Apollo 10 launch

Forty years ago today saw the launch of Apollo 10. The dress rehersal for the lunar landing in July 1969. The Apollo 10 mission was a complete staging of the Apollo 11 mission without actually landing on the Moon. The mission was the second to orbit the Moon and the first to travel to the Moon with the entire Apollo spacecraft configuration. Astronauts Thomas Stafford and Eugene Cernan decended inside the Lunar Module to within 14 kilometers of the lunar surface achieving the closest approach to the Moon before Apollo 11 landed two months later.
The picture above shows the Apollo 10 Command Module from the separated lunar landing craft.
I followed this mission on TV and remember the pictures sent from the Moon. A great atmosphere then, lots of press and TV coverage and a big build up to the big day in July 1969.


Apollo 10 Facts

Lunar Module:
Snoopy

Command and Service Module:
Charlie Brown

Crew:
Thomas P. Stafford, commander John W. Young, command module pilot Eugene A. Cernan, lunar module pilot

Launch:
May 18, 1969 16:49:00 UT (12:49:00 p.m. EDT) Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39B

Lunar Orbit:
May 21, 1969

Returned to Earth:
May 26., 1969 splashdown 16:52:23 UT (12:52:23 p.m. EDT)

Mission Duration:
192 hours 3 minutes 23 seconds

Retrieval site:
Pacific Ocean 15° 2' S, 164° 39' W

Retrieval ship:
U.S.S. Princeton

Highlights/Notes:

Demonstration of color TV camera.

Second Apollo mission to orbit the Moon.

First time the complete Apollo spacecraft had operated around the Moon and the second manned flight for the lunar module.

Two Apollo 10 astronauts descended to within eight nautical miles (14 kilometers) of the Moon's surface, the closest approach ever to another celestial body.

All aspects of Apollo 10 duplicated conditions of the lunar landing mission as closely as possible--Sun angles at Apollo Site 2, the out-and-back flight path to the Moon, and the time line of mission events. Apollo 10 differed from Apollo 11 in that no landing was made on the Moon's surface.

Apollo 10 was the only Apollo mission to launch from Launch Complex 39B.

Maximum separation between the LM and the CSM during the rendezvous sequence was about 350 miles (563 km) and provided an extensive checkout of the LM rendezvous radar as well as the backup VHS ranging device aboard the CSM, flown for the first time on Apollo 10.

http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/apollo40/
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/index.html