On November 4, 1967, NASA Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight George Mueller released the planned schedule for Apollo missions to be flown in 1968 and 1969, leading to a lunar landing. The announcement came just five days before the launch of Apollo 4, the first flight since the Apollo fire in January 1967 and the first unmanned flight of the Saturn 5 rocket. The timetable was highly dependent on Apollo 4 and the assumed success of all subsequent missions. Critical components of the scheme were the timely completion and delivery of the Command and Service Module (CSM) and especially of the Lunar Module (LM), at the time significantly behind schedule. The plan outlined six Apollo flights in 1968 and five in 1969, a combination of unmanned tests and manned flights on both the Saturn 1B and Saturn 5 rockets. The flights in 1968 would consist of:
- Apollo 5 – first unmanned test of the LM in earth orbit
- Apollo 6 – second unmanned flight test of the Saturn 5 and CSM
- Apollo 7 – third unmanned test of the Saturn 5 and CSM
- Apollo 8 – second unmanned flight test of the LM in earth orbit
- Apollo 9 – first manned Apollo flight, a 10-day mission to qualify the CSM
- Apollo 10 – first manned flight on the Saturn 5. This mission would provide first manned operation in space with both the CSM and LM, including crew transfer from CSM to LM and rendezvous and docking
The five flights in 1969 were planned as manned Saturn 5 missions, Apollo 11 through 15, with the first four as lunar mission development flights or lunar mission simulations. It was thought that a lunar landing could be attempted on Apollo 15, or on one of the subsequent missions. Events in 1968 were to dramatically alter this plan to meet President Kennedy’s goal of landing a man on the Moon before the end of the decade.
For more on the Apollo Program, please visit the JSC History Office page at https://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/apollo.htm