It was designed to avoid some of the perceived problems with FORTRAN for backward compatibility with historic Buran ( spacecraft ) ALGOL software.

First conceived during the Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower as a three-man spacecraft to follow the one-man Project Mercury which put the first Americans in space, Apollo was later dedicated to President John F. Kennedy's national goal of " landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth " by the end of the 1960s, which he proposed in a May 25, 1961 address to Congress.

Kennedy's goal was accomplished on the Apollo 11 mission when astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed their Lunar Module ( LM ) on the Moon on July 20, 1969 and walked on its surface while Michael Collins remained in lunar orbit in the command spacecraft, and all three landed safely on Earth on July 24.

It stands alone in sending manned missions beyond low Earth orbit ; Apollo 8 was the first manned spacecraft to orbit another celestial body, while the final Apollo 17 mission marked the sixth Moon landing and the ninth manned mission beyond low Earth orbit.

While the Mercury capsule could only support one astronaut on a limited Earth orbital mission, the Apollo spacecraft was to be able to carry three astronauts on a circumlunar flight and eventually to a lunar landing.

The program was named after the Greek god of light, music, and the sun by NASA manager Abe Silverstein, who later said that " I was naming the spacecraft like I'd name my baby.

At this point during the pre-mission preparations, the Saturn V rocket's three stages were powered up and drinking water was pumped into the spacecraft.

By the time mission control issued the wake-up call to the crew for flight day two, the spacecraft was approximately away from the Earth, traveling at about.

As the Apollo 16 spacecraft was not due to arrive in lunar orbit until flight day four, flight days two and three were largely preparatory days, consisting of spacecraft maintenance and scientific research.

At the beginning of day three, the spacecraft was about away from the Earth.

The early part of day three was largely housekeeping, spacecraft maintenance and exchanging status reports with mission control in Houston, Texas.

The crew performed the Apollo light flash experiment, or ALFMED, to investigate " light flashes " that were seen by the astronauts when the spacecraft was dark, regardless of whether or not their eyes were open, on Apollo lunar flights.

At the end of the Apollo 16 crew's final full day in space, the spacecraft was approximately from Earth and closing at a rate of about.

When the wake-up call was issued to the Apollo 16 crew for their final day in space by capsule communicator Tony England, the spacecraft was about out from Earth, traveling just over.

The main mission objective was to verify performance of Spacelab systems, determine the interface capability of the orbiter, and measure the environment created by the spacecraft.

Two other satellites made observations at the time of the impact: the Ulysses spacecraft, primarily designed for solar observations, was pointed towards Jupiter from its location 2. 6 AU away, and the distant Voyager 2 probe, some 44 AU from Jupiter and on its way out of the Solar System following its encounter with Neptune in 1989, was programmed to look for radio emission in the 1 – 390 kHz range.

The Elektronika MK-52 calculator ( using the extended B3-34 command set, and featuring internal EEPROM memory for storing programs and external interface for EEPROM cards and other periphery ) was used in Soviet spacecraft program ( for Soyuz TM-7 flight ) as a backup of the board computer.

* 1995 – The Galileo spacecraft arrives at Jupiter, a little more than six years after it was launched by Space Shuttle Atlantis during Mission STS-34.

Deep Space 1 was the first spacecraft to use Ion powered rocketry, in contrast to the traditional chemical powered rockets.

The next spacecraft to use Autonav was Deep Impact.

The next spacecraft to use NSTAR engines was the Dawn spacecraft, with three redundant units.

* List of asteroids targeted for spacecraft visitation

However, targeted images taken by the Cassini spacecraft failed to detect any rings associated with Rhea.

The STS-95 mission, targeted for liftoff on Oct. 29, includes research payloads such as the Spartan solar-observing deployable spacecraft, the Hubble Space Telescope Orbital Systems Test Platform, the International Extreme Ultraviolet Hitchhiker, as well as the SPACEHAB single module with experiments on space flight and the aging process.

They have targeted Earth, the last of such planets, for destruction and frequently hang out at the BB Saloon, a bar in the Baribarian spacecraft.

The mission of the spacecraft is to make targeted observations of giant molecular clouds and dark cloud cores.

She approaches Rogue in her disguise but is targeted by a low flying Shi ' ar salvage spacecraft, where she reveals who she really is and that she is going to use Rogue as a conduit so she can get her revenge on Professor Xavier.

The Apollo spacecraft could be tested in two vacuum chambers capable of simulating atmospheric pressure at altitudes up to, which is nearly a vacuum.

* 1989 – Voyager 2 spacecraft makes its closest approach to Neptune, the second to last planet in the Solar System at the time.

Throttle-down of the LM's landing engine occurred on time and the spacecraft tilted forward to its landing orientation at an altitude of.

* 2010 – The Japanese solar-sail spacecraft IKAROS passes the planet Venus at a distance of about 80, 800 km.

Remote Agent ( remote intelligent self-repair software )( RAX ), developed at NASA Ames Research Center and JPL, was the first artificial intelligence control system to control a spacecraft without human supervision.

Autonomous control will enable future spacecraft to operate at greater distances from Earth, and to carry out more sophisticated science-gathering activities in deep space.

An American EVA begins when the spacewalking astronaut has at least his head outside of the spacecraft.

After the rendezvous, Collins space-walked over to the dormant Agena at the end of a 15. 24 meter tether, making Collins the first person to meet another spacecraft in orbit.

Galileo arrived at Jupiter on December 7, 1995, via gravitational assist flybys of Venus and Earth, becoming the first spacecraft to orbit Jupiter.

Having gained 8, 030 km per hour in speed, the spacecraft flew by Earth twice, the first time at a range of 960 km at 20: 34: 34 UT on 8 December 1990 before approaching the minor planet 951 Gaspra to a distance of 1, 604 km at 22: 37 UT on 29 October 1991.

One section of the spacecraft rotated at 3 rpm, keeping Galileo stable and holding six instruments that gathered data from many different directions, including the fields and particles instruments.

Each CPU was clocked at about 1. 6 MHz, and fabricated on sapphire ( silicon on sapphire ), which is a radiation-and static-hardened material ideal for spacecraft operation.

One set was located at the end of the magnetometer boom and, in that position, was about 11 m from the spin axis of the spacecraft.

An example is Disney film The Black Hole, in which a manned spacecraft found both Heaven ( or another dimension ) and Hell located at the bottom of a black hole.

Once the spacecraft arrives, a second application of thrust will re-circularize the orbit at the new location.

* 1967 – Astronauts Gus Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee are killed in a fire during a test of their Apollo 1 spacecraft at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida.

Although they are not perfectly stable, a relatively modest effort at station keeping can allow a spacecraft to stay in a desired Lissajous orbit for an extended period of time.

It also turns out that, at least in the case of Sun – Earth-missions, it is actually preferable to place the spacecraft in a large-amplitude () Lissajous orbit, instead of having it sit at the Lagrangian point, because this keeps the spacecraft off the direct Sun – Earth line, thereby reducing the impact of solar interference on Earth – spacecraft communications.