US Spaceflight - Apollo 9 Traditional Geocache

Apollo 9

One of 27 caches representing all United States Spaceflight Missions of Projects Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. This was the 3rd of 11 Apollo flights and the 19th of the 27 flights. Click here to see all 27 US Spaceflight caches.

The Apollo 9 spaceflight was a March 1969 human spaceflight, the third crewed mission in the United States Apollo program. Flown in Low Earth Orbit, it was the second crewed Apollo mission to be launched by a Saturn V rocket, and the first flight of the full Apollo spacecraft: the command and service module (CSM) with the Lunar Module (LM). The mission was flown to qualify the LM for lunar orbit operations by demonstrating its descent and ascent propulsion systems, showing that its crew could fly it independently, then rendezvous and dock with the CSM again, as would be required for the first crewed lunar landing. Other objectives of the flight included firing the LM descent engine to propel the spacecraft stack as a backup mode (as would be required on the Apollo 13 mission), and use of the Portable Life Support System backpack outside of the LM cabin.

The three-person crew consisted of Commander James McDivitt, Command Module Pilot David Scott, and Lunar Module Pilot Rusty Schweickart. During the ten-day mission, they tested systems and procedures critical to landing on the Moon, including the LM engines, backpack life support systems, navigation systems and docking maneuvers.

After launching on March 3, 1969, the crew performed the first crewed flight of a lunar module, the first docking and extraction of the same, one two-person spacewalk (EVA), and the second docking of two crewed spacecraft—two months after the Soviets performed a spacewalk crew transfer between Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5. The mission concluded on March 13 and was a complete success. It proved the LM worthy of crewed spaceflight, setting the stage for the dress rehearsal for the lunar landing, Apollo 10, before the ultimate goal, landing on the Moon.

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.

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:

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 9.

Click here to see the Wikipedia description for Project Apollo.

Click here to see the Wikipedia description for the Space Race.