The Moon: Apollo Missions
Apollo Missions
- Six of the missions (Apollos 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17)
achieved the goal of landing humans on the Moon and bring them safely back to Earth
- Apollos 7 and 9 were Earth orbiting missions to test the
Command and Lunar Modules, and did not return lunar data.
- Apollos 8 and 10
tested various components while orbiting the Moon, and returned photography of
the lunar surface.
- Apollo 13 did not land on the Moon due to a malfunction,
but also returned photographs.
- The six missions that landed on the Moon returned
a wealth of scientific data and almost 400 kilograms of lunar samples.
- Experiments included soil mechanics, meteoroids, seismic, heat flow, lunar
ranging, magnetic fields, and solar wind experiments.
![](../../../../student-pages/pics/ispec_subdomain/a11crew.jpg)
The crew of Apollo 11:
Commander Neil A. Armstrong, Command Module pilot Michael Collins,
Lunar Module pilot Edwin A. Aldrin, Jr. May 1, 1969.
![](../../../../student-pages/pics/ispec_subdomain/a11liftoff.jpg)
The first manned journey to the
Moon began at Pad A, Launch Complex 39, Kennedy Space Center, Florida with the
liftoff of Apollo 11 at 9:32 a.m. EDT on July 16, 1969.
![](../../../../student-pages/pics/ispec_subdomain/a11aldrinstep.jpg)
Aldrin joined Armstrong on the surface less than fifteen minutes later, in this
photo taken by Armstrong. As he left the LM, Aldrin said, "Now I want to
partially close the hatch, making sure not to lock it on my way out."
"A good thought." replied Armstrong.
As a result of this exploration, many
Discoveries
were found because of lunar exploration
Back to OUR MOON