paragraph_text: Most of the novice pilots on the early missions would command the later missions. In this way, Project Gemini built up spaceflight experience for the pool of astronauts who would be chosen to fly the Apollo lunar missions.

paragraph_text: Chandrayaan-1 (, 'Moon craft' ) was the first Indian lunar probe under Chandrayaan program. It was launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation in October 2008, and operated until August 2009. The mission included a lunar orbiter and an impactor. India launched the spacecraft using a PSLV-XL rocket, serial number C11, on 22 October 2008 at 00:52 UTC from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, at Sriharikota about north of Chennai. The mission was a major boost to India's space program, as India researched and developed its own technology in order to explore the Moon. The vehicle was inserted into lunar orbit on 8 November 2008.

paragraph_text: Music in space is music played in or broadcast from a spacecraft in outer space. According to the Smithsonian Institution, the first musical instruments played in outer space were an 8 - note Hohner ``Little Lady ''harmonica and a handful of small bells carried by American astronauts Wally Schirra and Thomas P. Stafford aboard Gemini 6A. Upon achieving a space rendezvous in Earth orbit with their sister ship Gemini 7 in December 1965, Schirra and Stafford played a rendition of`` Jingle Bells'' over the radio after jokingly claiming to have seen an unidentified flying object piloted by Santa Claus. The instruments had been smuggled on - board without NASA's knowledge, leading Mission Control director Elliot See to exclaim ``You're too much ''to Schirra after the song. The harmonica was donated to the Smithsonian by Schirra in 1967, with his note that it``... plays quite well''.

paragraph_text: The Space Race began on August 2, 1955, when the Soviet Union responded to the US announcement four days earlier of intent to launch artificial satellites for the International Geophysical Year, by declaring they would also launch a satellite ``in the near future ''. The Soviet Union beat the US to this, with the October 4, 1957, orbiting of Sputnik 1, and later beat the US to the first human in space, Yuri Gagarin, on April 12, 1961. The`` race'' peaked with the July 20, 1969, US landing of the first humans on the Moon with Apollo 11. The USSR tried but failed crewed lunar missions, and eventually canceled them and concentrated on Earth orbital space stations.

paragraph_text: During the summer of 1968, the Apollo program hit another snag: the first pilot-rated Lunar Module (LM) was not ready for orbital tests in time for a December 1968 launch. NASA planners overcame this challenge by changing the mission flight order, delaying the first LM flight until March 1969, and sending Apollo 8 into lunar orbit without the LM in December. This mission was in part motivated by intelligence rumors the Soviet Union might be ready for a piloted Zond flight during late 1968. In September 1968, Zond 5 made a circumlunar flight with tortoises on board and returned to Earth, accomplishing the first successful water landing of the Soviet space program in the Indian Ocean. It also scared NASA planners, as it took them several days to figure out that it was only an automated flight, not piloted, because voice recordings were transmitted from the craft en route to the Moon. On November 10, 1968 another automated test flight, Zond 6 was launched, but this time encountered difficulties in its Earth reentry, and depressurized and deployed its parachute too early, causing it to crash-land only 16 kilometers (9.9 mi) from where it had been launched six days earlier. It turned out there was no chance of a piloted Soviet circumlunar flight during 1968, due to the unreliability of the Zonds.

paragraph_text: The Moon was first reached in September 1959 by the Soviet Union's Luna 2, an unmanned spacecraft. The United States' NASA Apollo program achieved the only manned lunar missions to date, beginning with the first manned orbital mission by Apollo 8 in 1968, and six manned landings between 1969 and 1972, with the first being Apollo 11 in July 1969. These missions returned lunar rocks which have been used to develop a geological understanding of the Moon's origin, internal structure, and the Moon's later history. Since the 1972 Apollo 17 mission the Moon has been visited only by unmanned spacecraft.

paragraph_text: Air Gemini, also known as Air Gemini Cargo, was an airline based in Luanda, Angola, operating chartered passenger and cargo flights into Quatro de Fevereiro Airport on behalf of the local mining industry, as well as services for humanitarian aid missions.

paragraph_text: Soyuz 34 had been intended to have been launched around 6 June 1979 with a two-man Hungarian/Soviet crew. That crew would have presumably returned in Soyuz 33 which had been planned to be docked at the Salyut 6 space station. Suspicions this was originally to be a Hungarian/Soviet flight were confirmed in 1980 when press releases for an upcoming joint mission were still dated June 1979.

paragraph_text: The United States recovered from the Apollo 1 fire, fixing the fatal flaws in an improved version of the Block II command module. The US proceeded with unpiloted test launches of the Saturn V launch vehicle (Apollo 4 and Apollo 6) and the Lunar Module (Apollo 5) during the latter half of 1967 and early 1968. Apollo 1's mission to check out the Apollo Command/Service Module in Earth orbit was accomplished by Grissom's backup crew commanded by Walter Schirra on Apollo 7, launched on October 11, 1968. The eleven-day mission was a total success, as the spacecraft performed a virtually flawless mission, paving the way for the United States to continue with its lunar mission schedule.

paragraph_text: Buzz Aldrin (born Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr.; January 20, 1930) is an American engineer and former astronaut. As the Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 11, he was one of the first two humans to land on the Moon, and the second person to walk on it. He set foot on the Moon at 03: 15: 16 on July 21, 1969 (UTC), following mission commander Neil Armstrong. He is a former U.S. Air Force officer with the Command Pilot rating. He also went into orbit on the Gemini 12 mission, finally achieving the goals for EVA (space - walk work) that paved the way to the Moon and success for the Gemini program; he spent over five hours on EVA on that mission.

paragraph_text: The first landing was followed by another, precision landing on Apollo 12 in November 1969. NASA had achieved its first landing goal with enough Apollo spacecraft and Saturn V launchers left for eight follow-on lunar landings through Apollo 20, conducting extended-endurance missions and transporting the landing crews in Lunar Roving Vehicles on the last five. They also planned an Apollo Applications Program to develop a longer-duration Earth orbital workshop (later named Skylab) to be constructed in orbit from a spent S-IVB upper stage, using several launches of the smaller Saturn IB launch vehicle. But planners soon decided this could be done more efficiently by using the two live stages of a Saturn V to launch the workshop pre-fabricated from an S-IVB (which was also the Saturn V third stage), which immediately removed Apollo 20. Belt-tightening budget cuts soon led NASA to cut Apollo 18 and 19 as well, but keep three extended/Lunar Rover missions. Apollo 13 encountered an in-flight spacecraft failure and had to abort its lunar landing in April 1970, returning its crew safely but temporarily grounding the program again. It resumed with four successful landings on Apollo 14 (February 1971), Apollo 15 (July 1971), Apollo 16 (April 1972), and Apollo 17 (December 1972).

paragraph_text: Apollo 17 was the final mission of NASA's Apollo program. Launched at 12: 33 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST) on December 7, 1972, with a crew made up of Commander Eugene Cernan, Command Module Pilot Ronald Evans, and Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt, it was the last use of Apollo hardware for its original purpose; after Apollo 17, extra Apollo spacecraft were used in the Skylab and Apollo -- Soyuz programs.

paragraph_text: Apollo 8 Earthrise, taken from Apollo 8 by William Anders on December 24, 1968. Mission type Crewed Lunar orbiter Operator NASA COSPAR ID 1968 - 118A SATCAT no. 3626 Mission duration 6 days, 3 hours, 42 seconds Spacecraft properties Spacecraft Apollo CSM - 103 Apollo LTA - B Manufacturer North American Rockwell Launch mass CSM: 28,870 kilograms (63,650 lb) CM: 5,621 kilograms (12,392 lb) SM: 23,250 kilograms (51,258 lb) LTA: 9,000 kilograms (19,900 lb) Landing mass 4,979 kilograms (10,977 lb) Crew Crew size Members Frank F. Borman, II James A. Lovell, Jr. William A. Anders Callsign Apollo 8 Start of mission Launch date December 21, 1968, 12: 51: 00 (1968 - 12 - 21UTC12: 51Z) UTC Rocket Saturn V SA - 503 Launch site Kennedy LC - 39A End of mission Recovered by USS Yorktown Landing date December 27, 1968, 15: 51: 42 (1968 - 12 - 27UTC15: 51: 43Z) UTC Landing site North Pacific Ocean 8 ° 8 ′ N 165 ° 1 ′ W ﻿ / ﻿ 8.133 ° N 165.017 ° W ﻿ / 8.133; - 165.017 ﻿ (Apollo 8 landing) Orbital parameters Perigee 184.40 kilometers (99.57 nmi) Apogee 185.18 kilometers (99.99 nmi) Inclination 32.15 degrees Period 88.19 minutes Epoch December 21, 1968, ~ 13: 02 UTC Revolution no. Lunar orbiter Spacecraft component CSM Orbital insertion December 24, 1968, 9: 59: 20 UTC Orbital departure December 25, 1968, 6: 10: 17 UTC Orbits 10 Orbit parameters Periselene 110.6 kilometers (59.7 nmi) Aposelene 112.4 kilometers (60.7 nmi) Inclination 12 degrees Left to right: Lovell, Anders, Borman Apollo program ← Apollo 7 Apollo 9 →

paragraph_text: The United States launched three more Mercury flights after Glenn's: Aurora 7 on May 24, 1962 duplicated Glenn's three orbits; Sigma 7 on October 3, 1962, six orbits; and Faith 7 on May 15, 1963, 22 orbits (32.4 hours), the maximum capability of the spacecraft. NASA at first intended to launch one more mission, extending the spacecraft's endurance to three days, but since this would not beat the Soviet record, it was decided instead to concentrate on developing Project Gemini.

paragraph_text: Apollo 11 left lunar orbit and returned to Earth, landing safely in the Pacific Ocean on July 24, 1969. When the spacecraft splashed down, 2,982 days had passed since Kennedy's commitment to landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth before the end of the decade; the mission was completed with 161 days to spare. With the safe completion of the Apollo 11 mission, the Americans won the race to the Moon.

paragraph_text: 118401 LINEAR, provisional designation , is an asteroid and main-belt comet (176P/LINEAR) that was discovered by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) 1-metre telescopes in Socorro, New Mexico on September 7, 1999. (118401) LINEAR was discovered to be cometary on November 26, 2005, by Henry H. Hsieh and David C. Jewitt as part of the Hawaii Trails project using the Gemini North 8-m telescope on Mauna Kea and was confirmed by the University of Hawaii's 2.2-m (88-in) telescope on December 24–27, 2005, and Gemini on December 29, 2005. Observations using the Spitzer Space Telescope have resulted in an estimate of 4.0±0.4 km for the diameter of (118401) LINEAR.

paragraph_text: To date, the United States is the only country to have successfully conducted manned missions to the Moon, with the last departing the lunar surface in December 1972.

paragraph_text: Chang'e 5-T1 () is an experimental robotic spacecraft that was launched to the Moon on 23 October 2014 by the China National Space Administration (CNSA) to conduct atmospheric re-entry tests on the capsule design planned to be used in the Chang'e 5 mission. As part of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program, Chang'e 5, scheduled to launch in December 2019, will be a Moon sample return mission. Like its predecessors, the spacecraft is named after the Chinese Moon goddess Chang'e. The craft consisted of a return vehicle capsule and a service module orbiter.

paragraph_text: Apollo 11 was the spaceflight that landed the first two humans on the Moon. Mission commander Neil Armstrong and pilot Buzz Aldrin, both American, landed the lunar module Eagle on July 20, 1969, at 20: 18 UTC. Armstrong became the first to step onto the lunar surface six hours after landing on July 21 at 02: 56: 15 UTC; Aldrin joined him about 20 minutes later. They spent about two and a quarter hours together outside the spacecraft, and collected 47.5 pounds (21.5 kg) of lunar material to bring back to Earth. Michael Collins piloted the command module Columbia alone in lunar orbit while they were on the Moon's surface. Armstrong and Aldrin spent just under a day on the lunar surface before rejoining Columbia in lunar orbit.

paragraph_text: Apollo 16 was the tenth crewed mission in the United States Apollo space program, the fifth and second-to-last to land on the Moon, and the second to land in the lunar highlands. The second of the so-called "J missions," it was crewed by Commander John Young, Lunar Module Pilot Charles Duke and Command Module Pilot Ken Mattingly. Launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 12:54 PM EST on April 16, 1972, the mission lasted 11 days, 1 hour, and 51 minutes, and concluded at 2:45 PM EST on April 27.

Question: The seventh mission, of the series of missions that Project Gemini helped recruit experienced people for, launched from Earth on what date?
Answer: October 11, 1968