectively. Both would carry approximately a half-dozen passengers up to space for a brief time of zero gravity before returning to the launch location. XCOR Aerospace had been developing
22575-461: The planet knew the klutzy kid and his adventuresome beagle, and the names were embraced in a public relations bonanza." Apollo 11's call signs were "Columbia" for the command module and "Eagle" for the lunar module. Snoopy, Charlie Brown's dog, was chosen for the call sign of the lunar module since it was to "snoop" around the landing site, with Charlie Brown given to the command module as Snoopy's companion. Snoopy had been associated for some time with
22750-541: The planned Space Station Freedom into the International Space Station (ISS). Construction of the station began in 1998. The station orbits at an altitude of 409 kilometers (221 nmi) and an orbital inclination of 51.65°. Several of the Space Shuttle's 135 orbital flights were to help assemble, supply, and crew the ISS. Russia has built half of the International Space Station and has continued its cooperation with
22925-638: The president of NAA's Space and Information Systems Division, Harrison Storms , be replaced. Atwood brought Robert Greer , a retired Air Force major general, in to manage the S-II project at NAA. Phillips was also concerned about cost and schedule overruns at Grumman , which was building the Apollo Lunar Module (LM), and he sent a management review team headed by Wesley L. Hjornevik to Grumman headquarters in Bethpage, New York . The review team found fault with Grumman's management and procedures. Grumman adopted
23100-620: The president of the Military Benefit Association. Phillips was awarded the Air Force Distinguished Service Medal in September 1969 for his service with NASA, and again in July 1972 for his service as the Commander of SAMSO. He also was awarded two NASA Distinguished Service Medals by that agency, in 1968 and 1969, for his leadership of the Apollo program, and he was given an honorary LL.D. degree from
23275-433: The procedures of a lunar landing mission to the point of powered descent, Apollo 10's LM was not capable of landing and returning to lunar orbit. The ascent stage was loaded with the amount of fuel and oxidizer it would have had remaining if it had lifted off from the surface and reached the altitude at which the Apollo 10 ascent stage fired; this was only about half the total amount required for lift off and rendezvous with
23450-473: The program controller in the Office of Manned Space Flight (OMSF). Although Schriever was reluctant to part with one of his top ICBM project managers, he considered that the Air Force's Dyna-Soar and Manned Orbiting Laboratory programs could benefit from NASA experience. He agreed to Phillips's secondment to NASA, but only on the condition that Phillips was hired as the director of the Apollo program rather than as
23625-438: The programs, and limit the space missions they are able to go on, are, for example: Sally Ride became the first American woman in space, in 1983. Eileen Collins was the first female Shuttle pilot, and with Shuttle mission STS-93 in 1999 she became the first woman to command a U.S. spacecraft. For many years, the USSR (later Russia) and the United States were the only countries whose astronauts flew in space. That ended with
23800-429: The purpose of the flight was purely symbolic. The two nations continued to compete rather than cooperate in space, as the US turned to developing the Space Shuttle and planning the space station, which was dubbed Freedom . The USSR launched three Almaz military sortie stations from 1973 to 1977, disguised as Salyuts. They followed Salyut with the development of Mir , the first modular, semi-permanent space station,
23975-494: The record for the highest speed attained by a crewed vehicle: 39,897 km/h (11.08 km/s or 24,791 mph) on May 26, 1969, during the return from the Moon. The mission's call signs were the names of the Peanuts characters Charlie Brown for the CSM and Snoopy for the LM, who became Apollo 10's semi-official mascots. Peanuts creator Charles Schulz also drew mission-related artwork for NASA. By 1967, NASA had devised
24150-548: The reduced range. The increased range was achieved in time for the second Minuteman wing to be equipped with the longer-range version. He also decided, on his own authority, to install field maintenance points on the missile so maintenance could be performed in the field. This was contrary to the original design, but based on his experience with the B-52, Phillips believed that it was necessary. In 1963, George E. Mueller , NASA 's incoming Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight,
24325-436: The rendezvous and landing radars of the LM were operational in lunar orbit, and that the two spacecraft could be adequately monitored by personnel on Earth. Additionally, the precision of lunar orbital navigation improved with Apollo 10 and, combined with data from Apollo 8, NASA expected that it had achieved a level of precision sufficient to execute the first crewed lunar landing. After about two weeks of Apollo 10 data analysis,
24500-587: The senior management board. With the Apollo project moving again, but seriously behind schedule, Phillips prevailed upon Webb to authorize sending Apollo 8 on a mission to orbit the Moon. At a small dinner party before the launch of Apollo 10 in May 1969, Wernher von Braun , the director of the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama , praised Phillips as the one most responsible for pulling
24675-708: The seventh Director of the National Security Agency from 1972 to 1973, and as commander of the Air Force Systems Command from 1973 to 1975. A 1942 graduate of the University of Wyoming , Phillips was commissioned in the Army through the Reserve Officers Training Corps . He transferred to the Army Air Corps , qualified as a fighter pilot, and flew two tours of duty in World War II with
24850-449: The situation to the police officer, who then released Cernan despite the officer's skepticism that Cernan was an astronaut. The crew experienced a somewhat rough ride on the way to orbit due to pogo oscillations . About 12 minutes after liftoff, the spacecraft entered a low Earth orbit with a high point of 185.79 kilometers (100.32 nautical miles) and a low point of 184.66 kilometers (99.71 nautical miles). All appeared to be normal during
25025-405: The solo maneuvering of the LM in partial descent to the lunar surface paved the way for the successful Apollo 11 lunar landing by demonstrating the capabilities of the mission hardware and systems. The crew demonstrated that the checkout procedures of the LM and initial descent and rendezvous could be accomplished within the allotted time, that the communication systems of the LM were sufficient, that
25200-435: The space program, with workers who performed in an outstanding manner awarded silver " Snoopy pins ", and Snoopy posters were seen at NASA facilities, with the cartoon dog having traded in his World War I aviator's headgear for a space helmet. Stafford stated that, given the pins, "the choice of Snoopy [as call sign] was a way of acknowledging the contributions of the hundreds of thousands of people who got us there". The use of
25375-404: The spacecraft reached lunar orbit, astronaut John Young remained in the Command and Service Module (CSM) while astronauts Thomas Stafford and Gene Cernan flew the Apollo Lunar Module (LM) to within 14.4 kilometers (7.8 nmi) of the lunar surface , the point at which powered descent for landing would begin on a landing mission. After four orbits they rejoined Young in the CSM and, after
25550-403: The start of a 4.5-hour launch window . The launch window was timed to secure optimal lighting conditions at Apollo Landing Site 2 at the time of the LM's closest approach to the site days later. The launch followed a countdown that had begun at 21:00:00 EDT on May 16 (01:00:00 UT on May 17). Because preparations for Apollo 11 had already begun at Pad 39A, Apollo 10 launched from Pad 39B, becoming
25725-476: The suggestion of scientist-astronaut Harrison Schmitt , the launch of Apollo 10 had been postponed a day so ALS-2 could be photographed under proper conditions. ALS-2 was chosen as the lunar landing site since it was relatively smooth, of scientific interest, and ALS-1 was deemed too far to the east. Thus, when Apollo 10's launch date was announced on January 10, 1969, it was shifted from its placeholder date of May 1 to May 17, rather than to May 16. On March 17, 1969,
25900-420: The surface below to record observations and take photographs. In addition to ALS-1, ALS-2, and ALS-3, the crew of Apollo 10 observed and photographed features on the near and far sides of the Moon, including the craters Coriolis , King , and Papaleksi . Shortly after the circularization burn, the crew partook in a scheduled half-hour color-television broadcast with descriptions and video transmissions of views of
26075-511: The systems review period in Earth orbit, and the crew restarted the S-IVB third stage to achieve trans-lunar injection (TLI) and send them towards the Moon. The vehicle shook again while executing the TLI burn, causing Cernan to be concerned that they might have to abort. However, the TLI burn was completed without incident. Young then performed the transposition, docking, and extraction maneuver, separating
26250-509: The target site for Apollo 11. The next action was to prepare to separate the LM ascent stage from the descent stage, to jettison the descent stage, and fire the Ascent Propulsion System to return the ascent stage towards the CSM. As Stafford and Cernan prepared to do so, the LM began to gyrate out of control. Alarmed, Cernan exclaimed, "Son of a bitch!" into a hot mic being broadcast live, which, combined with other language used by
26425-470: The time, the only humans in space are those aboard the ISS, which generally has a crew of 7, and those aboard Tiangong, which generally has a crew of 3. NASA and ESA use the term "human spaceflight" to refer to their programs of launching people into space. These endeavors have also formerly been referred to as "manned space missions", though this is no longer official parlance according to NASA style guides, which call for gender-neutral language . Under
26600-420: The viability of astronauts' medium-term stay in space. In April 2017, China's first cargo spacecraft, Tianzhou 1 docked with Tiangong 2 and completed multiple in-orbit propellant refueling tests, which marked the successful completion of the second phase of CMS. The third phase of CMS began in 2020. The goal of this phase is to build China's own space station, Tiangong . The first module of Tiangong ,
26775-408: The wake of the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster , NASA Administrator James C. Fletcher asked Phillips to lead a team to report on NASA's management. Phillips found that it had decayed since the days of Project Apollo, with the centers asserting their independence. He recommended strengthening NASA headquarters' control, and placing both the Space Shuttle and Space Station Freedom under
26950-444: Was Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin , who launched as part of the Soviet Union's Vostok program on 12 April 1961 at the beginning of the Space Race . On 5 May 1961, Alan Shepard became the first American in space, as part of Project Mercury . Humans traveled to the Moon nine times between 1968 and 1972 as part of the United States' Apollo program , and have had a continuous presence in space for 24 years and 26 days on
27125-503: Was a Civil Aeronautics Authority radio station at the airport, which was not far from Cheyenne High School, and Phillips learned about radio and aviation there. He secured a scholarship to the University of Wyoming , where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering in 1942. He was a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity. During his summer break in 1941, he earned his private pilot license . On graduation from
27300-508: Was a suborbital flight on SpaceShipOne on June 21, 2004. The first commercial orbital crew launch was by SpaceX in May 2020, transporting NASA astronauts to the ISS under United States government contract. Human spaceflight capability was first developed during the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union (USSR). These nations developed intercontinental ballistic missiles for
27475-439: Was blackballed because of incidents during Apollo 7, which he had flown as CMP and which had seen conflict between the crew and ground controllers; he had also been involved in a messy divorce. Slayton only assigned the two as backups because he had few veteran astronauts available. Cooper and Eisele were replaced by Alan Shepard and Stuart Roosa respectively. Feeling they needed additional training time, George Mueller rejected
27650-417: Was built: Columbia , Challenger , Discovery , and Atlantis . A fifth shuttle, Endeavour , was built to replace Challenger , which was destroyed in an accident during launch that killed 7 astronauts on 28 January 1986. From 1983 to 1998, twenty-two Shuttle flights carried components for a European Space Agency sortie space station called Spacelab in the Shuttle payload bay. The USSR copied
27825-417: Was confronted by projects with large cost overruns and scheduling slippages that threatened the Apollo program 's goal of putting a man on the Moon by the end of the decade. Congress accepted that this would be very expensive, and was willing to pay the price to win the Space race , but took a dim view of repeated requests for additional funding simply because of NASA's poor forecasting. Mueller thought this
28000-520: Was delivered to KSC on October 11, 1968, and the ascent stage arrived five days later. They were mated on November 2. The Service Module (SM) and Command Module (CM) arrived on November 24 and were mated two days later. Portions of the Saturn V launch vehicle arrived during November and December 1968, and the complete launch vehicle was erected in the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) on December 30. After being tested in an altitude chamber,
28175-416: Was designed by Allen Stevens of Rockwell International . Apollo 10, the "F" mission or dress rehearsal for the lunar landing, had as its primary objectives to demonstrate crew, space vehicle and mission support facilities performance during a crewed mission to lunar orbit, and to evaluate the performance of the lunar module there. In addition, it was to attempt photography of Apollo Landing Site 2 (ALS-2) in
28350-443: Was due to poor management skills; NASA had expanded rapidly, and its engineers had not worked on projects as large as Apollo. Mueller had worked for Ramo-Wooldridge on the Minuteman project, and he was aware of how Phillips had managed its schedule and costs, although they had not worked together. Mueller asked the head of the Air Force Systems Command (AFSC), General Bernard Schriever , if Phillips could be seconded to NASA as
28525-502: Was encountered was that the mylar cover of the CM's hatch had pulled loose, spilling quantities of fiberglass insulation into the tunnel, and then into both the CM and LM. The S-IVB was fired by ground command and sent into solar orbit with a period of 344.88 days. The crew settled in for the voyage to the Moon. They had a light workload, and spent much of their time studying the flight plan or sleeping. They made five more television broadcasts back to Earth, and were informed that more than
28700-626: Was followed by advanced training at Williams Army Airfield in Arizona in the P-322, a training version of the Lockheed P-38 Lightning . He was then assigned to the 364th Fighter Group , which was successively based at Glendale Airport , Van Nuys Airport , Ontario Army Airfield and Santa Maria Army Air Field in California, before moving to the UK, where it was based at RAF Honington as part of
28875-402: Was jettisoned in lunar orbit; its current location is unknown, though it may have eventually crashed into the Moon as a result of orbital decay. Phil Stooke, a planetary scientist who studied the lunar crash sites of the LM's ascent stages, wrote that the descent stage "crashed at an unknown location", and another source stated that the descent stage "eventually impact(ed) within a few degrees of
29050-422: Was known for his aggressive approach to moving the Apollo program forward. However, Director of Flight Operations Christopher C. Kraft and others opposed this, feeling that new procedures would have to be developed for a rendezvous in lunar orbit and that NASA had incomplete information regarding the Moon's mass concentrations , which might throw off the spacecraft's trajectory. Lieutenant General Sam Phillips ,
29225-669: Was launched in May 2022. A crewed flight to fully certify Starliner was launched in June 2024. Similar to SpaceX, development funding has been provided by a mix of government and private funds. Virgin Galactic is developing SpaceshipTwo , a commercial suborbital spacecraft aimed at the space tourism market. It reached space in December 2018. Blue Origin is in a multi-year test program of their New Shepard vehicle and has carried out 16 uncrewed test flights as of September 2021, and one crewed flight carrying founder Jeff Bezos , his brother Mark Bezos , aviator Wally Funk , and 18-year old Oliver Daemen on July 20, 2021. Over
29400-481: Was not until the 1980s that another woman entered space. At the time, all astronauts were required to be military test pilots; women were not able to enter this career, which is one reason for the delay in allowing women to join space crews. After the rules were changed, Svetlana Savitskaya became the second woman to enter space; she was also from the Soviet Union . Sally Ride became the next woman to enter space and
29575-511: Was planned by 1993, but the program was canceled due to lack of funding and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Two more orbiters were never completed, and the one that performed the uncrewed flight was destroyed in a hangar roof collapse in May 2002. The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 brought an end to the Cold War and opened the door to true cooperation between the US and Russia. The Soviet Soyuz and Mir programs were taken over by
29750-621: Was proposed for space tourism. According to a press release from the Iraqi News Agency dated 5 December 1989, there was only one test of the Al-Abid space launcher, which Iraq intended to use to develop its own crewed space facilities by the end of the century. These plans were put to an end by the Gulf War of 1991 and the economic hardships that followed. Under the George W. Bush administration,
29925-524: Was reconfigured as the European module of the same name on the International Space Station. Japan ( NASDA ) began the development of the HOPE-X experimental shuttle spaceplane in the 1980s, to be launched on its H-IIA expendable launch vehicle. A string of failures in 1998 led to funding reductions, and the project's cancellation in 2003 in favor of participation in the International Space Station program through
30100-409: Was seconded to NASA as the director of the Apollo program. He brought in Air Force personnel to fill project management positions, and instituted common procedures, documentation and terminology, to prevent potentially catastrophic failures and oversights. An Apollo Configuration Management Manual was issued in 1964, which was largely copied from the Air Force Systems Command's manual. Phillips proposed
30275-639: Was selected for a fellowship by that organization in October 1969 for "notable and valuable contributions to sciences and technology." In addition, Phillips was a fellow of the American Astronautical Society ; an honorary member of the national business fraternity, Alpha Kappa Psi ; a member of the Board of Governors of the "National Space Club"; a member of the board of directors of the United Services Automobile Association , and
30450-492: Was telecast live in color from the CSM. Once Cernan and Stafford had re-entered Charlie Brown , Snoopy was sealed off and separated from Charlie Brown. The rest of the LM's ascent-stage engine fuel was burned to send it on a trajectory past the Moon and into a heliocentric orbit . It was the only Apollo LM to meet this fate. The Apollo 11 ascent stage would be left in lunar orbit to crash randomly, while ascent stages of later Apollo mission (12, 14, 15 and 17) were steered into
30625-513: Was to adhere as closely as possible to the plans for Apollo 11, including its trajectory to and from lunar orbit, the timeline of mission events, and even the angle of the Sun at ALS-2. However, no landing was to be attempted. ALS-1, given that number because it was the furthest to the east of the candidate sites, and also located in the Sea of Tranquility, had been extensively photographed by Apollo 8 astronauts; at
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