The Apollo program,also known as Project Apollo,was the United States human spaceflight program carried out by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA),which succeeded in preparing and landing the first men on the Moon from 1968 to 1972. It was first conceived in 1960 during President Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration as a three-person spacecraft to follow the one-person Project Mercury,which put the first Americans in space. Apollo was later dedicated to President John F. Kennedy's national goal for the 1960s of "landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" in an address to Congress on May 25,1961. It was the third US human spaceflight program to fly,preceded by the two-person Project Gemini conceived in 1961 to extend spaceflight capability in support of Apollo.
Skylab was the United States' first space station,launched by NASA,occupied for about 24 weeks between May 1973 and February 1974. It was operated by three trios of astronaut crews:Skylab 2,Skylab 3,and Skylab 4. Operations included an orbital workshop,a solar observatory,Earth observation and hundreds of experiments. Skylab's orbit eventually decayed and it disintegrated in the atmosphere on July 11,1979,scattering debris across the Indian Ocean and Western Australia.
The Apollo Lunar Module,originally designated the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM),was the lunar lander spacecraft that was flown between lunar orbit and the Moon's surface during the United States' Apollo program. It was the first crewed spacecraft to operate exclusively in the airless vacuum of space,and remains the only crewed vehicle to land anywhere beyond Earth.
Apollo 4,also known as SA-501,was the uncrewed first test flight of the Saturn V launch vehicle,the rocket that eventually took astronauts to the Moon. The space vehicle was assembled in the Vehicle Assembly Building,and was the first to be launched from Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida,ascending from Launch Complex 39,where facilities built specially for the Saturn V had been constructed.
Apollo 5,also known as AS-204,was the uncrewed first flight of the Apollo Lunar Module (LM) that would later carry astronauts to the surface of the Moon. The Saturn IB rocket bearing the LM lifted off from Cape Kennedy on January 22,1968. The mission was successful,though due to programming problems an alternate mission to that originally planned was executed.
Apollo 6,also known as AS-502,was the third and final uncrewed flight in the United States' Apollo Program and the second test of the Saturn V launch vehicle. It qualified the Saturn V for use on crewed missions,and it was used beginning with Apollo 8 in December 1968.
AS-201,flown February 26,1966,was the first uncrewed test flight of an entire production Block I Apollo command and service module and the Saturn IB launch vehicle. The spacecraft consisted of the second Block I command module and the first Block I service module. The suborbital flight was a partially successful demonstration of the service propulsion system and the reaction control systems of both modules,and successfully demonstrated the capability of the command module's heat shield to survive re-entry from low Earth orbit.
AS-203 was an uncrewed flight of the Saturn IB rocket on July 5,1966. It carried no command and service module,as its purpose was to verify the design of the S-IVB rocket stage restart capability that would later be used in the Apollo program to boost astronauts from Earth orbit to a trajectory towards the Moon. It achieved its objectives,but the stage was inadvertently destroyed after four orbits.
AS-202 was the second uncrewed,suborbital test flight of a production Block I Apollo command and service module launched with the Saturn IB launch vehicle. It was launched on August 25,1966,and was the first flight which included the spacecraft guidance,navigation control system and fuel cells. The success of this flight enabled the Apollo program to judge the Block I spacecraft and Saturn IB ready to carry men into orbit on the next mission,AS-204.
The Apollo spacecraft was composed of three parts designed to accomplish the American Apollo program's goal of landing astronauts on the Moon by the end of the 1960s and returning them safely to Earth. The expendable (single-use) spacecraft consisted of a combined command and service module (CSM) and an Apollo Lunar Module (LM). Two additional components complemented the spacecraft stack for space vehicle assembly:a spacecraft–LM adapter (SLA) designed to shield the LM from the aerodynamic stress of launch and to connect the CSM to the Saturn launch vehicle and a launch escape system (LES) to carry the crew in the command module safely away from the launch vehicle in the event of a launch emergency.
The Saturn IB(also known as the uprated Saturn I) was an American launch vehicle commissioned by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for the Apollo program. It uprated the Saturn I by replacing the S-IV second stage,with the S-IVB. The S-IB first stage also increased the S-I baseline's thrust from 1,500,000 pounds-force (6,700,000 N) to 1,600,000 pounds-force (7,100,000 N) and propellant load by 3.1%. This increased the Saturn I's low Earth orbit payload capability from 20,000 pounds (9,100 kg) to 46,000 pounds (21,000 kg),enough for early flight tests of a half-fueled Apollo command and service module (CSM) or a fully fueled Apollo Lunar Module (LM),before the larger Saturn V needed for lunar flight was ready.
The S-II was the second stage of the Saturn V rocket. It was built by North American Aviation. Using liquid hydrogen (LH2) and liquid oxygen (LOX) it had five J-2 engines in a quincunx pattern. The second stage accelerated the Saturn V through the upper atmosphere with 1,000,000 pounds-force (4.4 MN) of thrust.
Apollo abort modes were procedures by which the nominal launch of an Apollo spacecraft,either the Saturn IB or Saturn V rocket,could be terminated. The abort of the flight allowed for the rescue of the crew if the rocket failed catastrophically. Depending on how far the flight had progressed,different procedure or modes would be used. In the history of the Apollo Program,none of the abort modes were ever used on any of the fifteen crewed Apollo spacecraft flights.
The Apollo Applications Program (AAP) was created as early as 1966 by NASA headquarters to develop science-based human spaceflight missions using hardware developed for the Apollo program. AAP was the ultimate development of a number of official and unofficial Apollo follow-on projects studied at various NASA labs. However,the AAP's ambitious initial plans became an early casualty when the Johnson Administration declined to support it adequately,partly in order to implement its Great Society set of domestic programs while remaining within a $100 billion budget. Thus,Fiscal Year 1967 ultimately allocated $80 million to the AAP,compared to NASA's preliminary estimates of $450 million necessary to fund a full-scale AAP program for that year,with over $1 billion being required for FY 1968. The AAP eventually led to Skylab,which absorbed much of what had been developed under Apollo Applications.
The S-IB stage was the first stage of the Saturn IB launch vehicle,which was used for Earth orbital missions. It was an upgraded version of the S-I stage used on the earlier Saturn I rocket and was composed of nine propellant containers,eight fins,a thrust structure assembly,eight H-1 rocket engines,and many other components. It also contained the ODOP transponder. The propellant containers consisted of eight Redstone-derived tanks clustered around a Jupiter rocket-derived tank containing LOX. The four outboard engines gimballed to steer the rocket in flight,which required a few more engine components. The S-IB burned for nearly 2.5 minutes before separating at an altitude of 42 miles (68 km).
A wet workshop is a space station made from a spent liquid-propellant rocket stage. Such a rocket stage contains two large,airtight propellant tanks;it was realized that the larger tank could be retrofitted into the living quarters of a space station,while the smaller one could be used for the storage of waste. A large rocket stage would reach a low Earth orbit and undergo later modification. This would make for a cost-effective reuse of hardware that would otherwise have no further purpose,but the in-orbit modification of the rocket stage could prove difficult and expensive. As of April 2024,no wet-workshop space station has been built or flown.
Several planned missions of the Apollo crewed Moon landing program of the 1960s and 1970s were canceled,for reasons which included changes in technical direction,the Apollo 1 fire,hardware delays,and budget limitations. After the landing by Apollo 12,Apollo 20,which would have been the final crewed mission to the Moon,was canceled to allow Skylab to launch as a "dry workshop". The next two missions,Apollos 18 and 19,were later canceled after the Apollo 13 incident and further budget cuts. Two Skylab missions also ended up being canceled. Two complete Saturn V rockets remained unused and were put on display in the United States.
The Earth Departure Stage (EDS) is the name given to the proposed second stage of the Block 2 Space Launch System. The EDS is intended to boost the rocket's payload into a parking orbit around the Earth and from there send the payload out of low Earth orbit to its destination in a manner similar to that of the S-IVB rocket stage used on the Saturn V rockets that propelled the Apollo spacecraft to the Moon. Its development has been put on hold until stages capable of transferring heavy payloads to Mars are required.
The Saturn V is a retired American super heavy-lift launch vehicle developed by NASA under the Apollo program for human exploration of the Moon. The rocket was human-rated,had three stages,and was powered by liquid fuel. Flown from 1967 to 1973,it was used for nine crewed flights to the Moon,and to launch Skylab,the first American space station.
