OTL missions through June 1963
Vostok 7. Diamond. August 21-22,1963. Pavel Belyayev,Georgi Katys. First space mission with a two-man crew.
Mercury-Atlas 10. Unity 7. October 4-7,1963. Alan Shepard. Extended duration Mercury mission.
Vostok 8. Bluebird. March 26-30,1964. Valentina Ponomaryova,Zhanna Yerkina. Earth observations mission with two women aboard.
Mercury-Atlas 11. Stardust 7. September 18-19,1964. Anthony Nelson. Intended long-duration Mercury mission. Recalled after one day due to systems malfunctions. Landed in Tokelau due to miscalculated retrofire. Nelson was rescued next day.
Vostok 9. Ruby. October 12-13,1964. Vladimir Komarov,Grigori Nelyubov,Vasily Lazarev. First space mission with a crew of three. Lazarev performed medical checks.
Mercury-Atlas 12. Delta 7. January 6-12,1965. Deke Slayton. Last Mercury mission. Maximum-duration systems test.
Vostok 10. Eagle. March 18-19,1965. Gherman Titov,Alexei Leonov. Leonov performed the first spacewalk.
Gemini 3. Gemini. March 23-24,1965. Gus Grissom,Tom Stafford. First manned Gemini mission. This day-long mission involved testing of the Gemini systems.
Gemini 4. Gemini. June 3-7,1965. Deke Slayton,Neil Armstrong. On this mission Armstrong became the first American to walk in space.
Gemini 5. Gemini. August 19-27,1965. Wally Schirra,Pete Conrad. This was an eight day endurance mission.
Gemini 6. Gemini. September 30-October 3,1965. Jim McDivitt,John Young. This mission saw the first rendezvous and docking with an Agena target vehicle.
Vostok 11. Granite. October 10-15,1965. Vladimir Shatalov. This was a solo space mission involving a military observations component.
Gemini 7. Gemini. October 25-November 10,1965. Frank Borman,Ed White. Borman and White spent 14 days in space doing medical and scientific experiments.
Gemini 8. Gemini. December 4-9,1965. Jim Lovell,Roger Healey. This mission was essentially a repeat of Gemini 6,but it saw an EVA that Healey performed to remove a micrometeoroid exposure package from the Agena.
Vostok 12. Antaeus. December 12,1965. Georgi Shonin. This planned long-duration Vostok mission incurred a launch abort due to a malfunctioning first stage. Although Shonin and the spacecraft were both recovered safely,the Soviet leadership chose to terminate the Vostok program and move on to Soyuz. The mission wasn’t publicly acknowledged until after Shonin retired in 1977.
Gemini 9. Gemini. February 7-16,1966. Lester Wingate,Eugene Cernan. Cernan tested the Astronaut Maneuvering Unit during two spacewalks.
Apollo 1. February 26,1966. First flight of the Saturn IB and Apollo capsule.
Gemini 10. Gemini. March 16-22,1966. Neil Armstrong,Alan Bean. This mission saw an orbital reboost to 530 miles and two spacewalks.
Gemini 11. Gemini. May 17-24,1966. Pete Conrad,Dick Gordon. On this mission Gordon performed two spacewalks. The planned Agena reboost to 1200 miles had to be cancelled owing to guidance problems but the crew used the OAMS thrusters to do a partial boost to about 700 miles.
Apollo 2. June 3,1966. This orbital mission was a repeat of the suborbital Apollo 1.
Gemini 12. Luna. July 3-10,1966. Al Shepard,Mike Collins. First manned mission to the Moon. The Gemini 12 crew docked with a Centaur propulsive stage in order to boost their spacecraft’s orbit into a lunar flyby trajectory. Their closest approach,late on July 6,was around 1100 miles from the lunar surface.
AS-203. July 5,1966. This mission was a test of the S-IVB upper stage’s reignition capabilities without an Apollo.
Soyuz 1. Falcon. July 18-20,1966. Andrian Nikolayev, Ivan Anikeyev,Lev Dyomin (down only). First manned Soyuz mission,accomplished docking with and partial crew transfer from Soyuz 2.
Soyuz 2. Diamond. July 19-22,1966. Pavel Belyayev, Ivan Anikeyev,Lev Dyomin (up only). The latter two crew members transferred to Soyuz 1 via EVA.
AS-13. Apollo. August 12-14,1966. Elliott See,Anthony Nelson,Rusty Schweickart. This was the first manned Apollo launch,an orbital test launch utilizing the Saturn I rocket. The trio of manned AS launches are considered separately from the regular Apollo launches because of the rudimentary capabilities of their Command Modules.
AS-14. Apollo. November 11-15,1966. Tom Stafford,Charlie Bassett,Jack Swigert. The second AS mission involved a rendezvous with the S-IV upper stage of their Saturn I booster and a standup EVA by Swigert,the first EVA conducted from an Apollo.
Gemini 16. Gemini. January 24-February 2,1967. Wally Schirra,Bill Anders. This Gemini “training” flight saw a rendezvous with the AS-15 Apollo “training” mission and some joint communications exercises with that mission’s crew,
AS-15. Apollo. January 27-30,1967. Deke Slayton,Al Bean,Michael Adams. The final manned mission of a Block I Apollo saw a rendezvous with the Gemini 16 crew and voice communications established between the two spacecraft. The mission returned to Earth a day early due to both the failure of an IMU and late-onset space sickness on Bean’s part.
Apollo 10. Endeavour / Discovery. November 11-20,1968. Frank Borman,Deke Slayton,Buzz Aldrin. First manned lunar landing. Borman and Slayton landed near Fontana Crater and spent 26 hours on the Moon. They underwent two EVAs to plant the US flag on the Moon,collect rock and soil samples,and set up the ALSEP-1 experiment package.
MOL-1. Eagle. February 2-25,1969. Lester Wingate,Robert Lawrence,Conrad Trasker. The first MOL mission was mostly a success,photographic problems notwithstanding.
MOL-2. Horizon. June 14-July 2,1969. Ken Mattingly,Zach Bergstrom,Theodore Forbes. This mission saw the introduction of the Large Format Camera,which ended up a camera type of choice on later space missions for many purposes. A malfunction of the Gemini’s onboard ECLSS system necessitated an early return to Earth,with the crew landing in the Gulf of Mexico during a hurricane:fortunately they were recovered after 5 hours at sea.
STS-1. Discovery. January 7-9,1979. Tony Nelson,Dick Scobee,Jaime Austin. STS-1 was the first of the four test flights of the Space Shuttle:this mission was launched into the same orbit as Skylab II as a “safe haven” measure should anything go wrong:although the measure wasn’t needed the Skylab II crew and the Discovery crew communicated with each other.
STS-2. Discovery. April 26-May 2,1979. Jack Swigert,Frank Delacorte,Phil Chapman. This mission was basically a repeat of STS-1 but with testing of the Remote Manipulator Arm.
STS-3. Discovery. August 5-12,1979. Neil Armstrong,Bob Overmyer,Mike Mullane,Carolyn Griner. STS-3 saw the first deployment of a payload from the Shuttle,the Spartan 1 test satellite,using the Remote Manipulator Arm.
