This week in 1969, Apollo 9 lifted off from Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Primary mission objectives included an Earth-orbital engineering test of the first crewed lunar module and an overall checkout of the launch vehicle and spacecraft systems, the crew and procedures. All prime mission objectives were met and all major spacecraft systems were successfully demonstrated. The Saturn V was designed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. Now through December 2022, NASA will mark the 50th anniversary of the Apollo Program that landed a dozen astronauts on the Moon between July 1969 and December 1972, and the first U.S. crewed mission – Apollo 8 – that circumnavigated the Moon in December 1968. The NASA History Program is responsible for generating, disseminating, and preserving NASA’s remarkable history and providing a comprehensive understanding of the institutional, cultural, social, political, economic, technological and scientific aspects of NASA’s activities in aeronautics and space. For more pictures like this one and to connect to NASA’s history, visit the Marshall History Program’s webpage.