Year: 1968

Categories
Uncrewed Spaceflight Zond

Zond 5

  • September 15, 1968

Zond 5The Soviet Union launches Zond 5, a Soyuz 7K-L1 command & service module intended for flight around the moon. Rather than a cosmonaut crew, however, Zond 5 has biological specimens on board, including insects, plants, bacteria, and a pair of turtles – the first living creatures from Earth to orbit the moon. The specimens are all returned safely, though Zond 5 is the second consecutive Zond flight to lose attitude control after re-entry, splashing down in the Indian Ocean rather than making the customary propulsive return to Soviet soil. American intelligence agencies are aware of the mostly successful flight, and NASA alters the Apollo manned flight schedule to attempt to put men in orbit of the moon by the end of 1968.

Categories
Apollo Crewed Spaceflight

Apollo 7

  • October 11, 1968

Apollo 7After a year of redesign and reorganization, NASA resumes manned flights with Apollo 7, the first of the successful Apollo flights. An 11-day Earth-orbit shakedown cruise for the Apollo command/service module, the mission becomes contentious when the three-man crew – Wally Schirra, Walt Cunningham and Donn Eisele – is loaded down with a jam-packed mission plan. Worse, Schirra comes down with a cold which quickly spreads to his crewmates in the enclosed biosphere of the Apollo command module. The flight’s technical goals are met with flying colors, though the crew’s snippy responses to ground controllers keep them off the crew rotation for future Apollo flights.

This mission is dramatized in the We Have Cleared The Tower episode of HBO’s 1998 series From The Earth To The Moon.

Categories
Crewed Spaceflight Soyuz

Soyuz 3

  • October 26, 1968

Soyuz 3The Soviet Union resumes its manned space program with the launch of cosmonaut Georgy Beregovoy aboard the redesigned Soyuz 3 vehicle. The unmanned Soyuz 2 is launched the day before to serve as a docking target for Soyuz 3, but while the two vehicles pass close to each other, no docking is achieved. Beregovoy successfully returns to Earth – the first Soyuz cosmonaut to do so – after four days in orbit.