The Week in Space

Spider Stretches its Legs  NASA followed the headline-grabbing, circumlunar flight of Apollo 8 with an important test of the last critical piece of Apollo hardware: the Lunar Module (LM). Apollo 9, launched forty years ago this week, was a ten-day Earth-orbiting mission to put the LM Spider through its paces. Two astronauts maneuvered Spider, docking and undocking it from the Command Module Gumdrop, piloted by the third astronaut, simulating as closely as possible the conditions that future crews would experience in the lunar environment. The non-aerodynamic LM was unique because it was the first spacecraft designed to function solely in space; without the ability to reenter Earth’s atmosphere, the LM had to return its pilots to the Command Module or they would have perished.

Image credit: NASA

Weekly Calendar

March 2-8, 2009

Holidays - Sky Events - Space History

Monday 2

Tuesday 3

1959: Pioneer 4 launched
1969: Apollo 9 launched

Wednesday 4

Thursday 5

Friday 6

Saturday 7

Full Moon
Moon at perigee
Mars 0.8° south of Neptune

1792: John Herschel born
1837: Henry Draper born
1962: OSO-1 launched
1969: Apollo 9 astronauts complete first solo flight of lunar module

Sunday 8

Daylight Savings Time begins 2:00am

Saturn at opposition

1979: Active volcanoes found on Io
2001: STS-102 Discovery launched
2007: Orbital Express launched
2008: First Automated Transfer Vehicle launched

---

Article Tools - Share, subscribe, and bookmark this page: