page_title: Apollo program
section_title: Production lunar landings
hierarchical_section_title: Apollo program / Development history / Production lunar landings
caption_attribution_description: English: Landing sites for Apollo Moon missions (Apollo 13 was intended to land in the Fra Mauro area, the same area as Apollo 14)
context_page_description: The Apollo program, also known as Project Apollo, was the third United States human spaceflight program carried out by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which succeeded in landing the first humans on the Moon from 1969 to 1972. It was first conceived during Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration as a three-person spacecraft to follow the one-person Project Mercury, which put the first Americans in space. Apollo was later dedicated to President John F. Kennedy's national goal for the 1960s of "landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" in an address to Congress on May 25, 1961. It was the third US human spaceflight program to fly, preceded by the two-person Project Gemini conceived in 1961 to extend spaceflight capability in support of Apollo.
  Kennedy's goal was accomplished on the Apollo 11 mission when astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed their Apollo Lunar Module on July 20, 1969, and walked on the lunar surface, while Michael Collins remained in lunar orbit in the command and service module, and all three landed safely on Earth on July 24.
context_section_description: In November 1969, Gemini veteran Charles "Pete" Conrad and rookie Alan L. Bean made a precision landing on Apollo 12 within walking distance of the Surveyor 3 uncrewed lunar probe, which had landed in April 1967 on the Ocean of Storms. The command module pilot was Gemini veteran Richard F. Gordon Jr. Conrad and Bean carried the first lunar surface color television camera, but it was damaged when accidentally pointed into the Sun. They made two EVAs totaling 7 hours and 45 minutes. On one, they walked to the Surveyor, photographed it, and removed some parts which they returned to Earth.
  The success of the first two landings allowed the remaining missions to be crewed with a single veteran as commander, with two rookies. Apollo 13 launched Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise in April 1970, headed for the Fra Mauro formation. But two days out, a liquid oxygen tank exploded, disabling the service module and forcing the crew to use the LM as a "lifeboat" to return to Earth. Another NASA review board was convened to determine the cause, which turned out to be a combination of damage of the tank in the factory, and a subcontractor not making a tank component according to updated design specifications. Apollo was grounded again, for the remainder of 1970 while the oxygen tank was redesigned and an extra one was added.
  The contracted batch of 15 Saturn Vs was enough for lunar landing missions through Apollo 20. NASA publicized a preliminary list of eight more planned landing sites, with plans to increase the mass of the CSM and LM for the last five missions, along with the payload capacity of the Saturn V. These final missions would combine the I and J types in the 1967 list, allowing the CMP to operate a package of lunar orbital sensors and cameras while his companions were on the surface, and allowing them to stay on the Moon for over three days. These missions would also carry the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) increasing the exploration area and allowing televised liftoff of the LM. Also, the Block II spacesuit was revised for the extended missions to allow greater flexibility and visibility for driving the LRV.
caption: Apollo landings on the Moon, 1969–1972
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "5291", "Image ImageLength": "4806", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image Compression": "Uncompressed", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS REBEL T1i", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image PlanarConfiguration": "1", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2012:06:08 21:34:55", "Image ExifOffset": "304", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "762", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6696", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/640", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "200", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2010:10:22 23:21:13", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2010:10:22 23:21:13", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "1165241/125000", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF SubSecTime": "64", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "64", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "64", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2364", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2247", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "792000/149", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "3168000/593", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}