© Mark Ollig
This mission was the decisive dress rehearsal taking place two months before this planet’s most historic achievement in space.
It was May 1969, and Walter Cronkite was reporting from the CBS News Apollo Headquarters in New York.
I enjoyed Cronkite’s enthusiastic and knowledgeable commentary during the televised NASA space missions.
The Apollo 10 spaceflight was the crucial test before the scheduled July moon landing of Apollo 11.
Its job was to make a run-through of all the operations and maneuvers necessary for a lunar module to land on the moon, and then rendezvous with a lunar-orbiting command module.
Apollo 10’s lunar module would not physically land on the moon; this would happen during Apollo 11.
The lunar module was going to be “snooping around” the moon’s surface, so they named the Apollo 10 lunar module “Snoopy.”
Of course, it then made sense to name the command module, the spacecraft all three astronauts rode to and from the moon in, “Charlie Brown.”
May 22, 1969, Apollo 10 had achieved an orbit around the moon. Astronauts Eugene Cernan and Thomas Stafford entered and undocked the two-stage lunar module from the command module.
With Snoopy now floating free in moon orbit, they began their descent towards the grayish lunar surface.
The command module, piloted by astronaut John Young, would continue to orbit the moon.
Snoopy tested its guidance computer, landing radar, and radio communications with Charlie Brown and Mission Control in Houston, TX.
They practiced firing the lunar module’s reaction control system (RCS) thruster quad engines, tested the lower-stage descent propulsion system, radar, and completed other procedures needed to simulate landing and taking off from the moon.
Snoopy surveyed the Sea of Tranquility, the designated landing site for Apollo 11.
Using a new color television camera system, they showed the moon’s surface to everyone back on Earth.
Snoopy would not touchdown on the moon; however, its descent rocket engine ignited during the practice landing, and the lunar module did descend to about 8.7 miles above the moon’s surface before aborting the landing.
I often wondered if the two astronauts aboard Snoopy thought about continuing the descent until they landed on the moon.
Cernan and Stafford had the lunar spacecraft to do it with, and besides, they were getting very close to the moon’s surface.
I later learned things would not have ended well if they had set Snoopy down on the moon.
If they had tried to liftoff from the moon, the lunar module’s ascent stage (the upper portion holding the astronaut’s crew cabin) did not contain enough fuel to reach a high enough orbit for a rendezvous with the command module.
Cernan and Stafford could have landed on the moon before Neil and Buzz did July 20th; however, both would find themselves marooned there.
Orbiting the moon in the command module, John Young could not attempt a rescue, and would have been the only member of Apollo 10 returning to Earth.
Of course, Snoopy did not waver from the planned mission, and the astronauts carried out and completed the practice moon landing with professionalism and skill.
Having achieved all of the low lunar orbit objectives, Stafford and Cernan fired Snoopy’s upper ascent stage rocket to gain altitude and make a rendezvous with the command module.
Snoopy’s bottom platform lander section (descent stage), having already been released from the ascent stage, slowly fell towards and crashed onto the moon.
So, a portion of Apollo 10 did make it to the moon’s surface.
They were now in the proper lunar orbit for docking Snoopy’s ascent stage module with the command module.
Cernan and Stafford had been working inside the lunar module for about eight hours.
After docking and boarding Charlie Brown, the astronauts jettisoned the abandoned Snoopy into space.
Once Snoopy’s ascent stage had drifted to a safe distance from the command module, NASA Flight Control in Houston remotely ignited its ascent rocket engine.
The controllers programmed Snoopy to travel into space, draining its remaining fuel supply.
On May 26, 1969, all three Apollo 10 astronauts safely returned to Earth.
Today, the Apollo 10 command module’s current home is at the Science Museum in London, England. See a photo at https://bit.ly/2KhCik2.
Snoopy’s crew cabin, the ascent stage, has been in a heliocentric orbit (traveling around the Sun) for the last 51 years. It is the only surviving Apollo lunar module ascent stage still journeying through space.
You may be wondering about Apollo 13’s lunar module, Aquarius, which did not land on the moon, but was instead used as a lifeboat to get all three astronauts back to Earth in April 1970.
Aquarius burned up in the Earth’s atmosphere after being jettisoned from the Apollo 13 command module, just before splashdown.
The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum records the fate of all Apollo lunar modules here: https://s.si.edu/2K8etex.
NASA’s website lists the present location of all the Apollo command modules at https://go.nasa.gov/2WvaNpv.
Stay safe out there.
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| Lunar module ascent stage 'Snoopy' as it travels towards the command module 'Charlie Brown.' |