Apollo 7

Wally Schirra

• Birthday: 03/12/1923
• Role: Commander
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 10/03/1962
• Last Flight: 10/11/1968

Walter Marty Schirra Jr. was an American naval aviator and NASA astronaut. In 1959, he became one of the original seven astronauts chosen for Project Mercury, which was the United States’ first effort to put human beings in space. On October 3, 1962, he flew the six-orbit, nine-hour, Mercury-Atlas 8 mission, in a spacecraft he nicknamed Sigma 7. At the time of his mission in Sigma 7, Schirra became the fifth American and ninth human to travel into space. In the two-man Gemini program, he achieved the first space rendezvous, station-keeping his Gemini 6A spacecraft within 1 foot (30 cm) of the sister Gemini 7 spacecraft in December 1965. In October 1968, he commanded Apollo 7, an 11-day low Earth orbit shakedown test of the three-man Apollo Command/Service Module and the first manned launch for the Apollo program.

Donn F. Eisele

• Birthday: 06/23/1930
• Role: Command Module Pilot
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 10/11/1968
• Last Flight: 10/11/1968

Donn Fulton Eisele was a United States Air Force officer, test pilot, and later a NASA astronaut. He occupied the Command Module Pilot seat during the flight of Apollo 7 in 1968. After retiring from both NASA and the Air Force, he became the Peace Corps country director for Thailand, before moving into private business.

Walter Cunningham

• Birthday: 03/16/1932
• Role: Lunar Module Pilot
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 10/11/1968
• Last Flight: 10/11/1968

Ronnie Walter Cunningham was an American astronaut. In 1968, he was a Lunar Module Pilot on the Apollo 7 mission. He was NASA’s third civilian astronaut (after Neil Armstrong and Elliot See), and has also been a fighter pilot, physicist, entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and author of The All-American Boys.

Apollo 7

• Type: Human Exploration
• Orbit: Low Earth Orbit

The Apollo 7 crew was commanded by Walter M. Schirra, with Command Module Pilot Donn F. Eisele, and Lunar Module Pilot R. Walter Cunningham. Their mission was Apollo’s ‘C’ mission, an 11-day Earth-orbital test flight to check out the redesigned Block II Apollo Command/Service Module (CSM) with a crew on board.

Launch Complex 34

Cape Canaveral, FL, USA

Launch Complex 34 has witnessed the launch of 9 rockets, including 3 orbital launch attempts, while Cape Canaveral, FL, USA, has been the site for 943 rocket launches.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration Saturn IB

The Saturn IB (pronounced “one B”, also known as the Uprated Saturn I) was an American launch vehicle commissioned by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for the Apollo program. It replaced the S-IV second stage of the Saturn I with the much more powerful S-IVB, able to launch a partially fueled Apollo Command/Service Module (CSM) or a fully fueled Lunar Module (LM) into low Earth orbit for early flight tests before the larger Saturn V needed for lunar flight was ready.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. NASA have many launch facilities but most are inactive. The most commonly used pad will be LC-39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.