Apollo 7

Apollo 7

The crew of Apollo 7 transmitted the first live broadcast television aboard an American manned spacecraft.
Mission type	Manned CSM test flight
Operator	NASA
COSPAR ID	1968-089A
SATCAT №	3486
Mission duration	10 days, 20 hours, 9 minutes, 3 seconds
Orbits completed	163
Spacecraft properties
Spacecraft	Apollo CSM-101
Manufacturer	North American Rockwell
Launch mass	36,419 pounds (16,519 kg)
Landing mass	11,409 pounds (5,175 kg)
Crew
Crew size	3
Members	Walter M. Schirra Donn F. Eisele R. Walter Cunningham
Callsign	Apollo 7
Start of mission
Launch date	October 11, 1968, 15:02:45 (1968-10-11UTC15:02:45Z) UTC
Rocket	Saturn IB SA-205
Launch site	Cape Kennedy LC-34
End of mission
Recovered by	USS Essex
Landing date	October 22, 1968, 11:11:48 (1968-10-22UTC11:11:49Z) UTC
Landing site	North Atlantic Ocean 27°32′N 64°04′W / 27.533°N 64.067°W / 27.533; -64.067 (Apollo 7 splashdown)
Orbital parameters
Reference system	Geocentric
Regime	Low Earth orbit
Perigee	227 kilometers (123 nmi)
Apogee	301 kilometers (163 nmi)
Inclination	31.6 degrees
Period	89.79 minutes
Epoch	October 13, 1968
Left to right: Eisele, Schirra, Cunningham Apollo program ← Apollo 6 Apollo 8 →

Left to right: Eisele, Schirra, Cunningham

Apollo 7 was a 1968 human spaceflight mission carried out by the United States. It was the first mission in the United States' Apollo program to carry a crew into space. It was also the first U.S. spaceflight to carry astronauts since the flight of Gemini XII in November 1966. The AS-204 mission, also known as "Apollo 1", was intended to be the first manned flight of the Apollo program. It was scheduled to launch in February 1967, but a fire in the cabin during a January 1967 test killed the crew. Manned flights were then suspended for 21 months, while the cause of the accident was investigated and improvements made to the spacecraft and safety procedures, and unmanned test flights of the Saturn V rocket and Apollo Lunar Module were made. Apollo 7 fulfilled Apollo 1's mission of testing the Apollo Command/Service Module (CSM) in low Earth orbit.

The Apollo 7 crew was commanded by Walter M. Schirra, with senior pilot / navigator Donn F. Eisele, and pilot / systems engineer R. Walter Cunningham. (Official crew titles were made consistent with those that would be used for the manned lunar landing missions: Eisele was Command Module Pilot and Cunningham was Lunar Module Pilot.) Their mission was Apollo's 'C' mission, an 11-day Earth-orbital test flight to check out the redesigned Block II CSM with a crew on board. It was the first time a Saturn IB vehicle put a crew into space; Apollo 7 was the first three-person American space mission, and the first to include a live TV broadcast from an American spacecraft. It was launched on October 11, 1968, from what was then known as Cape Kennedy Air Force Station, Florida. Despite tension between the crew and ground controllers, the mission was a complete technical success, giving NASA the confidence to send Apollo 8 into orbit around the Moon two months later. The flight would prove to be the final space flight for all of its three crew members — and the only one for both Cunningham and Eisele — when it splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean on October 22, 1968. It was also the final manned launch from Cape Kennedy.