Apollo 7
Sign in to savefirst crewed flight of the United States Apollo program
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Apollo 7 was the first crewed spaceflight of the Apollo program, launched in October 1968 to test the spacecraft and systems that would eventually take astronauts to the Moon. The mission's success demonstrated that the Apollo hardware worked reliably enough to proceed with the more ambitious lunar landing missions that followed.
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Apollo 7 (October 11–22, 1968) was the first crewed flight in NASA's Apollo program, and saw the resumption of human spaceflight by the agency after the fire that killed the three Apollo 1 astronauts during a launch rehearsal test on January 27, 1967. The Apollo 7 crew was commanded by Walter M. Schirra, with Command Module Pilot Donn F. Eisele and Lunar Module pilot R. Walter Cunningham (so designated even though Apollo 7 did not carry a Lunar Module).
The three astronauts were originally designated for the second crewed Apollo flight, and then as backups for Apollo 1. After the Apollo 1 fire, crewed flights were suspended while the cause of the accident was investigated and improvements made to the spacecraft and safety procedures, and uncrewed test flights made. Determined to prevent a repetition of the fire, the crew spent long periods monitoring the construction of their Apollo command and service modules (CSM). Training continued over much of the 21-month pause that followed the Apollo 1 disaster.