Curated category
Apollo program
- Earth orbit rendezvousEarth orbit rendezvous is a method for conducting round trip human flights to the Moon. It involves using space rendezvous to assemble and possibly fuel…
- AS-105Engineers constructed the BP-9A boilerplate spacecraft to mimic the weight and shape of a real Apollo command module. This dummy vessel lacked life support…
- AS-203On the 5th of July 1966, an uncrewed Saturn IB rocket lifted off from Cape Kennedy. This flight carried no command and service module.
- Apollo programIn early 1960, NASA manager Abe Silverstein named the new spacecraft program Apollo after the Greek god who rode his chariot across the Sun.
- Lost MoonApril 1970 marked the third attempt to land men on the Moon. The Apollo program had already achieved two successful landings before this mission began.
- Lunar Receiving LaboratoryThe Lunar Receiving Laboratory opened its doors in 1969 with a single, terrifying goal. Scientists feared that the Moon might harbor unknown pathogens…
- Apollo Applications ProgramNASA headquarters established the Apollo Applications Program in 1966 to keep its workforce employed after the Moon landing.
- S-IVThe S-IV stage carried six RL-10A-3 engines into the sky. Each engine provided 150,000 pounds of thrust. Together they generated a total force of about…
- Vehicle Assembly BuildingOn the 2nd of August 1963, construction crews drove the first steel foundation pile into the Florida bedrock. This single action marked the beginning of a…
- Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39In 1948, the Navy transferred the former Banana River Naval Air Station to the Air Force for testing captured German V-2 rockets.
- Lunar orbit rendezvousUkrainian engineer Yuri Kondratyuk wrote a proposal in 1919 that changed how humanity might reach the Moon. He argued for sending a main spacecraft and a…
- EarthriseOn the 24th of December 1968, astronaut William Anders held a camera during the Apollo 8 mission. This was the first crewed voyage to orbit the Moon.
- Thomas J. Kelly (aerospace engineer)Thomas Joseph Kelly was born on the 14th of June 1929 in Brooklyn, New York. He grew up in Merrick, a middle-class neighborhood where parents compared their…
- Christopher C. Kraft Jr. Mission Control CenterIn 1960, the first Mercury Control Center opened at the Cape Canaveral Missile Test Annex in Florida. This facility sat inside the Engineering Support…
- Michoud Assembly FacilityAndrew Jackson Higgins directed the construction of a massive industrial complex in 1940 at the village of Michoud, Louisiana.
- S-IIIn December 1959, a committee recommended the design and construction of a high-thrust liquid hydrogen fueled engine. The contract for this engine went to…
- Saturn IBIn 1959, the Silverstein Committee issued recommendations to develop a new class of launch vehicles. NASA chose the Saturn I for early Earth orbital test…
- Taurus–LittrowThe Taurus, Littrow valley formed between 3.8 and 3.9 billion years ago when a massive object struck the Moon. This collision created the Serenitatis basin…
- The Blue MarbleHarrison Schmitt stood inside the Apollo 17 spacecraft on the 7th of December 1972. He held a Hasselblad camera with an 80-millimeter Zeiss lens.
- S-ICBoeing received the contract to build the S-IC stage on the 15th of December 1961. Engineers at the Marshall Space Flight Center had already decided on the…
- S-IVBThe deadline for proposals to build the upper stage of a new rocket was the 29th of February 1960. Eleven companies submitted bids to NASA with hopes of…
- Saturn IWernher von Braun's team at the U.S. Army Ballistic Missile Agency began studying a heavy-lift vehicle in April 1957. They calculated that a rocket with the…
- We choose to go to the MoonOn the 12th of April 1961, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space. This event occurred before the United States could launch its first…
- Stolen and missing Moon rocksIn 1998, a federal undercover operation known as Operation Lunar Eclipse began to identify and arrest individuals selling counterfeit Moon rocks.
- AS-101The Saturn I launch vehicle carried its first boilerplate Apollo spacecraft into low Earth orbit on the 28th of May 1964.
- Direct ascentDirect ascent is a method of landing a spacecraft on the Moon or another planetary surface directly. This strategy avoids first assembling the vehicle in…
- Harrison StormsHarrison Allen Storms, Jr. grew up in Wilmette on Chicago's North Shore during the 1920s and 1930s. His father worked as a traveling salesman while young…
- Wernher von BraunWernher von Braun was born on the 23rd of March 1912, in the small town of Wirsitz within the Province of Posen. His father served as Minister of Agriculture…
- Saturn I SA-1The Saturn I SA-1 rocket stood three times taller than the Juno I vehicle that had launched Explorer 1 into orbit in 1958.
- A-001A-001 was the second abort test of the Apollo spacecraft. This mission aimed to prove that the launch escape system could safely remove the command module…
- Abe SilversteinAbraham Silverstein entered the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in 1925. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering by 1929.
- Trans-lunar injectionA spacecraft performs a trans-lunar injection burn to leave its circular parking orbit around Earth. This large propulsive maneuver uses a chemical rocket…
- Boilerplate (spaceflight)A boilerplate spacecraft is a nonfunctional craft or payload that serves as a mass simulator for testing launch vehicle configurations.