Apollo

The final visit to the Moon by humans in the 20th Century was aboard Apollo 17 in December 1972.

Veteran astronaut John Young took command of NASA’s next moonshot, Apollo 16, which launched from Florida on April 16, 1972.

The Apollo 15 mission to the Moon was the first to carry transport in the form of the Lunar Roving Vehicle, or Moon buggy.

An explosion in space aboard Apollo 13, more than 300,000 km from home raised fears that its crew would be lost in space and never come home.

The Apollo 14 mission to the Moon did not fly until January 1971 after modifications were made to the Service Module to avoid an accident such as had hit Apollo 13 from happening again.

America’s second crewed mission to the lunar surface got off to a dramatic start when the Saturn V rocket carrying Apollo 12 was twice hit by lightning as it climbed into the sky.

The culmination of America’s lunar space programme came in July, 1969, with the Apollo 11 mission. For the first time in history, humans set foot on the surface of the Moon.

In May 1969, another Saturn V rocket launched the next mission in the series, Apollo 10. This was the final … Continue reading

Apollo 9 was the next flight to help prepare for a Moon landing and also the first crewed mission to … Continue reading

Apollo 8 blasted into space two months after Apollo 7’s flight, this time hoisted by a giant Saturn V rocket.

The first Apollo mission to carry a human crew was numbered Apollo 7. It was also the first U.S. spaceflight … Continue reading

In recent decades, astronauts have been confined to Earth orbit, but history was made when they made their greatest adventure … Continue reading