
Apollo 8
"Round the moon and back…"
Mission Type
crew
Launch
Landing

Frank Borman
Commander
Frank Borman was selected as a NASA Astronaut in the second group in 1962. He was a veteran of the Gemini 7 space orbital rendezvous mission with Gemini 6 before being named as the commander of Apollo 8, the first lunar orbital mission, in 1968.
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James A. Lovell, Jr.
Command Module Pilot
Captain James Lovell was selected as an Astronaut by NASA in September 1962. He flew on 4 missions over his NASA Career: Gemini VII and XII, Apollo 8, and Apollo 13. He held the record for time in space with a total of 715 hours and 5 minutes until surpassed by the Skylab flights.
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William A. Anders
Lunar Module Pilot
Selected as an astronaut in NASA’s third astronaut group, William Anders was on the backup crew for Gemini XI, flew on NASA’s first crewed lunar orbit mission on the Apollo 8 spacecraft, and served on the backup crew for Apollo 11. In the summer of 1969, he left NASA to serve as the Executive Secretary for the National Aeronautics and Space Council. Anders took the “Earthrise” photo while in lunar orbit on December 24, 1968.
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More About Apollo 8
Read more about the Apollo 8 mission and crew.

Apollo 8: Christmas at the Moon
Christmas Eve, 1968. As one of the most turbulent, tragic years in American history drew to a close, millions around…

Dec. 27, 1968: Apollo 8 Returns from the Moon
It was Christmas Day 1968, and after spending 20 hours orbiting the Moon, the Apollo 8 crew of Frank Borman,…

50 Years Ago: Apollo 8 in Lunar Orbit
Precisely on time on Dec. 24, 1968, Mission Control lost contact with Apollo 8 and its crew of Frank Borman,…

Part 5: Apollo 8 and Beyond – The Next Epoch
Christmas morning of 1968, the Apollo 8 crew fired its service module engines to propel them out of lunar orbit…

50 Years Ago: Apollo 8, You are Go for TLI!
In the early morning of Dec. 21, 1968, at Kennedy Space Center’s (KSC) Launch Pad 39A, the five engines of…

Part 4: Apollo 8 – The Return
Halfway to the Moon, on Sunday, Dec. 22, 1968, the Apollo 8 crew glimpsed Earth outside their windows from a…