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Apollo 8 official mission patch

Apollo 8

Occurred 55 years ago

"Round the moon and back…"

Mission Type

Lunar Landing Preparation

crew

Frank Borman, James Lovell Jr., William Anders

Launch

Dec. 21, 1968

Landing

Dec. 27, 1968
Featured Story

Apollo 8: Mission Details

“‘Round the moon and back…”

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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.

More About Frank Borman
Portrait of astronaut Frank Borman with model shuttle
Portrait of astronaut Frank Borman.
NASA

More About Apollo 8

Read more about the Apollo 8 mission and crew.

Apollo 8: Christmas at the Moon

4 min read

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

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Dec. 27, 1968: Apollo 8 Returns from the Moon

6 min read

It was Christmas Day 1968, and after spending 20 hours orbiting the Moon, the Apollo 8 crew of Frank Borman,…

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50 Years Ago: Apollo 8 in Lunar Orbit

4 min read

Precisely on time on Dec. 24, 1968, Mission Control lost contact with Apollo 8 and its crew of Frank Borman,…

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Part 5: Apollo 8 and Beyond – The Next Epoch

6 min read

Christmas morning of 1968, the Apollo 8 crew fired its service module engines to propel them out of lunar orbit…

Article

50 Years Ago: Apollo 8, You are Go for TLI!

7 min read

In the early morning of Dec. 21, 1968, at Kennedy Space Center’s (KSC) Launch Pad 39A, the five engines of…

Article

Part 4: Apollo 8 – The Return

3 min read

Halfway to the Moon, on Sunday, Dec. 22, 1968, the Apollo 8 crew glimpsed Earth outside their windows from a…

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