Apollo 10

Apollo 10

Apollo 10 (May 18 – 26, 1969) was a human spaceflight, the fourth crewed mission in the United States Apollo program, and the second (after Apollo 8) to orbit the Moon. It was the F mission: a "dress rehearsal" for the first Moon landing, testing all the components and procedures just short of actually landing. While astronaut John Young remained in the Command Module orbiting the Moon, astronauts Thomas Stafford and Gene Cernan flew the Apollo Lunar Module (LM) to a descent orbit within 8.4 nautical miles (15.6 km) of the lunar surface, the point where powered descent for landing would begin. After orbiting the Moon 31 times, Apollo 10 returned safely to Earth, and its success enabled the first actual landing (Apollo 11) two months later. Apollo 10 set the record for the highest speed attained by a crewed vehicle: 39,897 km/h (11.08 km/s or 24,791 mph) on May 26, 1969, during the return from the Moon.The mission's call signs were the names of the Peanuts characters Charlie Brown and Snoopy, who became Apollo 10's semi-official mascots. Peanuts creator Charles Schulz also drew mission-related artwork for NASA.

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