Tell about Apollo Program ?

NASA was officially established in October 1958. Just two years later, the agency started what would become one of the defining programs of the 20th century—Apollo, which put humans on the Moon in 1969. In honor of NASA's 60th anniversary, and the upcoming 50th anniversary of the Moon landing, here are 17 facts about the Apollo program.

In the method ultimately employed, lunar orbit rendezvous, a powerful launch vehicle (Saturn V rocket) placed a 50-ton spacecraft in a lunar trajectory. The spacecraft had three parts. The conical command module (CM) carried three astronauts.

NASA designed the Apollo Command Module for this program. It was a capsule with room for three astronauts.

The service module (SM) was attached to the back of the CM and carried its fuel and power to form the command/service module (CSM). Docked to the front of the CSM was the lunar module (LM).

On January 27, 1967, astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee climbed inside their Apollo 1 spacecraft for a routine prelaunch test.

When NASA and the Space Task Group were brainstorming names for their first manned satellite project, they favored “Project Astronaut,” which they believed would “emphasize the man in the satellite.”

. It grounded Apollo for 18 months, but it also led NASA to make crucial design improvements that increased safety and performance during the lunar missions.

The astronauts rode in the Command Module on the way to the moon and back.

One astronaut stayed in the CSM while the other two landed on the Moon in the LM. The LM had a descent and ascent stage.

It was larger than the spacecraft used in the Mercury and Gemini programs. The astronauts had room to move around inside the spacecraft. The crew area had about as much room as a car.

The descent stage was left on the Moon, and the astronauts returned to the CSM in the ascent stage, which was discarded in lunar orbit. Before reentering Earth’s atmosphere, the SM was jettisoned to burn up.

Apollo’s first manned mission began in October 1968, when Apollo 7 entered low-Earth orbit to conduct a shakedown of the command and service module. During the 11-day flight, astronauts Wally Schirra, Donn Eisele and Walter Cunningham made the first live television transmissions from inside a manned spacecraft.

Billed as coming “from the lovely Apollo room, high atop everything,” the broadcasts treated viewers to tours of the spacecraft, demonstrations of how meals were prepared in zero gravity, and plenty of wisecracks from the crew. The “Wally, Walt and Donn Show” proved to be a massive hit. After returning home, the astronauts were even given a special Emmy Award by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

The CM splashed down in the ocean. The lunar orbit rendezvous had the advantages of requiring only one rocket and of saving fuel and mass since the LM did not need to return to Earth.

Another spacecraft, the Lunar Module, was used for landing on the moon. This spacecraft carried astronauts from orbit around the moon to the moon's surface, then back into orbit. It could carry two astronauts.

Uncrewed missions testing Apollo and the Saturn rocket began in February 1966. The first crewed Apollo flight was delayed by a tragic accident, a fire that broke out in the Apollo 1 spacecraft during a ground rehearsal on January 27, 1967, killing astronauts Virgil Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee.

According to NASA, that name was eventually discarded “because it might lead to overemphasis on the personality of the man.

NASA’s Director of Flight Crew Operations Deke Slayton adhered to an impartial rotation system for the Apollo missions. Each three-man team of astronauts served as the backup crew on a flight, and then became prime crew of their own mission three flights later

NASA repsonded by delaying the program to make changes such as not using a pure oxygen atmosphere at launch and replacing the CM hatch with one that could be opened quickly, In October 1968, following several uncrewed Earth-orbit flights, Apollo 7 made a 163-orbit flight carrying a full crew of three astronauts.

. For the first moon landing, however, Slayton considered handpicking a commander. Gus Grissom was the leading candidate before his death in the Apollo 1 fire, and Slayton later informally offered the job to Apollo 8 commander Frank Borman, who turned it down in favor of retiring. In the end, the historic Apollo 11 mission fell to Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins—the next crew in the rotation line.

Apollo 8 carried out the first step of crewed lunar exploration: from Earth orbit it was injected into a lunar trajectory, completed lunar orbit, and returned safely to Earth.

Apollo was the NASA program that resulted in American astronauts' making a total of 11 spaceflights and walking on the moon.

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy challenged the nation to land astronauts on the moon by the end of the decade. NASA met that challenge with the Apollo program. It was the first time human beings left Earth orbit and visited another world. These missions made it possible to explore more distant worlds further in the future.

The first four flights tested the equipment used in the Apollo Program.

Apollo 9 carried out a prolonged mission in Earth orbit to check out the LM. Apollo 10 journeyed to lunar orbit and tested the LM to within 15.2 km (9.4 miles) of the Moon’s surface.