Apollo 10 was the fourth human-crewed mission in the United States. The mission’s call signs were the Peanuts comic strip’s names by Charles Schulz’s characters, Snoopy and Charlie Brown. They became Apollo 10’s semi-official mascots. Learn more about this NASA mission in this article.
Apollo 10 was launched from Cape Kennedy on May 18, 1969. The astronauts flew just 9 miles above the Moon’s surface to prepare Apollo 11’s lunar landing. This extraordinary mission contained all aspects of an exact crewed lunar landing without the landing on the Moon’s surface.
Who Did What On Apollo 10?
The Apollo Programs’ first flight of an entire fully crewed spacecraft went around the Moon on this mission. The heroic crew consisted of Commander Thomas Stafford, Lunar Module Pilot Eugene Cernan, and Command Module Pilot John Young.
Back-Up Crew of Apollo 10
The Backup Crew to Apollo 10 was L. Gordon Cooper Jr., (Commander), Edgar D. Mitchell (Lunar Module Pilot), and Donn F. Eisele (Command Module Pilot).
Eight-Hour Lunar Orbit
This amazing mission’s goals involved a scheduled eight-hour lunar orbit of the separated lunar module and descent to approximately nine miles off the Moon’s surface.
It was scheduled to perform an ascending for rendezvous and docking with the CSM in about a 70-mile circular lunar orbit. Relevant data to be gathered in this landing practice dealt with the lunar potential, or gravitational effect, to improve the Earth-based crewed spaceflight network tracking techniques and check out the lunar module programmed trajectories and radar, and lunar flight control systems.
Sea of Tranquility
The Lunar Module named “Snoopy” flew over Landing Site 2 of the stunning “Sea of Tranquility.” On Apollo 10 last day in lunar orbit, Stafford, Young, and Cernan took stereo photographs of the Apollo 11 landing site. They treated the ground to a 24-minute color TV broadcast, showing the lunar surface views, including the Apollo 11 landing site.
The procedures examined during Apollo 10 revealed to NASA that a lunar landing was possible and what problems might occur during its successor’s touchdown. Twelve television transmissions to Earth were planned. All mission objectives were achieved in this historic mission.
Were Did The Apollo 10 Splashdown?
Apollo 10 module landed in the Pacific Ocean 165 degrees west and five degrees and 8 minutes south. The crew of Apollo 10 completed a flight of 192 hours and 3 minutes and 23 seconds. It was 1 minute and 24 seconds longer than planned. USS Princeton was the recovery ship closest to the splashdown and picked up the crew from the ocean.
The picture above shows an employee from Westinghouse that appears with the custom-assembled video monitor and the Snoopy “space dog” doll. It was used to show off the capabilities of the single-tube color camera built for Apollo space missions.
When Did TV Transmissions to Earth Begin?
TV transmissions to Earth started three hours after launch when Apollo IX was around 3,570 miles from Earth and ended when the spacecraft was 9,428 miles away. People back on earth could watch the whole event. This was the first time astronauts filmed everything in color. Many people could watch everything on TV as the command service module and the lunar module docked after the lunar modules lunar descent.
Where is the Location of LM “Snoopy”?
There was never any intention to return Snoopy, the lunar module, to Earth. In reality, it was sent into an orbit around the sun beyond the Moon after the astronauts performed their maneuvers and returned to the command module. NASA did not track its trajectory. The effort to find its location began in 2011, initiated by a group of amateur U.K. astronomers led by Nick Howes.
According to Sky News, the same who now claim they’re “98 percent convinced” they’ve discovered where it ended up. Howes’ further speculated that if they confirm its location, someone like Elon Musk could recover it and preserve it as a cultural artifact.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, and please feel free to browse my website for more interesting facts about the Mission to the Moon and especially Apollo 11. See also my posts on: Why was the Saturn V rocket painted white and black? There’s a pretty cool answer to this one. Find out here. You will be surprised.