Word: orbital
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Shortly after liftoff, Apollc 8 will go into a "parking" orbit 115 miles above the earth. If mission controllers are satisfied that all the ship's systems are working properly, the final stage of the Saturn booster will be reignited during the second or third orbit. The resulting thrust will increase Apollo's speed to 24,000 m.p.h.-enough to free it from the earth's environment and send it on a curving trajectory toward the moon...
...approaches within 30,000 miles of its lunar target, its speed will have tapered off to 2,100 m.p.h. Then, as the moon's gravity begins to exert a stronger and stronger tug, Apollo will accelerate once more. To slow the spaceship down and place it in lunar orbit, Apollo's big engine will fire a strong braking blast. Following two circuits of the moon, the engine will be used again to move Apollo's orbit to 70 miles above the cratered lunar landscape, which the astronauts will survey and photograph. Eight revolutions later, the engine will...
...communications and life-support systems, they confirmed that the craft was completely spaceworthy. If no unexpected difficulties are uncovered as technicians decipher the mountain of data that ac cumulated during the flight, an Apollo 8 crew composed of Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders may be sent into orbit around the moon with in as little as six weeks...
...will be essential on a lunar landing mission. While en route to the moon, the joined Apollo command and service modules must dock with the lunar module (LM), which will be carried inside the opened flaps of the S-4B. Later, should the LM become stranded in a lunar orbit on its way to or from the surface of the moon, Apollo would have to rendezvous and dock with it in order to rescue the two astronauts aboard. Even more important, the propulsion engine will have to fire without fail to place Apollo in lunar orbit, and fire again...
Even as the U.S. proudly hailed Apollo 7 and its crew, the Soviets launched an impressive reminder that they are still running hard in the race to the moon. With no advance fanfare, Russia's tenth manned spacecraft, Soyuz 3, soared into orbit, piloted by fledgling Cosmonaut Colonel Georgy Beregovoy, 47. On the craft's very first pass around the earth, he made a rendezvous with Soyuz 2, an unmanned spacecraft that had been fired aloft the dav before...