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Successful space missions

  • AS-203AS-203 ended in an explosion, and NASA still called the 1966 rocket flight a success.
  • Apollo 11Apollo 11's computer flashed alarms minutes before the Moon landing. Mission Control was told it was safe to continue.
  • Apollo 12Apollo 12 was struck by lightning twice in its first minute. Every warning light lit up.
  • Apollo 7Apollo 7's commander refused to let his crew wear helmets for reentry. Walter Schirra feared burst eardrums.
  • Apollo 17Apollo 17's orange moon soil thrilled scientists who thought it was a volcano.
  • Apollo 15Apollo 15 astronauts dropped a hammer and a falcon feather on the Moon. Both hit the ground together.
  • Apollo 14Apollo 14 astronaut Alan Shepard hit two golf balls on the Moon. He had smuggled a six iron club head aboard.
  • Apollo 8Apollo 8 was reconceived as a Moon flight just four months before launch. A faulty lunar module forced the change.
  • Apollo 10Apollo 10 was built so it could not land on the Moon. NASA gave its lunar module only about half the ascent fuel.
  • Apollo 16Apollo 16 went to the Moon to find volcanic rock and found none. Scientists had been sure the highlands were volcanic.
  • Apollo 4Apollo 4's launch shook dust loose from a ceiling more than five kilometers away.
  • Apollo 9An Apollo 9 crew choice quietly decided who walked on the Moon first. Commander James McDivitt turned down lunar orbit.
  • Apollo 5Apollo 5 flew the first lunar module with metal plates where its windows should be. No crew rode the 1968 test flight.
  • Sputnik 1Most people who watched Sputnik 1 cross the sky actually saw its rocket. The satellite itself was barely visible.
  • Sputnik 2Sputnik 2 carried a living dog into orbit in 1957. Laika, a small part-Samoyed terrier, had no recovery plan.
  • Crew Dragon Demo-2Crew Dragon Demo-2 lifted two NASA astronauts off the pad on May 30, 2020. A storm scrubbed the first try.
  • Luna 2Luna 2 was the first human-made object to reach the Moon. The Soviet probe struck it on the 14th of September 1959.
  • Chandrayaan-3India's Chandrayaan-2 lander crashed near the Moon's south pole in 2019. Four years later, Chandrayaan-3 landed there.
  • Artemis IIArtemis II flew farther from Earth than Apollo 13 did in 1970. Its crew reached 252,756 miles on April 6, 2026.

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