Apollo 8 lunar orbit

Apollo 8 · 1968 CE · The Moon

Apollo 8 lunar orbit — Apollo 8 · 1968 CE · The Moon — Recorded expedition route · schematic map

Fly the command and service modules, without a lunar module, into orbit around the Moon and back: the first crewed flight to the Moon.

Historical context

In August 1968, with the lunar module running late, NASA's Apollo managers began preparing in secret to send the next Saturn V's crew into orbit around the Moon that December, on the rocket's first crewed flight; the lunar orbit was approved in November. Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders became the first people to fly to the Moon and see its far side with their own eyes, and Anders's photograph of the Earth rising over the Moon became what the photographer Galen Rowell called the most influential environmental photograph ever taken.

The voyage, step by step

  1. Leaving Earth

    21 December 1968

    At 12:51 UTC on 21 December 1968, 07:51 Eastern Standard Time, the first Saturn V to carry a crew lifts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders off Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center, bound for lunar orbit.

  2. “You are Go for TLI”

    21 December 1968

    At 15:41 UTC on 21 December, 10:41 Eastern Standard Time, after a revolution and a half of Earth orbit, the third stage fires again for five minutes and nineteen seconds and sends Apollo 8 out of Earth orbit toward the Moon.

  3. Orbiting the Moon

    24 December 1968

    At 09:59 UTC on 24 December, 03:59 Central Standard Time in Houston, the service module's engine fires for about four minutes over the far side, out of contact, and puts Apollo 8 into lunar orbit; it will circle the Moon ten times in twenty hours.

  4. Behind the Moon

    24 December 1968

    For some forty-six minutes of every two-hour orbit the crew is out of contact behind the Moon. On the fourth revolution, at about 16:38 UTC on 24 December, 10:38 in Houston, Anders sees the Earth coming up over the lunar horizon.

  5. Christmas Eve broadcast

    25 December 1968

    At 02:34 UTC on 25 December, 20:34 on Christmas Eve in Houston, Apollo 8 comes out from behind the Moon on its ninth revolution, televising live; twenty-four minutes later, nearing the Sea of Tranquility at sunrise, the crew reads the opening of Genesis.

  6. Bringing Earthrise home

    25 December 1968

    Behind the Moon on Christmas morning, at 06:10 UTC on 25 December, the engine fires to send Apollo 8 home. The command module splashes down in the Pacific in darkness at 15:51 UTC on 27 December, with Anders's Earthrise photographs aboard.

Outcome

Ten revolutions of the Moon in twenty hours on 24 and 25 December 1968, the first photographs of Earthrise taken by people, a Christmas Eve reading from Genesis, and splashdown in the Pacific on 27 December.

Apollo 8

First crewed mission to orbit the Moon, whose photographs of Earthrise changed how humanity saw its planet.

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