Apollo 7
One of 27 caches representing all United States Spaceflight Missions of Projects Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. This was the 1st of 11 Apollo flights and the 17th of the 27 flights. Click here to see all 27 US Spaceflight caches.
The Apollo 7 spaceflight was an October 1968 human spaceflight mission carried out by the United States. It was the first mission in the United States' Apollo program to carry a crew into space. It was also the first U.S. spaceflight to carry astronauts since the flight of Gemini XII in November 1966. The AS-204 mission, also known as "Apollo 1", was intended to be the first crewed flight of the Apollo program. It was scheduled to launch in February 1967, but a fire in the cabin during a January 1967 test killed the crew. Crewed flights were then suspended for 21 months, while the cause of the accident was investigated and improvements made to the spacecraft and safety procedures, and uncrewed test flights of the Saturn V rocket and Apollo Lunar Module were made. Apollo 7 fulfilled Apollo 1's mission of testing the Apollo command and service module (CSM) in low Earth orbit.
The Apollo 7 crew was commanded by Walter M. Schirra, with senior pilot / navigator Donn F. Eisele, and pilot / systems engineer R. Walter Cunningham. Official crew titles were made consistent with those that would be used for the crewed lunar landing missions: Eisele was Command Module Pilot and Cunningham was Lunar Module Pilot. Their mission was Apollo's 'C' mission, an 11-day Earth-orbital test flight to check out the redesigned Block II CSM with a crew on board. It was the first time a Saturn IB vehicle put a crew into space; Apollo 7 was the first three-person American space mission, and the first to include a live TV broadcast from an American spacecraft. It was launched on October 11, 1968, from what was then known as Cape Kennedy Air Force Station, Florida. Despite tension between the crew and ground controllers, the mission was a complete technical success, giving NASA the confidence to send Apollo 8 into orbit around the Moon two months later. The flight would prove to be the final space flight for all of its three crew members—and the only one for both Cunningham and Eisele—when it splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean on October 22, 1968. It was also the only crewed launch from Launch Complex 34, as well as the last launch from the complex.
Apollo 7 Patch and Eisele, Schirra, & Cunningham
WHY HERE?
The center point of all the US Spaceflight caches is located in the middle of the intersection where John Glenn Drive changes into Galaxy Way in Concord, CA.
Or as we geocachers would specify it: N 37° 58.700 W 122° 03.259
The distance ranges from this point to the various caches representing the spaceflights are:
- about ¼ mile - Mercury sub-orbital missions
- about 2 miles - Mercury orbital missions
- about 5 miles - Gemini missions
- about 5 miles - Apollo Earth orbital missions
- about 25 miles - Apollo moon missions
FLIGHT SUMMARY:
| Commander:_ |
_Walter M. Schirra |
| Command Module Pilot:_ |
_Donn F. Eisele |
| Lunar Module Pilot:_ |
_R. Walter Cunningham |
| Launch Vehicle:_ |
_Saturn IB |
| Height:_ |
_141.6 feet |
| Stages:_ |
_2 |
| Stage 1 Diameter:_ |
_21.42 feet |
| Stage 1 Thrust:_ |
_1,600,000 lbf |
| Stage 2 Diameter:_ |
_21.42 feet |
| Stage 2 Thrust:_ |
_200,000 lbf |
| Launch Date & Time:_ |
_October 11, 1968, 15:02:45 UTC |
| Landing Date & Time:_ |
_October 22, 1968, 11:11:48 UTC |
| Duration:_ |
_10 days, 20 hours, 9 minutes, 3 seconds |
FTF Prize:
This is 1 of 27 caches in KCSearcher's US Spaceflight series that were given away as FTF prizes at his “Man on the Moon, July 20, 1969 - 50 years later” event. For those attendees that received this as a prize, they had an 88 hour head start on those that didn’t attend the event. The prize winners were instructed to sign the log in the “Pre-Publication FTFer(s)” space.
However, for the FTF Hounds that were not able to attend, they too had the opportunity to be FTF on this cache after publication that was targeted for 7/24/2019 @ or around 9:50 AM Pacific Time (splashdown of Apollo 11 + 50 years). All they had to do is find the cache and be first to sign in the “Post-Publication FTFer(s)” space on the log.
BONUS:
Don’t forget to record and save the Code Letter and its associated Number that is on the log sheet and inside the container lid. It will be needed to find a bonus cache on the 51st anniversary of the Moon Landing, July 20, 2020.
Please DO NOT post or include an image of the Code Letter and Number in any of your online logs for this cache
TO LEARN MORE:
Click here to see the Wikipedia description for Apollo 7.
Click here to see the Wikipedia description for Project Apollo.
Click here to see the Wikipedia description for the Space Race.