Excerpt from “Apollo 204 Accident: Report of the Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences, United States Senate, Report No. 956,” January 30, 1968, p. 20. Source: NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration today announced an Apollo mission of six flights in 1968 and five in 1969.1
NASA Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight, Dr. George Mueller, said the new schedule and alternative plans provide a schedule under which a limited number of Apollo command and service modules and lunar landing modules configured for lunar landing may be launched on test flights toward the Moon by the end of the decade.
In the revised Apollo schedule, command, service, and lunar modules will be tested and qualified on concurrent unmanned flights of the Uprated Saturn and Saturn 5 launch vehicles. (Apollo/Uprated Saturn flights are identified with a 200 series number, i.e., Apollo/Saturn 204. Saturn 5 flights are identified with a 500 series number, i.e., Apollo/Saturn 502.)
The schedule for 1968 includes:
- Apollo/Saturn 204, the first unmanned test of the lunar module in earth orbit.2
- Apollo/Saturn 502, second unmanned flight test of the Saturn 5 launch vehicle and Apollo command and service module.
- Apollo/Saturn 503, third unmanned test of the Saturn 5 and command and service module.
- Apollo/Saturn 206, second unmanned flight test of the lunar module in earth orbit.
- Apollo/Saturn 205, first Apollo manned flight, a 10-day mission qualifying the command and service modules for further manned operations.
- Apollo/Saturn 504, first manned Apollo flight on the Saturn 5 launch vehicle. This mission will provide the first manned operation in space with both the command and service and lunar module, including crew transfer from the C. & S.M. to the L.M. and rendezvous and docking.
These flights will be flown in the above order and as rapidly as all necessary preparations can be completed. As they proceed, all opportunities to accelerate progress toward manned flights and a rapid accumulation of manned experience with the Apollo/Saturn system will be sought.
The 1969 Apollo flight schedule calls for five manned Apollo/Saturn flights, (AS 505 through AS 509) on the Saturn 5 space vehicle. Four of these flights. Apollo/Saturn 505 through 508, are programmed as lunar mission development flights or lunar mission simulations.
It is possible that the lunar landing could be made on the Apollo/Saturn 509 but it is also possible that it may be delayed until one of the remaining six Saturn 5 flights.
Footnotes
[1] NASA release No. 67-282 dated Nov. 3, 1967.
[2] Accomplished Jan. 22, 1968.
