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| Contents | ||
| Mission Insignia | |
|---|---|
| Mission Statistics | |
| Mission Name: | Apollo 8 |
| Call Sign: | Command module: Apollo 8 |
| Number of Crew: | 3 |
| Launch: | December 21, 1968 12:51:00 UTC Kennedy Space Center LC 39A |
| Lunar Orbit: | Dec 24 09:59:20 UTC– Dec 25 06:10:16 UTC |
| Landing: | December 27, 1968 15:51:42 UTC 8° 6' N — 165° 1' W |
| Duration: | 6 d 3 h 0 min 42 s |
| Number of Lunar Orbits: | 10 |
| Time in Lunar Orbit: | 20 h 10 min 13.0 s |
| Mass: | CSM 28,817 kg; LTA 9,026 kg |
| Crew Picture | |
| Apollo 8 Crew | |
Apollo 8 was a manned mission of the Apollo space program. Apollo 8 was the first mission that carried humans beyond Earth orbit, and the first time anyone was closer to another celestial body than they were to Earth.
The Saturn V, S-IVB third stage, was fired for a second time. It burned for a total of 318 seconds. The Apollo 8 was propelled from an earth parking orbit velocity of 7792.8 meters per second to a translunar trajectory velocity of 10,822 meters per second.
The Apollo 8 astronauts were the first human beings to venture beyond low Earth orbit and visit another world. What was originally to have been an Earthorbit checkout of the lunar lander became instead a race with the Soviets to become the first nation to orbit the Moon. The Apollo 8 crew rode inside the command module, with no lunar lander attached. They were the first astronauts to be launched by the Saturn V, which had flown only twice before. The booster worked perfectly, as did the SPS engines that had been checked out on Apollo 7. Apollo 8 entered lunar orbit on the morning of December 24, 1968. For the next 20 hours the astronauts circled the Moon, which appeared out their windows as a gray, battered wasteland. They took photographs, scouted future landing sites, and on Christmas Eve read from the Book of Genesis to TV viewers back on Earth. They also photographed the first Earthrise as seen from the Moon. Apollo 8 proved the ability to navigate to and from the Moon, and gave a tremendous boost to the entire Apollo program.
After orbiting Earth, the spacecraft orbited the Moon and then returned safely. Apollo 8 was originally meant to be an Earth orbital test, like the Apollo 9 mission. However, it was becoming clear the Soviets were trying to preempt the first lunar flyby with their Zond program, which aimed to fly a stripped down Soyuz on a Proton rocket carrying 1-2 Cosmonauts. The Soviets conducted a partially successful unmanned test in September 1968, which spurred NASA into redesignating the Apollo 8 mission on short notice. Apollo 8 was therefore moved up to a lunar flight — it was only the second Apollo manned mission and it lacked the safety of the redundant systems of a lunar module (if the Apollo 13 malfunction had occurred on Apollo 8 the crew would have died).
Mission notes:
The command module is displayed at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago, Illinois. No lunar module was used.